This is a case of phenomenally bad judgement. Really really bad judgement. However…it does say something about Catholic education and our culture at large which I think may be important.

NY Post: A visit from three Wiccan witches at a Pittsburgh-area Catholic high school caused furor when they doled out crystals for students to take home — prompting an apology from the school, who urged parents to cleanse their homes with prayer.

The career and college counselor who invited witches Tamra, Tabitha, and Kari Latshaw to North Catholic High School to speak about their experiences as women business owners was canned this month over the sorcery scandal.

The witches, who own the Sewickley shop Elemental Magick, spoke during the unnamed educator’s marketing class before holiday break, KDKA reported.

Michelle Peduto, a secretary at the Diocese of Pittsburgh, told KDKA that the Elemental Magick witches’ presentation got “off the rails” when the presenters gave the students crystals.

Peduto said the gifts, which were similar the objects sold at Elemental Magick, troubled the students because “we know our faith is in Jesus Christ and not in objects necessarily.”

“Rosary beads? Yes, but crystals no,” she clarified.

Peduto claimed the students reported the incident to administrators, prompting an internal investigation. The school subsequently sent an apology email to parents, advising them to throw out the crystals and cleanse their homes by reciting the prayer to Saint Michael the Archangel.

The principal said the event went “off the rails” when they stopped talking about their business practices and started handing out crystals. Let’s be clear, it went off the rails the moment the invitation went out.

Is this a big deal? Well yeah, kinda.

Every soul is precious. No Catholic school wants to be guilty of leading a youth down a wrong way. But here’s what I’d like to point out. Wiccan has become so mainstreamed that people don’t realize its dangers anymore.

I’ve long said that Big Atheism lost the battle for the hearts and minds of the young. But Christianity didn’t succeed either. Many young people refuse to see the universe as just an accident of nature. They refuse materialistic explanations for everything. They should reject this. But so many have embraced pagan practices, earth worshipping, Wiccan, and the occult.

They seem more exciting to them, home to some deep dark mystery that’s fun and exciting to explore. It also has the sniff of being judged as dangerous which for teens can be exhilarating.

Go into your local bookstore. The Wiccan section is growing. The Christian section is shrinking.

Watered down Catholicism doesn’t help. The call to be Catholic is a radical, wild choice that believes in miracles, signs, and prophecies. It is a call to love. We believe that God is not only watching us but loving us, guiding us. Every instance of our life is a call to salvation. And we believe in the highest stakes of all. Salvation or damnation.

I don’t think the “just be nice” Catholicism where everyone goes to Heaven has the same appeal. Flattening out Catholicism or making it less “weird” or less crucial has the appeal of making it less interesting to many. Explaining away Jesus’ miracles doesn’t help. Saying that the miracle was all those people sharing their loaves and fishes misses the point that a real physical miracle took place.

Jesus was/is a radical voice. No figure in the pantheon or myths and heroes could’ve prepared us for Jesus’ message. It is still counter cultural even today. I fear that instead of us trying to become more like Jesus, we’ve settled on making Jesus more like us.