Archdiocese of Indianapolis Fights for the Right to Have Faithful Employees

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The Archdiocese of Indianapolis has been fighting several battles for the protection of Catholic education, and last month’s federal court victory was an especially exciting step forward.

A federal district court in Indiana ruled that the Archdiocese and its Roncalli Catholic High School have the First Amendment right to uphold moral standards — not only for religion teachers, as the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed last summer in its Our Lady of Guadalupe School ruling, but also for other employees who aid in the Christian formation of students.

“Catholic schools focus on the complete person, made in God’s image and likeness, not just on the mind or on a subject matter,” wrote my colleague Dr. Dan Guernsey last year. “Learning and formation happen concurrently. They are entwined.”

His position paper, “All Employees Matter in the Mission of Catholic Education,” made the important argument that every employee of a Catholic school is important to its mission of educating and forming young people in the Catholic faith. Although last year’s Supreme Court ruling focused on a Catholic school religion teacher, the ministerial exception — which prevents federal courts from interfering in employment decisions that substantially involve religious duties — ought to also protect a faithfully Catholic school or college with regard to teachers of all subjects as well as other employees and administrators.

The Roncalli case centers on a school guidance counselor who worked closely with students. Counseling is a duty that relates just as strongly to the Christian formation of students as teaching, and Catholic school counselors must model the moral teachings of the Church as an example to students. Sadly, the Roncalli counselor entered into a same-sex marriage and was dismissed.

Roncalli and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis did not shy away from the Church’s moral beliefs in their employee policies and in their legal defense. By establishing a clear moral expectation for employees, the school has a strong claim to First Amendment protections under the Free Exercise Clause. More important, it ensures that the good of its students is first and foremost protected.

Much More to Come

The struggle is not over for Archbishop Charles Thompson and his Indianapolis schools, but the outlook is brighter.

Although the guidance counselor is appealing the Roncalli decision to the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, that is the same court that in July dismissed a lawsuit by a Chicago parish music director who also entered into a same-sex union. The court invoked the ministerial exception, rejecting the plaintiff’s argument that the exception covers only complaints about hiring and firing decisions and not claims of a hostile work environment.

“A Catholic school has freedom to hire and fire ministers based on alignment with the Catholic Church’s religious teachings about sex, sexual orientation, and marriage,” the Newman Society noted in an amicus brief in the case.

“But if a Catholic school minister engages in a course of conduct that violates the Catholic Church’s teachings, and the school persistently communicates that the minister has strayed from the school’s moral expectations and should repent,” then the school could have been forced to stand trial had the 7th Circuit agreed to narrow the scope of the ministerial exception.

Another guidance counselor from Roncalli, who was also fired for entering into a same-sex union, is pursuing a separate lawsuit. That case is before the same federal judge who dismissed the similar case last month.

Meanwhile, same-sex partners at two other Indianapolis-area Catholic schools have fought the Archdiocese and its moral standards for school employees. One of them, a teacher who was dismissed from Cathedral Catholic High School in Indianapolis, saw his lawsuit dismissed in Marion County Superior Court in May, but he is appealing the ruling.

His legally married partner still teaches at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School, which refuses to abide by archdiocesan policy. Archbishop Thompson took action in 2019 to declare the school no longer Catholic and forbid Mass in its chapel, but the school appealed to the Vatican, which for two years has failed to provide any resolution.

So there is much more to come, but the rulings this summer reinforce the scope of the ministerial exception and give hope to Catholic educators. Perhaps the most important lesson that can be drawn in the meantime is that Catholic schools and colleges should continue to ensure that employees are committed wholly to the mission of the school and the Church. It’s legally protected and it’s the right thing to do for Catholic families.

Every employee in a Catholic school, from the principal to the gym teacher, is important to the mission of Catholic education. Clear and consistently enforced policies that expect employees to model moral behavior is a key part of leading young people to Christ.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Thomas Aquinas College Plans New Leadership, Same Faithful Mission

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Once oppressed in Ireland because of his Catholic faith, Dr. Paul O’Reilly is preparing to take the helm at one of America’s most exciting and celebrated Catholic institutions, Thomas Aquinas College.

