Some real authentic Levittown

I'm sure you all figured I'd be talking about Notre Dame and the national championship today (don't worry, I wore my Jersey to work). I actually want to concentrate on a different Catholic school, my alma mater. Conwell-Egan Catholic High School was just featured in a very interesting news piece featuring the rebirth of two Catholic schools that had been dangerously close to closing due to low enrollment. I am glad that people are starting to rediscover the importance of perhaps not a faith based education, but a values based education at bottom. I just worked with a group of young men yesterday that was struggling because they had lost focus on what their values were as an organization. If we don't instill values in those that come after us, and if we don't support institutions that have been designed to pass on those values, we are setting ourselves up for failure. To paraphrase from the Bible, "Works without faith is dead." If we teach our youth facts without meaning; it is, in essence, meaningless. If we don't give the reasons why someone should do something, it will never be approached with a feeling of respect and importance. Inversely, if we try and impart wisdom that is unearned, it will ring hollow and hokey. To overcome the ennui of the post-modern condition, we will always need tradition and ritual and values that transcend each generation.