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‘The lighting of a fire’: Mater Dei Academy’s plan to renew Catholic education, faith in Ireland

KIMBERLEY HEATHERINGTON OSV News

A famous quote, oft attributed to Irishman William Butler Yeats, considered one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, says “Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.”

And the philosophy that an authentic education is something more than cramming scholarly craniums with facts is ablaze at Cork, Ireland’s Mater Dei Academy, an independent Catholic school in the classical tradition.

OSV News recently spoke with the principal founder of Mater Dei Academy – Pádraig Cantillon-Murphy – when he visited Washington for a presentation at the Catholic Information Center.

Pádraig and Grace Cantillon-Murphy – husband and wife MIT graduates who returned to Ireland in 2010 – in 2020 launched Mater Dei Academy accompanied by a small group of founding parents and just 12 students. Enrollment has more than tripled since, and the first principal of the academy – Geraldine Heffernan – was announced April 10.

Its mission is plainly stated on the school’s website: “Mater Dei Academy is the beating heart for a new missionary pulse which seeks to revitalize Irish and European society with the values and traditions of our Catholic forefathers.”

That said, the aggressive secularization of modern Ireland has been rapid for the nation that in 1946 was described by Giovanni Battista Montini – the future Pope Paul VI – as “the most Catholic country in the world.”

“The reality we have today is essentially that of the early Church, where we are a minority in a civilization that has essentially apostatized its faith,” said Cantillon-Murphy, “and our mission is to be salt, to be light, to be leaven in that society. So the number one priority of the school is to make Jesus Christ present. First of all, in the lives of the kids. Second of all, in the life of the school. And third of all, in the wider society.”

Outside the walls of Mater Dei’s Cork city center campus, the secular atmosphere grows. As the London-based Catholic Herald reported June 14, “The proposed addition to the Irish Statute book, the Criminal Justice (Incitement to Violence or Hatred and Hate Offences) Bill 2022, seeks to create a new crime of hate speech (incitement to violence or hatred) as well as upgrading existing criminal acts when aggravated by hatred.”

“It poses all sorts of problems,” said Cantillon-Murphy, “particularly for us in the Church, where people are now scratching their heads and asking, ‘Are large tracts of the Bible now considered hate speech?’ Because obviously there are very clear references to the way some people live. It seems to be trying to muzzle people.”

The breadth of the intended statute was criticized by the Catholic Herald as “chillingly vague and ill-defined.”

“That’s not surprising for us who are in the country,” Cantillon-Murphy noted. “It’s the latest in a long catalog of legislative and constitutional changes which are essentially deconstructing a Christian vision and anthropology of society. And that is seen quite clearly in the schools, even though nominally, many of them retain their historically Catholic ethos. The reality, of course, is very different.”

Almost 50% of modern Irish schools retain a Catholic character, but often superficially, Cantillon-Murphy explained. The remainder are state-controlled. Schools that are privately funded and independent of the government are such a minority that they barely register in statistical tallies.

“I don’t anticipate our mission being to turn the clock back to a time where the church dominated education in the country,” Cantillon-Murphy said. “We are a choice that parents make to be able to deliver education in an environment where the faith is supported.”

Unlike other Catholic schools in Ireland, Mater Dei Academy operates independently of state funding; but it charges no fees to Irish residents, relying entirely upon donations to make Mater Dei’s Catholic classical education as accessible as state-funded schools. The U.S.-based Saints and Scholars Foundation petitions the support of charitable

Americans to make this possible.

Mater Dei’s students take courses in theology, philosophy, English, Latin, mathematics, science, history and culture, geography, music, art – and the Irish language.

“We’ve spent quite a lot of time trying to give the students the confidence to speak the (Irish) language, to be able to recite poetry in public,” said Cantillon-Murphy. “For example, there’s an old competition for public recitation in Irish poetry – and we won both prizes this year.”

While it’s admirable to save Irish, or Gaeilge, from succumbing to the stagnant status of a “dead language,” there’s more to the effort than that.