Current President Dr. Michael McLean will step down at the end of this school year, following the celebration of the college’s 50th anniversary. In 11 years, McLean has successfully strengthened the college despite challenges including wildfires and threats to religious freedom. He led the establishment of a second campus in Massachusetts, providing the same faithfully Catholic, Great Books program that has earned the California institution high marks in secular rankings and the recommendation of The Cardinal Newman Society.

O’Reilly clearly has some big shoes to fill. I recently congratulated him on his selection as the college’s next president, which he says is “a high honor that is quite humbling.”

For O’Reilly, the goals and academic structure at Thomas Aquinas College are pretty much the same today as they were when he attended the college as a student 40 years ago. “I still recognize this college, I still love this college,” O’Reilly says.

But Dr. McLean and his team have made some major advancements, including expanding the Santa Paula, California, campus and quickly establishing a strong foundation in Northfield, Massachusetts.

“It’s a great time to take over,” O’Reilly says. “The college is strong, it’s growing and has expanded to the East Coast. Don’t ask us why we have campuses in California and Massachusetts. That’s God’s plan. We needed to expand, because we had more students applying than we could accept.”

The mission and the vision remain the same, and that’s what O’Reilly wants to maintain: a classical liberal arts education unlike any other in the world, that forms students to appreciate and understand the true, the good and the beautiful.

“We can provide a serious Catholic formation, not just in philosophy and theology but also in various other areas,” O’Reilly says. “To see the impact that we’re having is exciting to me.”

The choice of O’Reilly, an alumnus who has served the college for 30 years as a faculty member and then vice president for advancement, is a great reminder that a college’s impact is only as good as its people and their devotion to its mission. O’Reilly recognizes that fact. He believes that one of the most important aspects of maintaining the vision and the mission of the college is the hiring of good faculty.

“Schools go astray when the faculty are not of one mind of the mission of the college,” he says. “The faculty know what we’re about, and they support it.”

One of O’Reilly’s strongest supporters will be Dr. McLean, who returns to the faculty after formally handing over the presidency.

O’Reilly’s own journey to California started in Northern Ireland, where his family was persecuted for their Catholic faith by Protestant extremists. He and his siblings were adopted by their aunt and uncle in Canada, following the tragic death of his mother in a car accident.

God led him to Thomas Aquinas College, exemplifying the important role that faithful Catholic education can have in a person’s life. I am excited to see how he steers the college into this new chapter of its history. I have great admiration for his predecessor, having observed and worked alongside Dr. McLean on Catholic education issues for the past several years, and I have every reason to expect that Dr. O’Reilly will continue in the same direction.

May God bless both these men for their admirable dedication to forming young people in wisdom and virtue, and may he grant Thomas Aquinas College many more years of providing extraordinary education.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Teaching Racial Harmony from Theology of the Body

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How should Catholic educators respond to the racial turmoil in recent years? Instead of adopting new materials and programs rooted in critical race theory, the Church already has a treasury of wisdom to draw upon.

I recently spoke about this with my colleague, Dr. Denise Donohue, who seems to be on to something important. She told me Catholic educators should discuss race from the foundation of Christian anthropology and St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, with its insights about human dignity and creation — and I think she’s exactly right.

Donohue is vice president for educator resources at the Cardinal Newman Society and has been a leader and teacher at Catholic schools and a university professor. Last year she worked with Dr. Joan Kingsland, a theologian and curriculum and training specialist at Ruah Woods Press, to co-author the “Standards of Christian Anthropology,” which has been enthusiastically welcomed by Catholic education leaders to integrate St. John Paul II’s theology across grade levels. They supplement the Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Curriculum Standards for literature, history, math and science, co-authored by Donohue and Dr. Dan Guernsey.

Somewhere within this work are important clues to teaching about race and justice in ways that are appropriate to faithful Catholic education. Hoping to explore the approach further, I put the following questions to Donohue and Kingsland.

