Samantha Apanasewicz
Pop Trends Columnist
“No man can serve two masters.” Matthew 6:24.
I recently came across a video produced by a conservative nonprofit organization named Prager University, or PragerU for short. One of its many branches of media is a podcast titled “The Word with Will,” in which one of their social media ambassadors and employees, Will Witt, comments on a current political issue and gives commentary within the context of Christianity.
Witt elaborates on a question posed to him by a woman at one of his presentations on school choice. She wanted to know Witt’s opinion on whether she should send her children to a secular public school or a Catholic school that had openly abandoned its Catholic values and adopted what Witt coins the “Church of Leftism.”
This “Catholic” school’s administration is openly pro-choice, does not necessarily believe in the importance of having mothers and fathers in the home and does not believe in any form of gender construct.
Witt, a newly baptized Catholic, explains that he told the woman to have her children attend the secular school. “When you give yourself a moniker and you’re telling the world you are teaching scripture and the word of God and then you pervert that message and teach the total opposite, that is worse than secularism,” he said.
“You can either serve God as your master, or you can serve the God of Leftism,” Witt adds. “We see this all the time in the conservative movement. They say they support those values and then don’t actually represent them.” As a result, he said, it dilutes everything that conservatives and Catholics alike stand for.
For those of us who are discerning marriage and having children down the line, the topic of Witt’s conversation should send warning bells ringing. As culture shifts more and more, schools that proclaim to preach Catholicism officially do not share these same values in the classroom. That’s why it’s more important than ever in our current culture to be an active parent involved in the inner workings of the school.
This advice that Witt, a practicing and devout Catholic, gives to this woman becomes more applicable by the year as schools have started caving to the teachings of the “Church of Leftism.” In an attempt to gain a more favorable reputation by the culture, Catholic values have become buried to a dangerous extent, especially in elementary and middle schools where children are most impressionable.
This question that has begun to arise in society reflects on the true privilege most of us take for granted: being able to attend a truly Catholic school like Franciscan. It is our duty to use this privilege well. Being a part of this student body forms us in the most minute ways so that we can best serve those who surround us by preserving the word of God.
The most important thing we can do as sinners ourselves is to be able to distinguish people everywhere who have genuine faith from the rest of society. This is a skill that takes practice, but the rewards will be insurmountable, for us and for our children.