Religious Studies Instruction at Santa Catalina School

The aim of the Religious Studies program is to facilitate the intellectual, moral and spiritual development of our students. We achieve this by deepening a student's understanding of herself, God, and the world around her and encouraging her to act in accordance with her informed conscience. We challenge and augment a student's self-understanding through the cultivation of critical thinking skills. We encourage the appropriation of religious questions and religious meaning. We foster an understanding of God through the study of Sacred Scriptures, various religious traditions, and investigations into the meaning of "faith" "religious experience" and "conversion." Finally, we affirm that a person discovers her own ultimate meaning and self-worth in the measure that she remains faithful to her own desire for such, by cultivating compassion, self-discipline, and the capacity for self-giving thereby becoming a person for others in the fashion of Jesus Christ.

Curriculum

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Hebrew Bible and New Testament

Hebrew Bible and New Testament is a one-semester examination of the sacred texts of the Judeo-Christian heritage. Students become familiar with the foundational story of Salvation History as it has been mediated through the community of faith in the major covenants of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Peace and Justice

The Peace and Justice course is a focus on the many social, economic, and environmental issues of the day. By completing the course readings and watching a selection of films, one’s knowledge of worldwide problems will be enhanced and one will acquire the tools necessary to take a proactive stance on global issues. The approach in this class to social justice issues comes from a faith perspective. This emphasis helps one understand the Catholic Church’s position on a variety of pressing issues and helps channel one’s own spiritual instincts toward compassionate action. An emphasis on the importance of moral decision-making and individual responsibility to help break the cycle of poverty, discrimination, environmental destruction, and violence in our world is present throughout the yearlong class.

Philosophy

Philosophy undertakes a serious examination of the relationship between faith and reason. It demonstrates the inadequacies of rationalist and empiricist approaches (both theistic and atheistic) to answering ultimate human questions, thereby disclosing the limits of reason alone and demonstrating the authentic faith response as trans-rational but not irrational.

Religion and Psychology

Students explore religious beliefs and spiritual experiences through the careful reading and seminar discussion of literature and modern psychology. The course treats the selected works as reflective of a religious world-view and considers the psychological, intellectual, moral and spiritual implications of that view. The course offers insights into the themes of the presence of the sacred in everyday life, the operation of divine grace in the midst of sometimes terrifying circumstances, and of the individual as a product of her/his culture. The responsibility of the individual to transcend cultural conditioning in moments of moral crisis is related to each of the works under consideration.

Women of Faith

Women of Faith is a seminar course investigating and discussing the lives of contemporary women who model a radical devotion to God, or who live life with full religious commitment to truth, love, and peace. This course examines the life stories of Mother Teresa, Etty Hillesum, Edith Stein, Dorothy Day, and Sr. Helen Prejean.

World Religions

World Religions offers a basic introduction to Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism and Islam. The course considers each with respect to its individual tenets, traditions, and practices, and in relation to one another by elucidating common elements of the doctrine of God (Ultimate Reality), and common conceptions of the human person. The course focuses on the religious understandings of conversion, enlightenment, salvation and transformation in both the personal and social dimensions of those concepts.