Continue reading at Homiletic & Pastoral Review…

Newman Society’s Dan Guernsey Discusses Cancel Culture, Critical Race Theory on ‘Catholic Current’

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Preserving the Catholic worldview in Catholic education means rejecting today’s “cancel culture” and refusing to be compromised by critical race theory, explained Dr. Dan Guernsey, Education Policy Editor and Senior Fellow of The Cardinal Newman Society, on “The Catholic Current” show with Father Robert McTeigue, S.J.

The show aired on July 19 on The Station of the Cross radio. The podcast recording of the 50-minute conversation is available on the Station of the Cross website and on Spotify and Apple podcasts.

The discussion covered a wide range of topics related to cancel culture and critical race theory, including defining the two issues, how they fit into social practices today, how they have affected Catholic education and the appropriate response from Catholic educators and parents.

Critical race theory, Guernsey said, “is not about racism.”

“We all agree and have been trying for many years to stop the sin of racism wherever it is found. We’ve all been fighting this for decade. This is not about racism; this is about replacing one worldview with another.”

As Father McTeigue noted, cancel culture and critical race theory “really aren’t compatible with the Catholic worldview.”

“Cancel culture comes in, [because] they have to cancel the existing worldview,” Guernsey said. “The existing Christian worldview that we’re trying to present in Catholic schools, that’s precisely what they’re trying to cancel.”

Guernsey and Dr. Denise Donohue, Vice President for Educator Resources at The Cardinal Newman Society, recently authored a series of resources for educators and parents regarding the dangers of cancel culture and critical race theory when applied to a Catholic education.

Statement on ruling in Starkey v. Roncalli High School and Archdiocese of Indianapolis

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The Cardinal Newman Society hailed Wednesday’s federal court ruling in Starkey v. Roncalli High School and Archdiocese of Indianapolis as a “landmark ruling with enormous implications for Catholic education and its First Amendment right to expect fidelity and moral behavior from all employees, not just teachers, whose duties impact the Christian formation of students.”

The ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana upholds the ministerial exception according to last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. But the Supreme Court case concerned a lawsuit filed by a religion teacher in a Catholic school. The Indiana case is an important development, because it affirms that the federal court cannot interfere in the employment decisions of a Catholic school regarding its guidance counselor.

The case involves Lynn Starkey, who attempted to sue Roncalli High School and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. She was fired from her job as Co-Director of Guidance when she entered into a same-sex union, a clear violation of Catholic moral teaching and of moral standards for Catholic school employees.

“Wednesday’s ruling is a landmark ruling with enormous implications for Catholic education and its First Amendment right to expect fidelity and moral behavior from all employees, not just teachers, whose duties impact the Christian formation of students,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society.

“Catholic schools must have the freedom to hire educators and other employees who model the teachings of the Church. Catholic schools around the country should take an example from Roncalli High School and the policies of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which have clear moral standards for Catholic school employees. As this case shows, courts will uphold religious freedom when they see consistent application of Catholic moral standards.”

Newman Society President Discusses Critical Race Theory, Catholic Education on Crisis Point Podcast

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The Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly was recently hosted on the Crisis Point Podcast with Eric Sammons, editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine, to discuss why critical race theory is incompatible with Catholic education.

The 45-minute discussion is a helpful guide for Catholic families, leaders and educators on how to avoid dangerous ideologies in Catholic education and instead embrace the wisdom of Church teaching.

“Whether it’s radical feminism, gender ideology or critical race theory,” public schools are vulnerable to the latest ideologies, because they have no solid foundation for their curriculum and must yield to prevailing social trends, explained Reilly.

“With Catholic education, we need to focus on ‘What is Catholic education? What do we do better and why?’” Reilly continued. “If we want to talk about race in Catholic education, which we absolutely should and must, we already have all of the tools in our belt—a couple thousand years of wisdom rooted in the absolute truth of Revelation.”