“We see this as part of the mission – not because it’s a means to an end in itself, but that the language is a means of transmitting faith,” Cantillon-Murphy commented. “The faith is interspersed everywhere in the language and the culture; it’s wrapped up in the etymology of the words. You say hello by saying ‘Dia duit,’ which means ‘God be with you.’”

“The language itself is full of imagery and poetry,” he explained. “It’s about really creating a certain pride in the students also, that this is something that belongs to them. Not for themselves, but to pass on to somebody else. You learn so that you can teach. This is ultimately what we would like these students to be able to do, in a generation from now.”

Pope again prays for Maui victims, makes appeal for migration reform

VATICAN CITY — After leading the recitation of the Angelus prayer Aug. 13, Pope Francis again assured the people of Hawaii of his prayers. With some 15,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square to pray with him, the pope said he was praying “for the victims of the fires that have devastated the Hawaiian island of Maui.” The official death toll from the fires had risen to 96 Aug. 13 and the number was expected to increase as the search through burned out rubble continued. In his public prayers and appeals after reciting the Angelus, Pope Francis also made a strong appeal for serious efforts at immigration reform after 41 migrants were reported to have drowned in the Mediterranean in early August. “Another tragic shipwreck happened a few days ago in the Mediterranean – 41 people lost their lives,” the pope said. “I have prayed for them.” Four migrants from Africa were rescued by a merchant ship and brought to the Italian island of Lampedusa Aug. 9. They said they were on a boat carrying 45 people that capsized off the coast of Tunisia.

President

HAIFA, Israel — Israeli President Isaac Herzog denounced the increasing violence against Christians in Israel during a visit on Aug. 9 to the Stella Maris Carmelite Monastery in Haifa. Herzog was accompanied by Israel Police Inspector General Yaakov Shabtai and emphasized Israel’s commitment to the full protection of freedom of religion and worship. He met with patriarchs and church leaders including Cardinal-designate Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, and Father Jean Joseph Bergara, the monastery superior of Stella Maris. The visit comes against the background of recent attacks against the monastery in particular by a few fringe members of the Breslov ultra-orthodox sect who began arriving at the monastery in May, claiming it was a Jewish holy site, and increasing attacks against churches and Christian clergy in general. “In recent months we have seen very serious phenomena towards the Christian denominations in the Holy Land,” said Herzog. “Our brothers and sisters, Christian citizens, who feel attacked in their places of prayer, in their cemeteries, on the streets. I view this phenomenon as extreme and unacceptable in any shape or form. This phenomenon needs to be uprooted.” The president urged for greater understanding of the histories of the religious communities in the Holy Land, noting that it was the birthplace of the three monotheistic religions.

Polish village prepares for Ulma family’s beatification, tells story of their heroism in face of Nazis

KRAKOW, Poland — A few years ago people of the little village of Markowa, in southeastern Poland, would never have thought that in the summer of 2023, they would have dozens of guests coming to visit every day from all over the world. With the Ulma family beatification coming up Sept. 10, the people of Markowa are busy telling the story of their ancestors and preparing for what is for them an event of the century. For the village of roughly 4,000 people, a mostly farming community, “it is a bit overwhelming in a sense,” Urszula Niemczak told OSV News. Her husband is Wiktoria Ulma’s nephew. “We have media, pilgrims, people from all over Poland but also the United States coming to visit. Lots of renovations, preparation and a bit of stress, yes, that’s what it is at the moment!” she said. Józef and Wiktoria Ulma, who lived in the village during the Second World War, gave shelter to eight Jews for almost two years in German-occupied Poland, hiding them from the Nazi regime. The Ulmas had seven children, including the unborn child in Wiktoria’s womb. The Nazis, informed by a local policeman that Jews were being hidden in the household, came early in the morning March 24, 1944, right before Easter. First, they killed all eight of the Jewish fugitives. Then they shot Wiktoria and Józef. Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, will preside over the beatification Mass in a soccer field in Markowa, 1,300 feet from the grave of the Ulma family and about 1.2 miles from their house and the place they were killed.

