Hard agree. The Jesuit school in my area is boys only, but consistently had the most National Merit Scholars and other accolades. The all-girl equivalent with similar achievements was the school I went to, which was run by the Dominicans. In contrast to other divisions of Catholicism, the Dominicans and Jesuits are very into being academic about your religious beliefs. Evolution was absolutely a part of the curriculum and taught as scientific fact.

For anyone doubting that a Catholic school could be capable of teaching religion itself as anything other than blind faith, here’s a small sampling of some of what I learned in my theology classes: - King David was a bad dude. What happened with Bathsheba was not affair between equals but a rape. He is glorified and held up as an example today because of his conversion and his dedication it later in life to God, but he did some pretty terrible things. Also, his relationship with Jonathan was, interesting. - A full on historical discussion of geopolitical tensions and the role it played in the crucifixion. - Think of a small town in your area full of poor, uneducated folk. A town where if you heard that the person was from there, you’d automatically make certain assumptions about their background, how they grew up, and their level of intelligence. In the time of the New Testament, that was Galilee. Of course people didn’t think Jesus was anything legitimate. He was from Galilee. - the story of the good Samaritan was revolutionary because Samaritans were not thought to be good people. Most people know that. However, the rabbi and other people that passed up the man beaten alongside the road, were not bad people or doing anything other than what their religion had taught them. if you were beaten up on the side of the road, then you clearly had done something in your life that was bad in the eyes of God and this was your punishment. For the rabbi or other folks who passed him up to associate with that person would be to make yourself unclean. That entire story was a direct contradiction to the law of Moses. Which is why it freaks people out then. - the story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is about people who look and present outwardly signs that they are godly, but in their actions are not actually spiritual. - the “love is patient, love is kind” deal is not romantic and heartwarming, but Paul yelling at the Corinthians for claiming to love but not actually doing it. - we also did a fair amount of study of philosophy, including Nietsche’s God is dead and the concept of the ubermensch and how people use religion as a method of gaining power. - our senior year religion teacher would use passages from a book called “God Has No Religion” as the prayer to start class, openly joked that she had the classroom near offices so the admin could keep an eye on her, and actively encouraged us to go to services for other religions like the Quakers, UUs, Buddhists, etc. - the da Vinci code was published while I was in high school. Our teachers actively encouraged us to read it if we wanted to on the basis that if our faith collapsed because of a fiction book, then it never was that strong to begin with, and we should learn something from that.

I fully credit my time in that school, of course, as leading to my ultimate walking away from the Catholic Church, but also as to why still is an adult. I read a lot of religious books. Religion and the Bible is fascinating when you read it and study it the same way you would read Greek mythology.