The Newman Society has recently published resources addressing the “cancel culture” and critical race theory, authored by Vice President for Educator Resources Dr. Denise Donohue and Education Policy Editor and Senior Fellow Dr. Dan Guernsey. Reilly and Sammons also discussed The Newman Society’s work in general, including The Newman Guide, which recommends faithful Catholic colleges. Sammons described The Newman Guide as a “great resource for Catholics everywhere.”

“As the parent of now four who have either gone to college or are in college right now, I tell you what, it’s a great Guide,” said Sammons. “In our family… our rule is we aren’t going to help financially, unless they’re in The Newman Guide.”

library hour

Wrong Way to Teach About Race in Catholic Education

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Human dignity and justice were topics in Catholic education long before the racial division of 2020. They are especially important today, as students need to understand an accurate history of racism and prejudices, learn Christian anthropology that teaches the dignity of all persons regardless of creed or color or origin, and strive for the communion to which Christ calls all of us.

And teaching these topics will remain central to Catholic education long after “critical race theory” has gone away.

But for now, the divisive, political ideology that seems opposed to nearly everything in Western civilization — simply because it is associated with white Europeans — is making headway into public schools. It’s difficult to thwart such efforts by activists, politicians and teacher unions to push false ideologies into public schools, because there is no clear authority or basis for truth in public education — only political power and public opinion.

But Catholic education is different. It is rooted in the truths of our faith, which reveal the foundations of reality, and it embraces classical philosophy and the West’s insights about human society, freedom, conscience, law and more. Therefore, Catholic education and critical race theory are simply incompatible.

There is a “radical disconnect between the Catholic worldview and critical race ideology,” which is why Catholic educators “must remain vigilant and faithful” to avoid allowing falsehood and division from corrupting the classroom, explain Dr. Denise Donohue and Dr. Dan Guernsey of The Cardinal Newman Society in their appeal against the “cancel culture.”

“Critical race theory misapplies personal sin to groups, irredeemably condemns those it labels as oppressors, condemns those who may happen to look like those oppressors, and makes moral demands of those it believes have privilege resulting from historic oppression,” write Donohue and Guernsey. “It also attempts to empower itself by manipulating race-based feelings of guilt and self-loathing in those in any way it connects to these claims. It provides these group-based sinners with a chance to feel righteous and pure in relation to their fellows once they acknowledge their guilt.”

This is “close to the heart of the pharisees whom [Christ] criticizes for their condemning legalism and self-righteousness.” But Catholic education strives to provide students “a clear understanding of sin and human agency and Christ’s expectations of those whom He has forgiven.”

Rather than adopting critical race theory, Catholics should rely on clear instruction provided in Vatican documents, the U.S. bishops’ pastoral letters, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church to address complex topics like justice and human dignity. We have more than 2,000 years of wisdom to draw from!

“Catholic education offers Christ and the Gospel to the world as the ultimate solution to the sufferings and ills of humanity, including areas of social justice,” write Donohue and Guernsey. “The Church does not simply echo programs and agendas inspired by others’ values but brings to the table her own values of faith, forgiveness, mercy, and justice based on the divine revelation she is called to proclaim to all nations.”

Another concern is that critical race theory would trade studies in classical literature for contemporary books that are “shallow” and “politically correct.”

“Great literature provides a forum to explore the depths of the human condition,” explain Guernsey and Donohue. “Unfortunately cruelty, oppression and injustice are a perennial part of that condition. Educators wishing to explore these and related concepts will find no shortage of them throughout classical literature, where students can enter into a grand conversation through the ages with the best thinkers and most artful works humanity has produced.”

Classical literature and Catholic education have withstood the test of time. Critical race theory may have some popularity today, but not for long.

In a culture that constantly embraces new and even radical ideologies, Catholic students need to be taught how to find and hold onto truth across every division and through every age. They should be taught truth especially in the most divisive and heated situations. While critical race theory seeks to divide the world into racial categories, faithful Catholic education by promoting charity, community and rational dialogue can bring about healing through a deep encounter with the Divine Physician.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Statement from the Cardinal Newman Society on 7th Circuit Ruling in Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Paris

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In a very important victory today for religious freedom, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-3 in Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish (July 9, 2021) that the ministerial exception bars “hostile work environment” claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled directly on this point, so the 7th Circuit’s decision is extremely important to Catholic educators and other religious employers.

