Since the start of the Obama administration in 2009, Catholic education in the United States has been under serious threat from federal policies, regulations, legislation, and court rulings challenging Catholic morals and religious freedom. The threats will continue, but there is reason for hope in the coming years!
Without sanction by Congress or the Supreme Court, the Biden administration sought by dictatorial mandate to redefine the meaning of “sex discrimination” in education. To force a new definition of “sex” on schools and colleges, and especially to bully Catholic educators into compliance, was clearly beyond the Administration’s proper scope of authority.
Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued important rulings increasing protection for Catholic education. Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru (2020) broadens the definition of the “ministerial exception,” a First Amendment protection against federal courts interfering in religious organizations’ employment decisions. The case concerned a Catholic school teacher, but the exception has since been applied to school leaders and counselors.
In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court effectively nullified anti-Catholic “Blaine amendments” in state constitutions, ensuring that Catholic schools and colleges have equal access to public benefits. This helped open the door wider to school choice programs, which are increasing in many states.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Some federal courts have ignored or undermined Supreme Court precedent, and the scope of the “ministerial exception”—which protects religious schools and colleges from lawsuits concerning employees engaged in religious teaching—is still hotly debated in the courts. Many states are hostile to Catholic moral values, and Catholic education faces the same sort of harassment that marked the Biden administration.
Amid all of this, there is good reason to hope that the next few years will present new opportunities for the growth of faithful Newman Guide education. Catholic families and educators look to the White House, Congress, and federal courts to provide much-needed relief for Catholic education and to restore a firm commitment to the First Amendment’s protections for religious exercise and free speech.
Recommendations for federal policy
Prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, The Cardinal Newman Society submitted a list of 42 policy priorities for Catholic education to his transition team, key members of Congress, and Washington, D.C., policy experts. The full proposal is posted on our website, but most of it is summarized in the following 10 key priorities:
1. Restore the meaning of “sex”: The radical drive for same-sex marriage and then gender ideology has severely distorted federal civil rights laws and put women and Catholic education in jeopardy. This needs to be reversed.
Tragically, the U.S. Supreme Court yielded to gender ideology in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020). However, although the Court redefined “sex discrimination” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” the ruling applied only to hiring and firing decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law contains an exemption for religious employers that can protect Catholic education, as long as school and college leaders make employment decisions with explicit devotion to Catholic teaching and evangelization.
The Biden administration and some federal courts have sought instead to expand Bostock’s flawed rationale to all federal law and programs. They have tried to mandate gender ideology in education, housing, public accommodations, federally funded programs, and disability laws. (See sidebar.) In so doing, they would effectively erase religious exemptions protecting Catholic education.
Catholic educators should urge Congress and the Trump administration to restore the definitions of “sex,” “male,” and “female” to agree with biological reality, not “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” This begins with revoking President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 (“Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation”), Executive Order 14020 (establishing the Gender Policy Council), and any other “dear colleague” letter, administrative rule, executive order, or regulation that attempts to redefine “sex.”
Most importantly for Catholic schools and colleges, the new Administration should withdraw and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 33474) imposing gender ideology under Title IX, the portion of the Civil Rights Act that protects girls and women in education. Whatever the Supreme Court’s reason for extending gender ideology to employment decisions, Title IX was clearly intended to protect girls in athletics, restrooms, locker rooms, admissions, etc., and it allows for many appropriate practices separating males from females.
Congress should go further by amending Title IX and other civil rights laws to clarify the meaning of sex discrimination, including Title VII to nullify the Bostock ruling.
2. Protect religious exemptions: Catholic educators should insist that Congress and the Trump administration defend and expand legal exemptions to federal civil rights laws for religious education when the laws interfere with legitimate religious purposes and practices. This protects Catholic schools and colleges, even when a future administration attempts to distort the laws’ application.
In particular, the Administration should oppose attempts by activists to undermine or repeal the Title IX exemption for religious schools and colleges. It should also end the Education Department’s policy of approving or denying advance determinations whether religious institutions qualify for religious exemptions to Title IX; this is a matter for the courts and should be decided according to each particular circumstance. The Trump administration should delete the archived list of institutions that the Obama administration published in 2016 to “shame” religious colleges claiming the exemption.
3. Preserve the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): Despite near-unanimous, bipartisan support when RFRA became law in 1993, abortion and gender ideology activists have sought to undermine or repeal it to force their radical agendas on churches and religious organizations. RFRA prevents a law from restricting religious freedom unless there is no less restrictive means of achieving its purpose. It has been a powerful defense for Catholic education. The Trump administration and Congress should fight any legislation that includes exceptions to RFRA protections.
4. Halt discrimination against religion: The Trump administration and Congress should act to ban federal and state discrimination against religious believers and religious organizations—including Catholic education—on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions about abortion, contraception, gender, in vitro fertilization, marriage, sexual orientation, or sexual relations. Catholic education should have equal access to public funds available to secular education.
5. End immoral insurance mandates: The Biden administration’s abuse of the Affordable Care Act to force its radical pro-abortion and LGBT agenda on Americans, even to the point of requiring Catholic education to violate moral principles, must be ended. During the 2024 campaign, President Trump indicated support for insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, which is unacceptable to faithful Catholic schools and colleges.
By executive order and regulation, the Trump administration should oppose and reverse dictatorial mandates for health insurance coverage for non-essential, harmful, and immoral services including abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.
This includes rescinding and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 37522) implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which interprets sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” and thereby mandates coverage for “gender-affirming care,” which may include “gender-transition” hormones and surgery.
