As you can see the Schoenstatt Collegium's website was incorrectly published. It is http://www.schoenstattcollegium.us - currently under construction, but includes basic information.

By the way, one might be able to address your deep reservations if one knew exactly what they were. Do you care to specify?

Patrick Hamilton
Designer, Volunteer
Schoenstatt Movement of Austin

Mr. Hamilton, thanks for the proper link to the school. It looks like News8 has removed the link entirely from the article.

The root of my reservations against religious institutions of learning is what I consider a serious conflict between faith and reason. If the core of one's philosophy comes from revelation, what happens when that person runs into some issue or situation that contradicts that revelation? This is no trivial matter: see the current teeth-gnashing over the new pope and his stance on matters doctrinal.

If I am to have children, I don't want them learning in an environment that teaches humans to be subservient to a hidden master. There are many Christian teachings that are admirable and worthy of passing on (the admonishment against stealing, for example). However, the reason to follow those rules is as important as the rules themselves. Are we to follow them because gawd said so or because to violate them is to trample human rights?

I'm not anti-Christian, don't get me wrong. I don't think the school is evil or necessarily teaches something similar to what I mentioned above. I just have my reservations.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thinking about your response to Patrick. Very graciously put, and I can see your appreciation for what Schoenstatt seems to be up to in your love for freedom.

The language seems a little loaded in places. "...humans...subservient to a hidden master..." When (we can hope) you have children, I think you will want them to learn from you, even model themselves on you, including your love for freedom. In fact, I hope they will! But will that make them "subservient to a master"? Not how most of us would put it. And as a parent, I find that I am far more a servant than a master. In fact, that's pretty much the job description.

I would also guess that that's not too different from the way Schoenstatt envisions their relationship with God -- more as exchange and growing (and education) within a family than as subservience to a hidden master. So they seek God in such a frame of thinking, and it leads them to try to school their children in a similar way, close to home and heart.

And you in your right and true care for personal freedom see good in that, and you fear that gov't will want to step in and mess it up. Have I got the picture? I think your reservations are more deeply about the kind of power that governments can bring to bear, than about relationships of love and learning within a family or within a life of prayer, which is to say the family life that believers seek with God.

Libertarian politics have always attracted me. They seem fundamentally and straightforwardly American. But, it seems to me, they illuminate our political life only up to a point. They will help parents live free -- no small thing! -- but they won't get the children raised, also no small thing.

Anyhow, thanks for the blogging. You set me thinking.

No, political theory only takes one so far. It can help you decide what actions are right and wrong (specifically, when it is permissible to use force), but it becomes harder to employ when dealing with humans who simply don't yet have developed mind and full control of them.

Should I have children, they will probably be raised very much like they are today up until they can speak and understand language. From that point on, I'll do my best to explain to them the power they have as individuals, the permanence of reality, and the importance of concepts. *grin* Somehow, I'll teach them this at an early age to show them the tools to figure out life on their own. I'll even provide free Q&A sessions!

Regarding subservience, I tend to take a binary approach to most things and religion is one of these. Either there is a supernatural deity or there isn't. Either there is a understandable body of rules for humans to follow in order to please that deity or their isn't. Either there is conscious existence after death or there isn't. Things like that. Therefore, I also think that if gawd exists, by the very nature of such a thing, humans would have to be subservient to it to some degree.

Thanks for the comment and I'm glad to inspire thinking on your part.

Hey. Google brought me in here. As a recent graduate of the Schoenstatt Collegium, I just wanted to give my take real fast.

The Collegium's foundation is a confidence so immense in the goodness, truth, and perfection of God, that we believe that to open up children's minds to the search for truth...any truth, in any form...is to open up a child's mind to God. And in the same way, opening up a child's mind to God and his mysteries opens up a child's mind to goodness, truth, and perfection.

Hey, keep digging. The Schoenstatt Movement is a goldmine of solutions and also new questions that take the modern world and all its chaos straight on, teaching people young and old to put their shoulders to the daily plough with confidence that love is the greatest truth, and truth is victorious.

Happy ploughing

Andrew Arriaga
Schoenstatt Boys Youth of Austin/World Youth Day Volunteer (in Germany)

actually maybe this is a more direct explanation of the collegium approach...

-Explore all truth, freely, and don't stop at superficial truth, but get to the depths of truth: in the Incarnated God, Jesus.
-Really apply it.

Cheers

Andrew

Here I am after several months addressing your deep reservations. Sorry it took me so long, I had to dig through to Vatican Library to see WWTAS (What Would Thomas Aquinas Say). Just kidding; I am not a scholar of theology or even philosophy. I have read some (perhaps more than the average Catholic) and taken the typical college courses. I agree with you about the conflict between faith and reason. But that is a modern conflict that arises from the Englightenment philosophers like Kant; it comes with the times we live in. We can either rage against it, or try to discover what God is asking of us -trying our minds (at least he tends to try mine) with pure reason. I do not think it is my job to reconcile the two any more or I would try to enter into a deep discussion about the nature of God with you.

You are right though, reason will not take you to God; at least it seems it will not take you there in our time. But there is nothing terribly wrong with using your instincts to get there. We have this internal, unexplained (as of yet) function, that some people call a conscience, some call revelation; whatever it is called it works really well if you let it. I don't care if I have a reason, I only care to get there.

I have nothing against reason as you have nothing against Christianity. I do have a problem with reason being tyrranical and limiting freedom as you have a problem with organized religion becoming tyrannical. Adventure is the only ruler I will ever allow in my household- whether it is governed by reason or revelation. Being a good Christian- I believe Jesus to be an adventurous ruler. I hope you don't allow your reservations to rule you either.

Thanks for being gracious to the Christians.

Patrick

Mr. Hamilton, there is only one thing that rules me: my mind, directed by my will, in accordance with reality.

As long as Christians, Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and other theists respect that and don't attempt to rule me or anyone else, I can at least call them my friends.

Be good out there.