Walking the Camino de Santiago teaches people about life, and since much of Kieran Fouhy’s life has been spent in Catholic schools, it has given rise to a few reflections on the subject.
Mr Fouhy, a former headmaster at St Peter’s College, St Paul’s College and Sacred Heart College in Auckland for 32 years, shared some of his insights during a guest speech at the St Michael’s parish, Remuera, AGM on August 13.
Mr Fouhy, who has walked seven Caminos and was about to embark on his eighth – in Portugal – spoke on five areas related to the famous pilgrimage.
“The first thing I would say is that I always carried too much baggage. Ten per cent of your weight is the ideal. It is amazing what we don’t need,” he said.
“I also think it applies to other things in life,” he added.
“The big things – we carry too much baggage of assets, nostalgia, tradition. Schools carry too much baggage. They have got to be simplified. Our Church is carrying too much baggage. We have got to simplify it.
“I found that the Camino is a self-emptying. We learned to just get rid of stuff. And I think there is some good theology there.”
His second insight was that “little things matter”.
Plenty that is little looms large on the Camino – blisters on toes, restaurants that don’t open until late, some part of the pack can be irritating.
Little things can trip up schools, he said, and society is the poorer for the neglect of some little things like manners, dress standards, responding to RSVPs.
“I think the unevenness in society is about the little things – little people are left out of the loop.”
Mr Fouhy’s third topic related to mystical aspects of walking the Camino.
“There is something about the mystical thing. The uncertainty of where to sleep each night, the stealing of privacy, the gaining of purpose, what we do today? I listened to Taize music, I listened to biographies, I had John of the Cross. I reflected on T.S. Eliot’s quartets. The connections with nature . . .
“And somehow walking is a mystical sort of thing.”
This prompted him to encourage a “rediscovery of interiority” – his fourth topic.
Reflection precedes praxis, he said. “Unless we have reflection, we are clanging gongs.”
“Marcellin Champagnat often said that the brothers were to be first at the cross, first at the altar and first at the crib . . . before ministry.
“A good boys’ school has a culture of silence. A good teacher is one who can reflect. A good school is one that can reflect as a community.”
He built on this in his final topic, saying that walking delivers solutions. He referred to a phrase used by St Augustine “Solvitur Ambulato” – “It is solved by walking.”
“One of the observations that I made was that everyone on the Camino has a problem, life problems, retirement, relationships, addiction – you name it.”
But it is the obligation to walk, the necessity to walk, that solves things. On the Camino, “we lose weight, the body feels better, the head feels clearer, the perspective gets sharper”.
Mr Fouhy offered some final reflections on Catholic schools.
“I’ve done everything you need to do in a Catholic school. I’m not quite sure of the purpose of it,” he said.
“The Camino has a sense of purpose, because you walk every day. You get up and walk tomorrow and so on.
“And I sometimes think the Catholic school is like those index funds – you just put the money in and the money rises – you get your dividend every month. Sometimes we are too flexible with society and without any purpose going through.”
“There are 48 Catholic secondary schools in New Zealand. There are 188 primary schools, most of them pretty small, and there are billions of dollars, I would imagine, in real estate. And yet we don’t know the purpose.”
Despite impressive academic results in some prominent schools, Mr Fouhy warned against assuming all was well and also cautioned against being triumphalist.
He noted a quote by an old Marist Brother – a Brother Marcel – who had taught him, about the need for schools to reclaim their source.
He used to say this phrase: “A river that denies its source soon goes out of existence.”
As the late Steve Jobs said: Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them glorify or vilify them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They theologise. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. “To love and to serve”. There is no love without justice.