Congress should amend Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that religious believers and organizations—including Catholic education—can opt out of health insurance coverage for services that violate deeply held religious and moral beliefs, such as abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.
6. Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education: In its short lifespan since 1976, the Education Department has presided over the decline of American education, impacting many Catholic families in public schools and reinforcing a near-monopoly of taxpayer-funded secular education. At minimum, the Trump administration and Congress should convert federal funds to block grants allowing flexibility and school choice programs in the states. They should also end the Department’s interference with teacher training programs, accreditation, education standards, and testing.
7. Fund school choice: The Trump administration and Congress should incentivize states to adopt school choice policies and funding—such as education savings accounts, tax credits, and vouchers—to help children attend the school or homeschool of their parent’s choice, including Catholic education. They should establish universal savings plans to increase savings limits and allow spending for elementary and secondary education expenses, including homeschooling, in addition to higher education—and ensure that families have equal access to funds for Catholic education. Congress should also increase tax credits for education expenses including homeschooling, increase the federal child tax credit, and increase the child’s age limit to 17.
8. Reform accreditation: The Trump administration and Congress should amend the Higher Education Act to stop requiring accreditation of colleges to receive Title IV student aid, end the Education Department’s approval of accrediting agencies, exempt religious education from accreditation standards and criteria that would compromise an institution’s religious beliefs and governance, ensure that Title IV student aid is not considered federal support that triggers Title IX enforcement, and allow a private right of action against an accreditor by a college that is unjustly discriminated against in the course of accreditation.
9. Strengthen the federal courts: Appoint federal judges with clear records of conformity with the First Amendment, ministerial exception, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and natural law principles of conscience and religious freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has been a bulwark against violations of religious freedom, but the Biden administration appointed hundreds of federal judges, and Catholic education is likely to face difficulties in many federal courts. Protecting the Supreme Court and strengthening other federal courts must be a top priority for the Trump administration.
10. Strengthen federal independent agencies: The Trump administration should appoint commissioners to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who respect religious freedom and will not misinterpret sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender ideology.” Also appoint commissioners to the National Labor Relations Board who respect religious freedom and will uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), which forbade the NLRB from interfering in labor organizing at religious schools and colleges as a violation of the First Amendment.
Assault on Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans unjust discrimination based on religion, race, color, or national origin in public accommodations (Title II), state and municipal facilities (Title III), public education (Title IV), federally funded programs (Title VI), and employment (Title VII).
Only Title VII, regarding employment, also includes a ban on sex discrimination. In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments to ban sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges. These laws were clearly intended to protect especially women and girls from unjust discrimination.
Today, however, activists for abortion and gender ideology seek to redefine “sex” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” and to add these categories to all the civil rights laws. This would effectively force gender ideology on Catholic education because only Title VII and Title IX include exemptions for religious organizations. While no Catholic school or college would wish the freedom to discriminate unjustly, they must be able to uphold Catholic teaching on abortion, contraception, sexuality, gender, and marriage—a right protected by the First Amendment.
Georgetown must end its race obsession
/in Blog Blog, Latest/by Bob Laird(As featured in The Washington Examiner)
There is a saying in the Catholic Church that “error has no rights.” Yet William Treanor, the dean of Georgetown University Law Center, is claiming constitutional protection for the school’s diversity, equity, and inclusion policies under the guise of religious freedom. This is as flawed as it is hypocritical.
In a letter dated March 6 responding to interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia Ed Martin’s investigation into the school’s DEI ideology, Treanor said, “Given the First Amendment’s protection of a university’s freedom to determine its own curriculum and how to deliver it, the constitutional violation behind this threat is clear, as is the attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”
In fact, the Supreme Court ruled in 1983 that Bob Jones University’s religious views did not protect its racist policies. Regardless, no Catholic doctrine requires Georgetown to foster racial division. Catholics believe that “redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude: All therefore enjoy an equal dignity.”
Many Catholics have seen how universities’ affirmative action policies and promotion of critical race theory have divided society, and they agree that race-blind admissions and merit-based policies in education better respect the God-given dignity of every person. DEI, on the other hand, often presupposes that educational and employment opportunities and even freedom of speech should not be equal but scaled by race.
Catholic schools and colleges today have a great opportunity to lead the way in witnessing to the Church’s call for “every type of discrimination … to be overcome and eradicated as contrary to God’s intent.” This is what the Cardinal Newman Society encourages from its recommended colleges, which stand apart from places such as Georgetown by refusing to yield their Catholic identity to ideology and political pressures.
As for Georgetown, its religious freedom claim is hypocritical given the university’s repeated disregard for Catholic teaching. The Church’s document on Catholic universities states that “a Catholic University, as Catholic, informs and carries out its research, teaching, and all other activities with Catholic ideals, principles and attitudes.”
Georgetown University, however, has repeatedly violated its Catholic mission with campus events and university policies challenging Catholic morality on abortion, gender ideology, gender transition, sexuality, and more. The law school’s courses include “Reproductive Health and International Human Rights Law,” a practicum in which students work in organizations “to advocate for the advancement of reproductive health rights,” including pro-abortion lobbies such as the Center for Reproductive Rights and the Women’s Equality Center.
Even Georgetown’s campus ministry is not Catholic — it includes just two Catholic priests on a 30-person “interreligious” staff, with ministers promoting Episcopal, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Orthodox, and Protestant spirituality.
As for DEI, the Trump administration is right to investigate Georgetown and 50 other institutions, including another compromised Catholic school, the University of Notre Dame, for civil rights violations. Among concerns at Georgetown is the mandatory undergraduate course “Race, Power and Justice at Georgetown,” which focuses on racial issues and the school’s legacy of owning slaves. In 2022, the university led a coalition urging the Supreme Court to uphold race-based admissions, but the court struck them down.