U.S. group marks 1945 atomic bombings, urges abolishing nuclear weapons

HIROSHIMA, Japan — On the 78th anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombing of Hiroshima, Archbishop Paul D. Etienne of Seattle and Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and the Pilgrimage of Peace delegation from their archdioceses participated in an interfaith prayer ceremony and a peace memorial ceremony. “It was hard to fathom that with just one bomb, this entire city along with some 140,000 people died as a result, far more than the tens of thousands gathered this morning to remember them,” Archbishop Etienne wrote on his blog about the interfaith ceremony at the Atomic Bomb Memorial Mound that was led by the Hiroshima Prefecture Federation of Religions. Since the bombing on Aug. 6, 1945, many more people have died from radiation poisoning and other illness because of the bomb, and survivors (hibakusha) still carry physical and psychological wounds, the archbishop said. “All of this was on my heart as we prayed together in this site of so much devastation, suffering and death,” he said. During the service, several Shinto priests approached the altar with branches and reeds and bowed, followed by dozens of other dignitaries and religious leaders.

Archbishops Etienne and Wester read the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi as a reminder for all to be instruments of peace. The Pilgrimage of Peace seeks to establish relationships with the bishops of Japan to work toward abolition of nuclear weapons, while “expressing our heartfelt sorrow for the devastating experiences endured by their nation,” according to the official pilgrimage site.

In wake of candidate’s murder, Ecuadorian bishops condemn growing violence

BOGOTA, Colombia — While the murder of presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio shocked Ecuador Aug. 9, the bishops’ conference in the South American country expressed its solidarity with Villavicencio’s family and condemned growing rates of violence. In a statement posted on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, the bishops said that they will “join initiatives to recover security” in Ecuador, where violence waged by drug cartels has pushed up murder rates, forced thousands of people to migrate and has now jeopardized the credibility of a presidential election that will be held Aug. 20. “We also ratify our commitment to pray and work for peace based on liberty, justice and truth,” the statement read. Villavicencio was murdered as he left a campaign rally at a school in the capital city of Quito, and entered a vehicle that was not bulletproof. Police said the car was shot at 40 times by men on motorcycles. On the campaign trail, the candidate had spoken out about the growing influence of drug cartels in the South American country, whose ports on the Pacific Ocean have become an important transit point for cocaine shipments headed to Asia and the United States. He also campaigned against corruption.

Jesuit university’s accounts frozen in Nicaragua

MEXICO CITY — Nicaragua appears to have frozen the bank accounts of the country’s Jesuit university – marking yet another attack on the Catholic Church and its educational and charitable projects. The Central American University sent an email to students Aug. 9, stating, “By means beyond our control we are not receiving payments corresponding to fees or services from any of the instances of the university,” according to the independent Nicaragua news organization Divergentes. Divergentes cited a government source, saying the university’s accounts had been frozen. It later reported Aug. 10 that the Nicaraguan government had frozen the university’s assets two months ago, acting on orders from the prosecutor’s office, but had not advised the Central American University. The university has not offered an explanation for its problems in receiving payments. “As a former student of the Central American University, I repudiate the dictatorship’s aggression against this education center,” Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Báez, who is exiled in Miami, wrote on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

Syrian people ‘again forgotten,’ say humanitarian workers six months after earthquake

AMMAN, Jordan — Six months after the devastating earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria, Catholic aid organizations are expressing special concern and providing help particularly for the residents of northwestern Syria who they say face greater isolation from international assistance. Twelve years of civil war have left 5.4 million? Syrians as refugees, 6.8 million were internally displaced and 4.3 million are sheltering in the predominantly rebel-held region from various parts of the country in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. The earthquakes exacerbated an already dire economic recession, fuel shortages, prolonged drought, and health crises such as a cholera outbreak, putting even more pressure on public systems in the area. Thomas Weiss of Malteser International told OSV News that these people “depend totally on international support.” “Humanitarian access to Syria must be safe, consistent and especially protected from politicization,” he urged. Weiss travels regularly to northwest Syria to meet with beneficiaries and the several local non-government organizations with whom Malteser International partners. Father Tony O’Riordan of the Jesuit Refugee Service serving in the northern city of Aleppo warned that Syrians are “starving,” saying nine in every 10 people in Syria need assistance..

— OSV News