[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 16 (Tuesday, January 28, 2014)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E130]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   CELEBRATING CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK

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                  HON. GREGORIO KILILI CAMACHO SABLAN

                    of the northern mariana islands

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, January 28, 2014

  Mr. SABLAN. Mr. Speaker, most Americans would agree on the essential 
importance of education to a successful and meaningful life. But 
knowledge in and of itself is insufficient without a moral and ethical 
context for its appropriate application. Thus, the importance of 
Catholic schools, which we celebrate this week.
  In the Northern Mariana Islands the Catholic schools of Eskuelan San 
Francisco de Borja on Rota, St. Joseph Catholic School on Tinian, and 
Mount Carmel School on the Saipan, have been the vanguard not only in 
educational excellence, but also in the inculcation of spiritual 
values. Graduates of these schools, who now fill every nook and cranny 
of leadership in our communities, carry both intellectual skills and a 
moral compass to their work in our society. We are all better off as a 
result. And, at least in part, we have Catholic schools to thank.
  We have also to thank the parents of every Catholic school student. 
For, over the years, these parents have chosen to sacrifice, to deploy 
their limited resources, to send their sons and daughters to parochial 
schools. Even as the quality of free, public education in the Northern 
Marianas has continued to improve--and I am sure that faculty and 
students in our fine public institutions would even proudly argue to 
surpass our Catholic schools--still have parents found something of 
extra value in those Catholic schools and continued to pay for their 
children to receive a Catholic education.
  And we have to thank the religious and lay teachers in our Catholic 
schools. These women and men have chosen to forego material rewards of 
life in order to serve as the conduit for the moral system that 
underlies the academic content of their classrooms. Often among the 
best educated members of our community, rather than using their 
knowledge to advance their own interests these teachers disseminate 
what they know, so that many lives may be enriched. Their service and 
sacrifice, too, we celebrate and recognize during Catholic Schools 
Week.
  Lastly, we congratulate the students in our Catholic schools. You are 
part of a heritage in the Northern Mariana Islands that we trace back 
directly to the founding of Mount Carmel School in 1952, but which 
certainly has its roots with the original Catholic missionaries of the 
16th century. That is a remarkable tradition. One to be proud of, as 
you mark Catholic Schools Week, and to carry on.

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