Georgetown Law is a particular concern. Three years ago, Treanor placed conservative scholar Ilya Shapiro on administrative leave before he could start his new role as the executive director of the Georgetown Center for the Constitution. His crime? Criticizing President Joe Biden’s racist plan to consider only black women for a Supreme Court vacancy. Treanor provided students a “safe space” to cry and publicly accused Shapiro of making statements “antithetical to the work that we do at Georgetown Law to build inclusion, belonging, and respect for diversity.”
The prior year, Treanor fired a professor for lamenting the low performance of many black students in her class. Treanor declared, “There is no place for bias in our grading process or anywhere in our community” — as if the professor had admitted to racial bias in grading students, which she did not.
Georgetown Law describes its Journal of Modern Critical Race Perspectives as “one of the few law journals in the country dedicated to legal scholarship on race and identity” and “grounded in critical race theory.” The school also celebrates the 2008 article by Georgetown professor Charles Lawrence, “The Id, The Ego, and Equal Protection: Reckoning With Unconscious Racism,” which it touts as “a foundational document of Critical Race Theory.”
Several of Georgetown Law’s courses embrace critical race theory and other divisive identity issues. This includes the first-year “Foundations of American Legal Thought,” which includes “critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, conservative legal theory, and LGBTQ+ legal theory.” Another course, “Race, Inequality, and Justice,” includes texts on critical race theory, as does the first-year course “Critical Race Theory” and the more advanced “The Critical Race Theory Tradition: Canonical Texts and New Directions.”
In its 2023 ruling in Students for Fair Admissions Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, the Supreme Court rightly declared that “eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.” The ruling revealed the crack in the DEI logic, finding that discrimination in any form is unlawful and that all students should have an equal playing field when competing for acceptance at a college or university.
We now have a government that is providing opportunities to rid institutions of old DEI habits that have been festering for years. Those institutions that continue to advance woke ideology and race-based policies deserve to be held in violation of civil rights laws and pressured to adopt a more Christian respect for human dignity.
Bob Laird is senior counselor to the president at The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education.
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Newman Guide College Graduate Helps Make Prayer Accessible
/in Blog Newman Guide Articles, Profiles in FCE/by Kelly SalomonAnnie Foster
A graduate of a faithful Catholic college believes daily prayer is critical—and she’s sharing a new tool to help young people develop a prayer routine.
“Forming a strong daily prayer routine is paramount to building the spiritual armor necessary to face daily temptation as well as the destructive forces college students will be met with post-graduation,” urges Annie Foster, a graduate Franciscan University of Steubenville, which is recommended in The Newman Guide for its strong Catholic identity.
Now employed by the Catholic app named “Hallow” that hosts thousands of audio-guided prayers and meditations, Annie believes the tool can be a great resource for young people to grow in their relationship with Jesus Christ. The app has become the top Catholic app in the app store, with hundreds of thousands of five-star reviews.
“I believe Hallow’s success and why it is a helpful resource for young adults, lies first and foremost in the fact that prayer is where we come to know the person of Jesus Christ and where we invite Him into a personal relationship. The Catholic apologetics space is overflowing with catechetical resources to help us to know and defend our faith. Hallow’s primary purpose however is to serve as an instrument that our Lord can use to speak to our hearts and where we can speak to His.”
Hallow allows users to set-up alerts for prayer throughout the day, and then set time aside for audio prayers like the Angelus and Rosary. It “meets students where they are” both physically (on their phones) and spiritually (on their faith journeys), explains Annie. Schools and colleges like Franciscan University are partnering with Hallow to make the app available to students.
The app is also in high demand to respond to the mental health crisis that many young people are facing today.
“In recent years, young adults have been experiencing and openly sharing more and more the mental health issues they’ve been facing. The remedies of the world are often not only contrary to our faith but lead the youth into even greater confusion and desolation,” explained Annie. “Hallow responded to this reality by working with Catholic mental health professionals such as Dr. Bob Schuchts and religious such as Sr. Miriam James to create meditations to address the healing of wounds, addictions as well as various other topics.”
In her life and work, Annie draws the on formation she received at Franciscan University “on a daily basis.”
“Franciscan is where I fell in love with the study of philosophy, particularly Christian personalism and the thought of Dietrich von Hildebrand and his wife Alice. I worked as a student fellow for the Hildebrand Project, a non-profit dedicated to the dissemination of Hildebrands thought and witness,” explained Annie. “Christian personalism tints the lense with which I view my faith and my work because it is a philosophy rooted in an appreciation of the dignity of the human person and therefore a philosophy that can be lived.”
She was also an active member of Franciscan’s lacrosse team. “Coach Maura Carapellotti transformed simple exercises into spiritual exercises. Coach emboldened us to play our sport with total freedom and fearlessness because she convinced us that our identities were not based on the scoreboard but in our relationship with our Lord. We truly played for an audience of One [Jesus Christ].”
The women’s lacrosse team at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
“Attending a faithful Catholic college akin to Franciscan not only makes authentic Catholic teaching and the sacraments accessible, it makes accessible a community of peers who will support you in prayer and friendship for the rest of your life. That is no small thing. We often affectionately refer to Steubenville as a ‘bubble’ because it truly is a safeguarded haven for practicing Catholics.”
But “even within the ‘bubble’ the enemy never sleeps,” and the temptations are great after college, explained Annie. That’s why building a prayer routine is so critical—and why Annie is helping young people do just that.
