A meeting of religion and science

[brendan120678]

A meeting of religion and science:
Sister Frances Zajac sees no conflict in her callings
BY TRACEY O'SHAUGHNESSY | WATERBURY REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN (Connecticut)

Joelle Zajac knows the halls of Maloney High School well. She walked them when she was a three-sport athlete, earn­ing 10 varsity letters at the Meriden public high school. She walked them as a teacher when she returned from a Peace Corps assignment in Cameroon. She walked them when she was induct­ed into the Maloney Sports Hall of Fame in 2008. But she walks them now in a full brown habit with a new name — Sister Frances. Sister Frances Zajac, of the Meriden-­based Franciscan Sisters of the Eu­charist, is chairwoman of Maloney High School’s 10-teacher science department. She also teaches anatomy. And if there is a conflict between reli­gion and science, Sister Frances sure doesn’t see it.

“The way I see it, everything around us is a mystery and there are parts of it that we can explain scientifically and parts of it that we don’t know,” she said.

“Faith helps us with that piece.”

Zajac, who graduated from Maloney, was not a nun when she first came to work as a science teacher at Maloney in 1994.

She was then a single woman in search of a community. Always fascinated by science, the Meriden native presumed she would become a doctor and graduated, pre-med, from the University of Dayton, where she also played on the varsity volleyball and basketball teams. But she said she found the cutthroat competition for medical school antithetical to her more collabo­rative, team-based approach to science, so she continued at Dayton, earning a master’s degree in secondary school teaching. In 1990, she entered the Peace Corps, another lifetime dream, serving in a remote village in the West African country of Cameroon.

“When I went into the Peace Corps, I was trying to decide which path would be more fulfilling, a doctor or a teacher,” she said. “I loved the beauty of the nature there. I loved that life wasn’t taken for granted. There were celebra­tions when babies were born; there were celebrations when people died; it was so much more integrated.”

In 1993, she returned to Meriden, where her friends from high school had largely dispersed. She found she missed the communal aspect of Cameroon.

When a friend asked if she’d like to do some volunteer construction work on the then-embryonic Franciscan Life Center, she obliged and was startled by the communal atmosphere she found.

“Part of the allure of Africa was that everything was so family- and commu­nity- oriented,” she said. “My response was to the sisters’ energy. They’re hap­py, hardworking and the biggest sur­prise to me was that they were all professional women.” She was shocked, for instance, to learn that one of the sis­ters was a soil scientist.

Established in 1973, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist work in the pro­fessional world as teachers, counselors, Web site designers, pharmacists, college professors, marriage and family thera­pists and other professions that lend themselves to what the organization calls “promoting the culture of life.”

About 20 sisters live in the Meriden-­based center. Sister Frances is the only public school teacher from the center.

Having a Catholic sister in the public school system has no effect on the stu­dent body, said Maloney principal Ann Hushin. Well, perhaps one. “The stu­dents respect her because she has the habit on — maybe more so than other teachers because she has the habit on.

So she doesn’t have to deal with the bad language.” A sign in Zajac’s classroom indicates that “inappropriate language is forbidden.”

Sister Barbara Johnson, executive di­rector of the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, says having a Catholic nun in the school allows the students and facul­ty to be “reminded that there is more to this life. Even if people who see Sister Frances do not believe in God, they, too,are still wired for happiness.

Sister Frances is a sign — and a question — of that deeper reali­ty.”

For the sisters in the convent, Johnson says, “Sister Frances extends our presence into places that we can’t go. Her presence in the public school system also shows our church’s embrace of people of many dif­ferent faith persuasions — or of no faith.”

Before Zajac’s afternoon of volunteer constructing, she had not had any real relationship with religious women. But she said she found the communal lifestyle and visible ability to express their faith — all the sis­ters wear habits — to her lik­ing. “A big piece for me was to be able to show externally, through the habit, my faith, was a very powerful thing,” she said. “There’s something about it that the world now so much needs. In Africa, faith was such a part of every day. With the sisters, I was intrigued with the intensity of the life. I knew they prayed together. I knew they worked in the convent together. There’s a piece of that that is very appealing to me.”

In March 1997, after volun­teering with the sisters for three years, Zajac entered the order as a pre-postulant. By 1999, she was a novice and be­gan wearing her habit to Mal­oney. She professed her perpetual vows in April 2007.

For Zajac, although it was im­portant to maintain her position as science teacher in a public high school, had the school board and superintendent not agreed to let her continue teaching, she would have left the school.

“There’s a piece of me that fits so well in the public school,” she said. “But I knew that through the sisters, wher­ever I would work in the end would be just fine, too.”

Being a Catholic, Zajac says, does not alter her teaching of science. “Science confirms what we believe in terms of when life begins,” she says. As for the gnarly debates over the teaching of evolution, Zajac says evolution is consistent with Catholic teaching.

“Genesis isn’t literal, but it’s figurative,” she says. “We know through science, fossil records that things evolved.” As early as 1950, Pope Pius XII wrote that “biological evolution is compatible with Christian’s faith.” Pope John Paul II reaf­firmed the belief in 1996, writ­ing that “the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothe­sis.”

But for the most part, it is not questions about evolution or the beginning of life that con­found Zajac, it’s questions about professional and person­al direction.

“The beauty of today’s teenagers is that they’re not afraid to ask pertinent ques­tions,” she says. “We give kids a lot of credit for knowing a lot that they don’t really know.

Usually, kids want to know about what gives life meaning?

‘How do I know what I’m sup­posed to be?’ I think if kids see you as sincere, they tend to ask you these kinds of questions.”

---

An interesting story from my local paper today.

What ado y'all think? Does a nun teaching in a public school come dangerously close to endorsing a specific religion, especially since she wears a habit and crucifix while in front of the students? Or, as a teacher of at a public institution, is that okay as she has the freedom to wear whatever clothing she wants, as long as it is compliant with whatever teacher dress-code the district may have?

[Fumesucker]

1. This atheist has no problem with a nun teaching in a public school..

As long as she doesn't inject her religion into the classroom it's a non issue with me.

But I think the question of what gives life meaning is not one that should be addressed in the science classroom, it is more a question of philosophy than science.

[struggle4progress]

2. In general, I prefer people not to conspicuously display their religion,

but free speech rights are not trivial matters. And there's probably some benefit to modeling the idea "Don't be afraid to be who you are" to high school kids -- who are, after all, quite sensitive to social forces like peer pressure

So I'd shrug and figure that as long as she's competent at her job and not abusing her authority in order to proselytize to a captive audience, she can be who she wants, whether or not it's to my personal taste

[Fortyniner]

3. Woman teachers

I am not in favor of over regulating our educational system. The problem here is that everyone expresses something in their style of dress. One's religion is probably the least of our worries. Everyone has opinions on how things should be. We may think we know how a nun should feel about a certain subject, but how about the teacher in the next room.

If we feel threatened by a simple brown dress and a cross because we think that exudes religion, what must we feel about a teacher in pants wearing earrings?

Let's get back to where we judge teachers by their ability to teach, not by how they look or by how we think they think!

[iris27]

4. "Even if people who see Sister Frances do not believe in God, they, too,

are still wired for happiness."


Bwuh??? Um, ok...



Does a nun teaching in a public school come dangerously close to endorsing a specific religion, especially since she wears a habit and crucifix while in front of the students?

I'd say, like a Hummer in a standard-size parking space, she's on the line, but not over the line. It bothers me on a personal level, but if a standard cross necklace or Sikh turban is ok, then a habit is ok.