“This ruling protects faithful Catholic educators and other religious employers from at least some lawsuits, which is especially helpful given the relentless drive to redefine sex discrimination as prohibiting Catholic beliefs about sex, gender and marriage,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “The ministerial exception helps preserve the authentic mission of Catholic educators and all religious organizations.”

The Cardinal Newman Society is excited to have played an important role in the case, filing an amicus brief last October that was prepared by Christian Poland of the Chicago firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP and John Bursch and Rory Gray of Alliance Defending Freedom. The brief helped persuade the full 7th Circuit Court to reconsider and overturn a dangerous 2-1 decision by a panel of the court’s judges, which would have allowed employees fired for moral reasons to work around the ministerial exception by claiming a “hostile workplace” instead of directly challenging their firing.

Today’s ruling comes almost exactly one year after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Agnes Morrissey-Berru (July 8, 2020), which found that the ministerial exception includes Catholic school religion teachers. The Supreme Court protected Catholic schools and colleges from at least some discrimination lawsuits based on conflicts with Catholic moral teaching, but the 7th Circuit panel ruling would have greatly undermined the authority of religious schools, colleges and other organizations over ministerial employees.

The panel decision could have put Catholic education in an “untenable position,” the Newman Society warned in our amicus brief:

“A Catholic school has freedom to hire and fire ministers based on alignment with the Catholic Church’s religious teachings about sex, sexual orientation, and marriage. But if a Catholic school minister engages in a course of conduct that violates the Catholic Church’s teachings, and the school persistently communicates that the minister has strayed from the school’s moral expectations and should repent, the school can now be forced to endure a secular trial.”

The full 7th Circuit Court’s ruling strongly rejects the panel’s opinion and reaffirms the rights of religious employers with regard to ministerial employees.

A Crucial Line of Defense for Catholic Education

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Catholic education could face severe hardships should the religious protection that is built into Title IX — the federal law banning sex discrimination — be taken away. And that is exactly what some activists and the Biden administration hopeto do.

The Administration and some federal courts now interpret Title IX as a ban on teaching and upholding authentic gender, sexuality and marriage. But since the law was first enacted in 1972, Title IX has exempted religious schools and colleges from any application of the law that conflicts with their religious beliefs. Predictably, LGBT activists are now striving to undo that exemption.

For Catholics, it should be a top priority to hold that line. It doesn’t mean that we should focus only on exempting religion from bad laws while our culture collapses. But ultimately winning the culture war requires that we form young people in faith, reason and wisdom — all of which are in short supply today. I see no path to a renewal of the Church and culture without a renewal of faithful Catholic education.

We must carve out protection for Catholic education if we are ever to win the larger battle. If the religious exemption to Title IX falls, Catholic schools and colleges will probably fall also, and even Catholic homeschooling may be targeted. That’s because the impact will be felt far beyond restrictions on federal money for education, which is the trigger that subjects an institution to Title IX. Even more, a collapse of the Title IX religious exemption is likely to cascade into anti-Catholic bigotry in state law, accreditation, academic associations, athletic leagues, etc., until there is minimal tolerance for any form of truly Catholic education.

 

Lawsuits target exemption

Among the threats to the Title IX religious exemption are two lawsuits which are unlikely to succeed — but if they do, the consequences could be devastating.

One of the lawsuits seeks to exploit a narrow interpretation of the Title IX exemption itself. The exemption states that Title IX “shall not apply to an educational institution which is controlled by a religious organization, if the application of this subsection would not be consistent with the religious tenets of such organization.”

Two students who were expelled from Fuller Theological Seminary for violating rules against same-sex unions have asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to deny the seminary access to the Title IX exemption, because Fuller is nondenominational and independent of any organized religion. This, they argue, is not within the scope of institutions that are “controlled by a religious organization.”