This article was first published in 2022 and updated in 2025.
Ep. 38: Faith, Scholarship, & Community at Benedictine College with Steve Minnis
/in Podcast Blog/by Christopher ByrnePodcast: Play in new window | Download
Join us as Steve Minnis, president of Benedictine College, shares his remarkable journey of over two decades at the helm, driving unprecedented growth and fostering a community deeply rooted in faith and scholarship. Under his leadership, Benedictine College has not only doubled its student body but also enhanced its campus with modern facilities, all while strengthening its Catholic identity. From initiating a unique consecration to the Blessed Virgin Mary to embedding faith deeply into the academic and communal fabric of the college, Minnis’ vision is a testament to the transformative power of integrating community, faith, and scholarship in higher education.
Click here to watch on YouTube
Student Reverts to Catholicism at Newman Guide College
/in Blog Newman Guide Articles, Profiles in FCE/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffThe Driessen Family
Sarah Driessen says that a faithful Catholic college recommended in The Newman Guide was “extremely pivotal” in shaping the direction of her life.
“Before attending Campion College, I had rejected my Catholic faith and was practicing as a Protestant,” explained Driessen, who graduated from Campion College in Toongabbie East, New South Wales, in 2019. “By the end of my first year at Campion, I had come back to the Catholic Church.”
The Cardinal Newman Society recently caught up with Driessen to learn about the education and formation she received at Campion College.
CNS: Can you tell us about your experience at Campion College?
Sarah Driessen: My time at Campion College was extremely pivotal to the trajectory of my life. After receiving a leadership scholarship from Campion College, I tentatively withdrew my acceptance to the University of Queensland and enrolled at Campion on the last possible enrolment day. Since then, I have never looked back. The one word I can use to describe my experience at Campion College is: formative. Our studies journeyed chronologically through the history of Western civilisation, with the assistance of the great classic books. I studied the core subjects of philosophy, theology, literature, and history. By my third year, I had the option to choose a major, and I chose history. It was beautiful to see how all the subjects complimented each other and came together to form a holistic understanding of the world today. Moreover, the culture on campus was like no other—it was one big family—a diverse group of people forged in friendship, and the pursuit of goodness, beauty and truth.
CNS: How did Campion College help you grow in your faith, and form you as a person?
Sarah Driessen: Before attending Campion College, I had rejected my Catholic faith and was practicing as a Protestant. By the end of my first year at Campion, I had come back to the Catholic Church. I came to revert through studying the early Church Fathers and the history of Christianity. As well as truly coming to know Christ through the Eucharist, and witnessing my friends live out their Catholic faith.
By studying western civilisation alongside like-minded people, I was able to grow in faith, friendships, virtue, critical thinking, knowledge, and wisdom. After encountering the liberal arts as taught at Campion, I simply could not view things in the way I used to. I felt as though I had clarity in my understanding of the world and my purpose.
I always treasure my three years at Campion College. All the friendships I gained during my time have remained in my life and are some of the closest I have today. I am certain that without Campion, I would not be the person I am today.
CNS: How did Campion College prepare you for the work you do today?
Sarah Driessen: I am a semi-stay-at-home mom. I run a small business and do work every so often… I work as a heritage consultant, and I only do one project at a time… I am currently finishing a conservation management plan for an old Catholic Church in Orange NSW. I write the history on the building, help with future designs that are appropriate to its old architectural style, and help with future management.
Campion prepared me to be a stay-at-home mom through the formation it gave me as a Catholic. My days are filled with trials. I am constantly trying to grow in virtues, especially patience, offer up sufferings and lead my children towards Christ. Campion taught me to have a holistic and eschatological mind, to focus on what truly matters: my daily duties and focusing on the eternal (God’s plan for me).
Campion taught me all these things but especially a yearning and love for knowledge, which I try to teach my children. Campion also revealed to me how much I was lacking in my education before attending, so I am trying to guide my kids in the right direction in terms of faith formation and classical learning.
College-Bound? Try These Catholic Summer Programs
/in Blog Latest, Newman Guide Articles/by Cardinal Newman Society StaffA faithful Catholic education can prepare students not only for a career, but also for life. Whether or not you plan to attend a Catholic college, a summer program at one of the faithful colleges recommended in The Newman Guide can be enriching and will give you a taste of the benefits of a Catholic education.
Summer programs are a great opportunity for high school students to strengthen their academic and extracurricular skills, grow in their spiritual lives, get a head-start on college visits, learn from distinguished professors, make lifelong friends and experience what faithful Catholic education is all about. Here are some options:
The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., offers a wide variety of fun and educational summer programs for high school students. Whether students are interested in engineering, writing, nursing, drama, architecture, or 3D Animation, there’s something for everyone! In Experiences in Architecture, students will explore the academic and professional sides of architecture. Drama lovers will be drawn to the High School Drama Institute, studying voice, movement, and acting with industry pros. Budding engineers can dive into Engineering New Frontiers and the Computational Biosciences Institute, where students will delve into biomedical, mechanical, electrical, civil, and computer science engineering. Non-residential programs at Catholic University of America include the Nursing Intensive, 3D Gaming Animation, and two new camps: Script & Story Workshop and Young Writer’s Retreat. These programs are designed to provide an enriching educational experience in the nation’s capital.
Finally, for students looking for a taste of faithful Catholic education from home, many Newman Guide colleges offer online courses, including Catholic International University and Holy Apostles College and Seminary. Catholic International University offers an Early College Program that allows high school students to take faithfully Catholic 100 and 200 level 3-credit hour courses. Most courses run for eight weeks and include courses like Latin 101, Foundations of Catholicism, and Intro to Catholic Health Care Ethics which is taught by Dr. Joe Zalot of the National Catholic Bioethics Center.
