“Liberal comes from the Latin verb liberare, meaning to free something,” begins James B. Griffin, M.A., J.D., Instructor of History and Government. “The liberal arts are those that free the mind through vigorous study. The truth of God and human nature is essential to our inquiry.”
Mr. Griffin has taught at other schools, some of which were highly regarded for their academics. However, compared to St. Bernard Prep, these schools did not fully embrace a holistic approach to education. “Consequently, before coming to here, I always felt constrained in discussions with students.”
He says topics such as ethics, arts, politics, and even current events are often limited to “an impoverished secular world view, a utilitarian desert.”
Mr. Griffin bemoans the limits placed on teachers in many educational institutions today.
“If you discuss transcendent things such as truth, beauty, and love, you have three generic sentences you might utter before you have to stop, because you are entering the realm of God and metaphysics. You’ve crossed a line and will be treading on someone’s toes.”
In Mr. Griffin’s view, the result is shallow education: “Many of the richest people in the world are constricted and even crippled by an educational poverty bereft of nothing better than material and social advancement.”
We all want to give and receive heroic love.
He recalls St. Mother Teresa’s injunction, “We must know that we have been created for greater things…not just to work and accomplish. We have been created to love and be loved.”
“We all want two things regardless of whatever country or society you come from,” observes Mr. Griffin. “We all want to give and receive heroic love. Failing those things, we will compromise and take something less.”
“I don’t want students to settle for something less. In our school, we can speak to life’s higher purpose,” claims Mr. Griffin. “When it comes to truth or beauty or love, at our school we never have to limit the discussion.”
He reflects, “All over the world there are people who thirst for what we offer at St. Bernard Prep: wholeness in sacramental Christianity, ordered liberty under the protection and nurture of the Church, and opportunities to develop in the image of God through community and culture.”
He concludes, “We don’t have to water things down. Rising and falling, sin and triumph, we can have these discussions.”