The danger to Catholic education is enormous, should this argument prevail. Most Catholic colleges and many lay-established Catholic schools in the U.S. are not legally owned by the Church. They have independent boards of trustees that legally control the institutions. If the Title IX exemption is interpreted to exclude such independent operations, many of our Catholic schools and colleges as well as America’s nondenominational Christian institutions would no longer be protected.

Just last month, the Cardinal Newman Society and a number of faithful Catholic schools and colleges joined an amicus brief urging the Ninth Circuit to acknowledge that an institution controlled by a board of trustees that is committed to certain religious beliefs is, in fact, “controlled by a religious organization” for the purposes of Title IX. That is precisely how the U.S. Department of Education has always interpreted the exemption. The regulations implementing Title IX exempt any “educational institution [that] has a published institutional mission that is approved by the governing body of an educational institution and that includes, refers to, or is predicated upon religious tenets, beliefs, or teachings.”

But there’s another lawsuit that takes aim at the entire Title IX exemption. A group of students and alumni from various Christian colleges have filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Education, calling for the religious exemption in Title IX to be struck down as unconstitutional because, by protecting religious institutions, it creates an “establishment of religion.” This contradicts longstanding practice of the Education Department and religious exemptions throughout federal law.

 

Stand firm

If the religious exemption to Title IX were struck down, Catholic schools and colleges could be forced to give up federal aid and, much worse, face a growing number of legal and social obstacles that could render Catholic educators unable to promote and educate their students in the eternal truths of the Church, both moral and academic.

Meanwhile, the Biden administration is pursuing an end run around the Title IX exemption that could have similar consequences. By promoting the Equality Act — which was approved in the House and has been introduced in the Senate — the Administration has pinned its hopes on expanding the definition of discrimination under the separate Title VI and thereby opening the door to lawsuits and restrictions against religious education.

Catholic schools should be prepared to defend against these ever evolving and worrisome attacks on religious freedom. Courts have historically turned a kinder eye to institutions that maintain a sincere and consistent adherence to their professed moral beliefs. The best defense against these attacks, then, is for Catholic schools and colleges to consistently uphold the truths of the Church in their teaching, policies and activities.

The Church is used to weathering attacks. It has endured far worse than agenda-driven activists and lawyers seeking to overturn U.S. civil rights law. And recent court victories for religious freedom offer hope that the latest attacks will fail. But the attacks are worrisome nonetheless because of their direct opposition to religious freedom, and if they succeed, they could hurt thousands of Catholic families.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Catholic College Graduate Launches Online Film Camp for High School Students

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Tara Stone

“The Church has long realized that art speaks to the human soul in a uniquely powerful way,” says Tara Stone, a graduate of John Paul the Great Catholic University in Escondido, Calif., who has launched an online film camp this summer for high school students that offers college credit through JPCatholic. She believes it’s important for young Catholics to be involved in the arts and create “well-crafted stories in film and television” that reflect “goodness, truth and beauty.”

The Newman Society recently asked Stone to share about her experience at Newman Guide recommended John Paul the Great Catholic University in Escondido, Calif., and about her offerings for high school students this summer, as a part of “Profiles in Faithful Catholic Education” series.

Newman Society: What was your experience like at John Paul the Great Catholic University, and how has it impacted your career and life?

Tara Stone: My experience as a student at John Paul the Great Catholic University was unique in a lot of ways. The university was still very small and very new when I was a student—I graduated with about 20 other students, and we were only the third class to graduate. My experience was also unique in that I was 23 years old when I started my freshman year. I had spent several years at a much larger, secular university and ultimately decided not to transfer any credits when I enrolled at JPCatholic. I wanted to begin with a clean slate.

Having taken other college courses, which shaped my expectations, I was admittedly impressed with the academic rigor of my JPCatholic courses—not so much because the content was difficult to grasp or the concepts particularly complex, but because the hands-on nature of filmmaking requires an enormous amount of time and effort and practice to learn and do well.