Holy Apostles College and Seminary offers a TakeCredit! program for high school students to take faithfully Catholic 100 and 200 level 3-credit hour courses. Students can earn up to 36 credits before graduating high school through Holy Apostles. Courses include Latin I, Catechism of the Catholic Church, and the History of Sacred Art. Online programs recommended in The Newman Guide, including Catholic International University and Holy Apostles College and Seminary, allow students to experience the best of the Catholic intellectual tradition from home.
Ep. 37: A Parent’s Crusade Against Woke Ideology in Catholic Education (Pt.2)
/in Podcast Blog/by Christopher ByrnePodcast: Play in new window | Download
Continue the gripping narrative with Tony Scarpo as he delves deeper into the aftermath of confronting woke ideologies at his daughters’ Catholic school. After initially stepping back into a leadership role with renewed promises from the school, Tony and his wife Barbara faced a resurgence of the very issues they fought against. This episode explores the stark revelations and tough decisions that led to a legal battle against the school, highlighting the significant personal and communal impact. Their journey underlines the profound necessity for parents to be vigilant and proactive in safeguarding Catholic education.
Click here to watch on YouTube
Ep. 36: A Parent’s Crusade Against Woke Ideology in Catholic Education (Pt.1)
/in Podcast Blog/by Christopher ByrnePodcast: Play in new window | Download
Tune in to hear Tony Scarpo’s compelling journey as he and his wife made deliberate choices to immerse their daughters in what they believed was a faithful and nurturing Catholic school. After relocating their home closer to the prestigious school, spearheading fundraising efforts, and contributing $1.35 million to its development, Tony uncovers a distressing shift towards woke ideologies within the school. His story unfolds into a dramatic confrontation with the school’s leadership, culminating with his family suing the school for fraud. This episode is a poignant reminder of the vigilance needed to preserve the essence of faithful Catholic education in the face of modern challenges.
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Going On Offense
/in Blog/by Kevin Roberts, Ph.D.We can use the next four years to advance Catholic education and secure it for decades.
Our Lord promises that the “gates of hell shall not prevail” against the Church. With these words, Jesus not only reassures us that He will never abandon his Church to evil, but He also extolls us to go on offense for the Kingdom of God. Saint Paul later calls on Christians to do the same thing. “Do not be conquered by evil,” he writes, “but conquer evil with good.”
In the wake of Donald Trump’s recent victory, the Church in America needs to be reminded of these words, and it would do well to heed them. This is especially true in the realm of Catholic education. For too long Catholic education in the United States has been stuck in a defensive posture, timidly defending its most basic rights while slowly secularizing and giving ground to radical progressives. This diffident approach has produced poor results and only invited further aggressiveness from the enemies of the Church.
In the past four years, Democrats in Washington have pushed far beyond the Obama-era policies of demanding contraception coverage in Catholic healthcare plans and mandating that Catholic schools open their bathrooms and locker rooms to students of the opposite sex. Most notably, the Equality Act that progressives attempted to pass would have effectively ended Catholic education as we know it. By making it illegal to discriminate because of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity,” the Equality Act would have allowed gay or transgender employees and students to sue Catholic institutions simply for standing by Catholic teaching, thus forcing many schools to abandon their faith or close their doors.
The fight for the religious freedom to provide truly Catholic education, hire faithful teachers and staff, and reject immoral practices like abortion and bodily mutilation is also ongoing in the states and the private sector. In Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s Michigan, for example — where the Equality Act is the law of the land — Catholic schools like St. Joesph’s outside Lansing and Sacred Heart of Jesus outside Grand Rapids are fighting for their lives in the courts.
Meanwhile, progressive activists are convincing more and more big corporations and athletic associations to put pressure on Catholic schools that refuse to comply with the latest pro-abortion, LGBT, or DEI policies. In 2020, for example, the Human Rights Campaign lobbied hard for Biden’s Department of Education to “tighten” its accreditation policies and encourage agencies to refuse accreditation to any Catholic schools that didn’t enforce “nondiscrimination policies” or meet “scientific curriculum requirements.”
Though the political and legal threats are great, they are not insurmountable. Indeed, despite them, there are good reasons to be hopeful. Since 2022, for example, ten states have passed universal education choice initiatives, which allow parents to use their children’s taxpayer-funded education dollars for the school of their choice, or even help cover certain homeschool expenses. These laws, in turn, have been a boon to Catholic schools, especially the burgeoning Catholic classical school movement. Since 2019, more than 264 new classical schools have been founded, and existing ones saw enrollments surge. And the momentum for classical education is only growing. According to some estimates, the classical school enrollment of 677,500 students this year is expected to more than double to 1.4 million by 2035.
Under these circumstances, Donald Trump’s recent victory offers not only a respite from the federal government’s total onslaught on Catholic education, but also a unique opportunity to advance our cause and secure the future of Catholic education for generations to come.
What does this look like in practice? For starters, it means dismantling the Department of Education, as President Trump has promised. Next, the incoming administration should seek to expand school choice with as little regulation as possible, get rid of common core standards as well as other career- and college-focused standards, and restore the original meaning of Title IX. Finally, the president-elect could take action to deregulate teacher preparation and de-link school accreditation and student aid from Title IX policies. The Cardinal Newman Society has helpfully provided details on how President Trump can make many of these changes and offered several more specific actions that the incoming administration can take to protect Catholic education.
