The Catholic school: non-confessional?

It has been contended by various authors that the Catholic school is confessional in the sense of being indoctrinatory and so there has been an attempt to provide a non-confessional programme. On the contrary, this article argues that the Catholic Church sees its schools as ‘confessional’ but not ‘indoctrinatory’. However, to envisage how this can happen entails the kind of philosophical framework that the Catholic philosopher, Bernard Lonergan, provides. The article aims to illustrate how an approach based on Lonergan has major promise in showing that the contemporary Catholic school is ‘confessional’, but at the same time, ‘truly educative’ [The Catholic School. 1977. Rome: The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education., para 31] and not indoctrinatory.