The three years of my undergrad were three of the busiest years of my life, and they prepared me well for working in the industry. My senior year was especially helpful in launching my career: I pitched the idea to my professors that instead of several small senior projects, our entire class could collaborate on a single feature film. My professors gave me the green light to write the script, and by the end of our senior year, we had shot the entire thing. Eventually, the film, Red Line, received distribution on DVD and VOD. Having that feature film credit on my resume has been invaluable, and I’ve been able to find work in the industry ever since.

Apart from the academic/professional impact, JPCatholic also shaped my faith journey in a really important way. I’m a cradle Catholic, and I was already serious about my faith when I started at JPCatholic—that was part of the reason I chose to go there and start over on my undergrad degree—but while I was a student there, I developed the habit of going to daily Mass and daily adoration. Those habits were integral to my vocational discernment. A few years after I graduated from JPCatholic, I became a consecrated virgin living in the world.

Newman Society: How did the “Story Masters Film Academy,” which you run with two JPCatholic faculty members, come about? Can you tell us about your film camp for high school students this summer?

Tara Stone: At the beginning of 2020, I was working for a video production company that mostly made multimedia programs for the Air Force, though we did make a handful of documentaries as well. When the COVID pandemic shut everything down in March of 2020, the company’s owner told us all to work from home for the next couple weeks. A couple weeks turned into several months. Meanwhile, all the projects we had been working on were cancelled mid-contract.

With the abundant free time I suddenly had, I decided to self-publish two of my screenplays in paperback and e-book format. Both scripts are period genre films that aren’t being made anymore, so I didn’t (and still don’t) think they would ever be produced. But they are good, fun stories that I wanted to share with the world. At some point, I realized there could be potential to sell them as educational tools to film instructors—they could be used to demonstrate script formatting and story structure, or they could be used to practice practical production skills like scheduling and budgeting.

I reached out to Christopher Riley, who taught my screenwriting classes and still teaches at JPCatholic. He agreed that my scripts could be valuable educational tools, but during the course of our conversation, he suggested that I could seize on an even bigger business opportunity—an opportunity to provide online screenwriting classes to high school students and use my scripts as course materials. Not only that, but Chris wanted to be my business partner and write the curriculum. Shortly after our initial conversation, we roped Nathan Scoggins in to add directing courses to our offerings. Like Chris, Nathan was one of my professors at JPCatholic and still teaches there. Since all three of us have a connection to JPCatholic, partnering with JPCatholic seemed like a natural fit. And so, Story Masters courses are eligible for college credit through JPCatholic.

This summer, we will have our very first Summer Film Camp and Festival for high school students. The summer camp runs from June 14 through July 23. Students will be challenged to write and direct a short film in five weeks, and their final films will be showcased in the film festival during the last week. It’s all online, as all our courses are, but each week begins and ends with a live Zoom session with me, Chris, and Nathan to guide students through their projects.

Newman Society: Why do you think it’s important for young creative Catholics to develop their artistic gifts? Why do you think it’s important for the Church to be involved in the arts?

Tara Stone: Art has always been an important part of the Church’s work of evangelization and catechesis. The Church has long realized that art speaks to the human soul in a uniquely powerful way.

Right now, film and television are being dominated by a culture that is deeply confused and, in many ways, morally depraved. And now, especially in the last year of being in various stages of lockdown, people are consuming unbelievable amounts of media. The human soul naturally craves goodness, truth, and beauty, which is why we are drawn to well-crafted stories in film and television. Unfortunately, much of what’s on offer today are merely counterfeits of goodness, truth, and beauty. If young Catholic artists don’t step up and create, the counterfeits will fill the void.

In my own life, I’ve often related my responsibility as a writer to the Parable of the Talents: God gave me some measure of talent as a writer, and I have an obligation to develop that gift and make it work for God’s Kingdom. Otherwise, I’m like the servant who buries his talent in the ground, and that servant’s story doesn’t end well. I would much rather hear at the end of my days, “Well done, good and faithful servant… enter into the joy of your master.”