But it’s not just the White House that needs to seize this opportunity. Catholic educators across the country should use the next four years to aggressively expand their operations, deepen their commitment to Catholic teaching, and fortify themselves against future attacks. Indeed, we should use every moral means at our disposal — from lobbying to lawfare — to push back against the radical Left.
In this fight, The Heritage Foundation stands ready to support you. As a proud partner of The Cardinal Newman Society, we provide essential guidance to Catholic schools on how to protect their religious freedom and confront contemporary challenges without shying away from their beliefs. We also have extensive resources for Catholic teachers and administrators, from a curriculum library to school models. And for all parents and students, we offer data-driven college recommendations so you can choose a school with confidence.
In conclusion, we must remember that our religious freedom doesn’t come free. God invites us to join Him in His suffering, but also in His triumphant victory. When we refuse to take an active role in securing our freedom, we are effectively rejecting that invitation.
The next four years are critical for securing the future of Catholic education in the United States for the next 40 years. Despite facing more serious attacks than ever before, with Donald Trump’s victory we have a unique opportunity to go on offense. Now is the time for action. In the words of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton: “When so rich a harvest is before us, why do we not gather it? All is in our hands if we will but use it.”
Kevin Roberts, Ph.D., is president of The Heritage Foundation, which formulates and promotes public policies based on traditional principles. He founded and led John Paul the Great Academy, a co-ed, K-12 Catholic liberal arts school in Lafayette, La., for seven years, and he was president of Wyoming Catholic College, a Newman Guide Recommended institution, from 2013-2016.
Teaching Patriotism
/in Blog/by Maj. Gen. Patrick H. BradyThose of us who wear the Medal of Honor fully realize that it does not make us special, but it does make us beholden. We are beholden first to America’s nobility, our fellow veterans, many who sacrificed their youth that liberty might grow old — who are responsible for us wearing it, and for whom we wear it. But most of all, we are beholden to the good Lord who allowed us to be born into this great country and to serve her in uniform. We are patriots.
We know that what we did to earn the medal is far less important than what we are able to do with it. We realize we were saved to serve, and to show our gratitude, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society began a Character Development Program some years ago. We use the celebrity associated with the medal as a teaching aid to instill in our youth the symbolic values of the medal: courage, sacrifice, and patriotism. These values, although vital, are seldom taught in our schools.
Teach and inspire
Courage is the key to success in life. And I believe it is founded in faith. Sacrifice, love in action, is the key to happiness and the capacity for which is the true measure of human goodness. And patriotism is the key to the future of our country.
Over the years, in our visits to hundreds of schools and thousands of students, we noticed some significant shortfalls in these values. All too often, we found that less than a majority of our youth are extremely proud to be Americans. A significant percentage would not sacrifice or defend America. And one in seven young people think we started World War II by bombing Japan. Only one in six Americans can pass a basic test on American history. Not only are many not well-informed, but much of what they are learning is negative. How can you be proud of your country, if you are misinformed about it?
But the most serious shortfall is patriotism. Our country cannot survive if our people are not patriots. By definition, a patriot is not someone who says they love our country; a patriot is someone who proves they love our country by supporting and defending our country. Support and defend are the keywords.
All the sheep and chickens in the world hope that everyone will be vegetarians. That will never happen; there are too many wolves out there. The time will come when support and defense are necessary for survival.
Patriotism is not born in us; we don’t naturally sacrifice ourselves. It must be taught, better yet inspired. The task of every parent, every teacher, all of us, is to make patriots of our children. How? Convince them that we are an exceptional country worthy of the love necessary for the sacrifices that will be essential to our future. But the love comes first, and we may have a shortfall there. You will die for someone or something you love, not so much for something you do not love.
It is so true that, if love is to survive, it must be exercised. It is also true of patriotism.
American exceptionalism should be a part of the curriculum in every school, especially Catholic schools, where teaching values is not, or should not be, controversial.
How to teach patriotism
I teach American exceptionalism by breaking it down into three components: we are exceptional because we are an exceptionally courageous people, an exceptionally compassionate people, and an exceptionally competitive people. Any teacher worth their salt should be able to explain what American courage, compassion, and competitiveness have done to make the world a better place.
Once we convince students that America is exceptional and worthy of their love, patriotism will follow. And our future is secure.
To impress on young people the importance and seriousness of patriotism, I use a story about Webster Anderson, a soldier attacked on an outpost in Vietnam by communists. Despite repeated and near-fatal wounds, Webster led his men to victory over the communists. I flew in that night and picked up Webster and his wounded men. Amazingly, the physicians saved his life, but they could not save two legs and one arm. For that action, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Webster and I became close, and some years later, we were speaking at a school in Oklahoma. One of the youngsters asked Webster if he would do what he did again, knowing that it would cost him two legs and an arm. Webster’s answer moves me to this day. He said, kid I only have one arm left, but my country can have it any time they want.
Webster defined, perhaps for the first time, patriotism for those young people. I doubt they will ever forget that great soldier propped up before them, more plastic than flesh, and his lesson on patriotism.
Peace is the ultimate victory of all warriors, and peace is possible only through strength. Patriots are the essence of American strength and the only sure guarantee of peace and our future.
The bottom line is that we have a crisis in our classrooms, devoid of values and patriotism — both threats to our future. Our schools must instill in our children a love of country and a willingness to serve and sacrifice for her. Secular schools may have an issue with this, but our Catholic schools should not. Love, courage, and sacrifice are at the core of Jesus’s teachings and the Catholic faith.
Major General Patrick Henry Brady served 34 years in the U.S. Army, earning 87 medals including the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, and two Distinguished Service Medals.
A Catholic and a Soldier
“I cannot emphasize enough the role my faith played in any success I have had,” says Major General Patrick Henry Brady. He is widely recognized as the most highly decorated living veteran, holding the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, six Distinguished Flying Crosses, and two Distinguished Service Medals. His 87 total medals include 65 combat-related and 12 for valor.
After graduating from a Catholic high school and following his future wife Nancy to a Catholic university, the young Brady was commissioned in 1959 to the Army Medical Service Corps. Later, as a helicopter pilot serving two tours in Vietnam, he flew more than 2,500 combat missions and evacuated more than 5,000 wounded soldiers. Regardless of danger or weather, his unit never left a patient in the field, carrying more than 21,000 patients in nine months.
“God surely blessed this remarkable unit,” General Brady wrote later. “He most certainly showed me the light, despite my doubts in the darkness and in the fog. I may have been a willing instrument, but He is the Author of those two awards [Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross] that were the result of two epiphanies.” He says he constantly talked to God and received special insights, such as an impulse to fly his chopper sideways.
His Catholic faith “was the source of whatever courage I had: a constant source of comfort, calm, and of the confidence that allowed me to do things that for me would have otherwise been impossible,” he says. “For reasons that escape me, the Good Lord has seen fit to bless my life in so many ways, not the least of which was saving lives.”
General Brady is a past president of the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, through which he and fellow honorees have worked to teach virtue and patriotism to school children. With his daughter, Meghan, he wrote the book Dead Men Flying, which tells his story and describes Dust Off as the greatest battlefield evacuation in history. He has also established The General and Nancy Lee Brady Foundation to help religious sisters serving the needy.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “The love and service of one’s country follow from the duty of gratitude and belong to the order of charity” (CCC 2239). May God bless General Brady for his extraordinary gift of sacrifice and service to God and to all Americans.
Top 10 U.S. Policy Priorities for Catholic Education
/in Blog/by Patrick ReillySince the start of the Obama administration in 2009, Catholic education in the United States has been under serious threat from federal policies, regulations, legislation, and court rulings challenging Catholic morals and religious freedom. The threats will continue, but there is reason for hope in the coming years!
Without sanction by Congress or the Supreme Court, the Biden administration sought by dictatorial mandate to redefine the meaning of “sex discrimination” in education. To force a new definition of “sex” on schools and colleges, and especially to bully Catholic educators into compliance, was clearly beyond the Administration’s proper scope of authority.
Thankfully, the U.S. Supreme Court has issued important rulings increasing protection for Catholic education. Our Lady of Guadalupe v. Morrissey-Berru (2020) broadens the definition of the “ministerial exception,” a First Amendment protection against federal courts interfering in religious organizations’ employment decisions. The case concerned a Catholic school teacher, but the exception has since been applied to school leaders and counselors.
In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court effectively nullified anti-Catholic “Blaine amendments” in state constitutions, ensuring that Catholic schools and colleges have equal access to public benefits. This helped open the door wider to school choice programs, which are increasing in many states.
Nevertheless, challenges remain. Some federal courts have ignored or undermined Supreme Court precedent, and the scope of the “ministerial exception”—which protects religious schools and colleges from lawsuits concerning employees engaged in religious teaching—is still hotly debated in the courts. Many states are hostile to Catholic moral values, and Catholic education faces the same sort of harassment that marked the Biden administration.
Amid all of this, there is good reason to hope that the next few years will present new opportunities for the growth of faithful Newman Guide education. Catholic families and educators look to the White House, Congress, and federal courts to provide much-needed relief for Catholic education and to restore a firm commitment to the First Amendment’s protections for religious exercise and free speech.
Recommendations for federal policy
Prior to President Donald Trump’s inauguration, The Cardinal Newman Society submitted a list of 42 policy priorities for Catholic education to his transition team, key members of Congress, and Washington, D.C., policy experts. The full proposal is posted on our website, but most of it is summarized in the following 10 key priorities:
1. Restore the meaning of “sex”: The radical drive for same-sex marriage and then gender ideology has severely distorted federal civil rights laws and put women and Catholic education in jeopardy. This needs to be reversed.
Tragically, the U.S. Supreme Court yielded to gender ideology in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia (2020). However, although the Court redefined “sex discrimination” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” the ruling applied only to hiring and firing decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law contains an exemption for religious employers that can protect Catholic education, as long as school and college leaders make employment decisions with explicit devotion to Catholic teaching and evangelization.
The Biden administration and some federal courts have sought instead to expand Bostock’s flawed rationale to all federal law and programs. They have tried to mandate gender ideology in education, housing, public accommodations, federally funded programs, and disability laws. (See sidebar.) In so doing, they would effectively erase religious exemptions protecting Catholic education.
Catholic educators should urge Congress and the Trump administration to restore the definitions of “sex,” “male,” and “female” to agree with biological reality, not “sexual orientation” or “gender identity.” This begins with revoking President Biden’s Executive Order 13988 (“Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation”), Executive Order 14020 (establishing the Gender Policy Council), and any other “dear colleague” letter, administrative rule, executive order, or regulation that attempts to redefine “sex.”
Most importantly for Catholic schools and colleges, the new Administration should withdraw and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 33474) imposing gender ideology under Title IX, the portion of the Civil Rights Act that protects girls and women in education. Whatever the Supreme Court’s reason for extending gender ideology to employment decisions, Title IX was clearly intended to protect girls in athletics, restrooms, locker rooms, admissions, etc., and it allows for many appropriate practices separating males from females.
Congress should go further by amending Title IX and other civil rights laws to clarify the meaning of sex discrimination, including Title VII to nullify the Bostock ruling.
2. Protect religious exemptions: Catholic educators should insist that Congress and the Trump administration defend and expand legal exemptions to federal civil rights laws for religious education when the laws interfere with legitimate religious purposes and practices. This protects Catholic schools and colleges, even when a future administration attempts to distort the laws’ application.
In particular, the Administration should oppose attempts by activists to undermine or repeal the Title IX exemption for religious schools and colleges. It should also end the Education Department’s policy of approving or denying advance determinations whether religious institutions qualify for religious exemptions to Title IX; this is a matter for the courts and should be decided according to each particular circumstance. The Trump administration should delete the archived list of institutions that the Obama administration published in 2016 to “shame” religious colleges claiming the exemption.
3. Preserve the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA): Despite near-unanimous, bipartisan support when RFRA became law in 1993, abortion and gender ideology activists have sought to undermine or repeal it to force their radical agendas on churches and religious organizations. RFRA prevents a law from restricting religious freedom unless there is no less restrictive means of achieving its purpose. It has been a powerful defense for Catholic education. The Trump administration and Congress should fight any legislation that includes exceptions to RFRA protections.
4. Halt discrimination against religion: The Trump administration and Congress should act to ban federal and state discrimination against religious believers and religious organizations—including Catholic education—on the basis of religious beliefs or moral convictions about abortion, contraception, gender, in vitro fertilization, marriage, sexual orientation, or sexual relations. Catholic education should have equal access to public funds available to secular education.
5. End immoral insurance mandates: The Biden administration’s abuse of the Affordable Care Act to force its radical pro-abortion and LGBT agenda on Americans, even to the point of requiring Catholic education to violate moral principles, must be ended. During the 2024 campaign, President Trump indicated support for insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, which is unacceptable to faithful Catholic schools and colleges.
By executive order and regulation, the Trump administration should oppose and reverse dictatorial mandates for health insurance coverage for non-essential, harmful, and immoral services including abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.
This includes rescinding and replace the Biden administration’s 2024 regulation (89 FR 37522) implementing Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which interprets sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” and thereby mandates coverage for “gender-affirming care,” which may include “gender-transition” hormones and surgery.
Congress should amend Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, ensuring that religious believers and organizations—including Catholic education—can opt out of health insurance coverage for services that violate deeply held religious and moral beliefs, such as abortion, contraception, “gender-transition” hormones and surgery, in vitro fertilization, and sterilization.
6. Eliminate the U.S. Department of Education: In its short lifespan since 1976, the Education Department has presided over the decline of American education, impacting many Catholic families in public schools and reinforcing a near-monopoly of taxpayer-funded secular education. At minimum, the Trump administration and Congress should convert federal funds to block grants allowing flexibility and school choice programs in the states. They should also end the Department’s interference with teacher training programs, accreditation, education standards, and testing.
7. Fund school choice: The Trump administration and Congress should incentivize states to adopt school choice policies and funding—such as education savings accounts, tax credits, and vouchers—to help children attend the school or homeschool of their parent’s choice, including Catholic education. They should establish universal savings plans to increase savings limits and allow spending for elementary and secondary education expenses, including homeschooling, in addition to higher education—and ensure that families have equal access to funds for Catholic education. Congress should also increase tax credits for education expenses including homeschooling, increase the federal child tax credit, and increase the child’s age limit to 17.
8. Reform accreditation: The Trump administration and Congress should amend the Higher Education Act to stop requiring accreditation of colleges to receive Title IV student aid, end the Education Department’s approval of accrediting agencies, exempt religious education from accreditation standards and criteria that would compromise an institution’s religious beliefs and governance, ensure that Title IV student aid is not considered federal support that triggers Title IX enforcement, and allow a private right of action against an accreditor by a college that is unjustly discriminated against in the course of accreditation.
9. Strengthen the federal courts: Appoint federal judges with clear records of conformity with the First Amendment, ministerial exception, Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and natural law principles of conscience and religious freedom. The U.S. Supreme Court has been a bulwark against violations of religious freedom, but the Biden administration appointed hundreds of federal judges, and Catholic education is likely to face difficulties in many federal courts. Protecting the Supreme Court and strengthening other federal courts must be a top priority for the Trump administration.
10. Strengthen federal independent agencies: The Trump administration should appoint commissioners to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission who respect religious freedom and will not misinterpret sex discrimination to include “sexual orientation” and “gender ideology.” Also appoint commissioners to the National Labor Relations Board who respect religious freedom and will uphold the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago (1979), which forbade the NLRB from interfering in labor organizing at religious schools and colleges as a violation of the First Amendment.
Assault on Civil Rights
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans unjust discrimination based on religion, race, color, or national origin in public accommodations (Title II), state and municipal facilities (Title III), public education (Title IV), federally funded programs (Title VI), and employment (Title VII).
Only Title VII, regarding employment, also includes a ban on sex discrimination. In 1972, Congress passed Title IX of the Education Amendments to ban sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges. These laws were clearly intended to protect especially women and girls from unjust discrimination.
Today, however, activists for abortion and gender ideology seek to redefine “sex” to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity,” and to add these categories to all the civil rights laws. This would effectively force gender ideology on Catholic education because only Title VII and Title IX include exemptions for religious organizations. While no Catholic school or college would wish the freedom to discriminate unjustly, they must be able to uphold Catholic teaching on abortion, contraception, sexuality, gender, and marriage—a right protected by the First Amendment.