…and we can DOUBLE the size of our Newman Guide Leaders Summit

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After its soft launch this year, our Newman Guide Network will be fully staffed in 2025-26 to support more than a dozen working groups of leaders from Newman Guide institutions and dioceses. Nicholas Reilly will coordinate Network activity, manage an online Network platform, and communicate with Newman Guide leaders.

Anong the Network plans for 2025-26 is a very special event. You may recall our successful summit of Newman Guide college leaders in June 2024. This time we hope to DOUBLE the Newman Guide Leaders Summit by inviting two cohorts to our summer 2026 sequel: leaders of Newman Guide schools and homeschool programs, and leaders of Newman Guide colleges and graduate programs. That would be amazing!

 

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…Read the previous article.

View the entire Programs Report as a PDF.

We plan to DOUBLE our Newman Guide recommendations

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Thank you, and congratulations! In 2024-25, your support helped expand The Newman Guide to recognize more than 100 faithful schools, colleges, and graduate programs! Together, we have made such enormous progress since announcing the Guide’s expansion in 2023.

And now, in the coming year, we’re gearing up to DOUBLE our Newman Guide recommendations to at least 200 model institutions. Members like you have recommended many faithful schools, and this summer, we’ll launch our major recruitment effort to persuade model schools to undergo the rigorous Newman Guide application process. I hope we can count on your support to make it a success! About 50 schools are already underway with their applications, and you’ll be excited to know we’ve been working with Regnum Christi schools and the Chesterton Schools Network.

This month, we welcome our Newman Guide liaison Molly Metzgar to lead this major recruitment drive. Molly has been a Catholic educator for 15 years, most recently as resource director and instructional coach at Newman Guide Recommended St. Rita School in Alexandria, Va. Molly managed St. Rita’s application to The Newman Guide, and she’s excited to help others do the same!

 

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…Read the previous article.

View the entire Programs Report as a PDF.

With your help, we can DOUBLE our Newman Guide promotions

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I’ve spent the past few weeks with The Cardinal Newman Society leadership team, developing major plans for our 2025-2026 fiscal year, which begins July 1. I hope you’re excited as I am by what we have envisioned—and with your continued prayers and generous support, and God’s abundant grace, we can move mountains.

In the next year, your ongoing partnership can help us DOUBLE our online Newman Guide College Fair. We’re scheduling a second online fair in Spring 2026, as well as Fall 2025. In addition, we’d like to DOUBLE the reach of our Newman Guide Scholarship contest. This year, we tested allowing both high school juniors and seniors to enter the contest. In 2025-26, we’ll make the change permanent, which should motivate many more families to learn about Newman Guide colleges.

 

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…Read the previous article.

View the entire Programs Report as a PDF.

Together, we’ll move mountains with God’s grace

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It’s amazing how life comes full-circle! After 32 years of promoting faithful Catholic education, I see how this renewal has blessed my own family—and my wife Rosario and I are deeply grateful for what you’ve made possible, as are so many other families.

Our youngest child, Ana, graduated in May from Aquinas Learning, a Catholic-classical homeschool program, and she’ll attend Ave Maria University in the fall. She’ll be near her brother Joseph, a graduate and now employee at AMU.

Our son Nicholas graduated last month from Christendom College. He’s joining the staff of The Cardinal Newman Society, and his brother Daniel, a student at Benedictine College, is one of our four summer interns. Ian, our oldest, married a fellow Benedictine College grad who previously attended Seton School, also recognized in The Newman Guide. Deo gratias!

 

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View the entire Programs Report as a PDF.

St. John Henry Newman’s beautiful, passionate Stations of the Cross

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Urge your friends to get this eBook and pray with us this Lent

Are you looking for reverent Stations of the Cross meditations from one of the most influential Saints of our time? Join is in praying St. John Henry Newman’s Meditations on the Stations of the Cross during Lent. They can also be used as a personal meditation during Lent or any other time of the year.

Download your copy by clicking the banner image on our website homepage or by visiting the webpage below: www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/offers/newman-stations-2025-dnd.

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They sued their daughters’ Catholic school

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Don’t miss our podcast with Tony Scarpo, a modern Catholic hero

Tony Scarpo has fascinating stories! His autobiography, La Mia Famiglia: Never Let Them Steal Your Name, chronicles his family’s struggles against the mafia in Tampa. That hardship, it turns out, may have been God’s way of forming a soldier for Christ.

Tony later became a successful businessman and, with his wife Barbara, made a large donation to his daughters’ Catholic school. But as happens too often today, Tony and Barbara discovered this Catholic school was pushing radical ideology opposed to Catholic teaching on gender and human dignity.

So they sued to get their money back.

Their story gets even more interesting and inspiring. Hear it on The Cardinal Newman Society Podcast, hosted by Kevin Murphy, on our website and major podcast platforms. Moreover, I am excited to announce this is our first podcast episode with full video as well as audio! Thanks to your support, we purchased three cameras and the training needed for filming and editing. As our podcast grows in reach in popularity, this is an important step toward helping Catholics “see” the value of faithful Catholic education. Check out our podcast with Tony Scarpo and all our interviews with Catholic education heroes.

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The key to pro-life success is Newman Guide education

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Your support is forming a new pro-life generation

It was no accident that our Newman Guide college presidents meeting was the day before the March for Life in Washington, D.C. It is an ideal time to meet, because these colleges have such a big presence at the March, and their presidents are there as well.

As I commented on a social media post about a pro-life initiative at the faithful University of Dallas: “A Catholic education is pro-life, by definition. Thank God for faithful and pro-life Newman Guide schools and colleges… and take note of the Catholic institutions that hide from our core belief in the sanctity of all human life.”

Check out our website for recent articles highlighting the beautiful witness of pro-life Newman Guide education! There is a spread of photos from faithful Catholic schools that will make your heart sing. And the story of the Short family—two generations of heroic pro-life leaders, all graduates of Thomas Aquinas College—is inspiring!

Also, I have a treat for you: our newest eBook, Catholic Means Pro-Life, which you can download at www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/offers/catholic-means-prolife. It is, I believe, a powerful argument for forming young people in faithful Newman Guide education. It’s thanks to you that we can publish and promote these eBooks, and I hope you’ll share it with your family, friends, and parish community.

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Rallying around Newman Guide education

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CNS partners with Heritage Foundation, ADF, Catholic Talent Project

If you and I are going to protect faithful Catholic schools, colleges, and graduate programs, we need strong allies. Several were present at our Newman Guide leaders meeting held on January 23, 2025.

The meeting was co-sponsored by The Heritage Foundation, America’s most influential public policy organization. It is led by Kevin Roberts, former president of Wyoming Catholic College and founding president and headmaster of John Paul the Great Academy in Lafayette, La., formerly recognized on our Catholic Education Honor Roll. He’s a fighter! And he is eager to help us defend religious freedom.

In the latest issue of Our Catholic Mission magazine, Roberts urges faithful educators to seize the day and firmly reestablish Catholic education.

“The next four years are critical for securing the future of Catholic education in the United States for the next 40 years,” he writes. “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.”

Also at the Newman Guide leaders meeting was Alliance Defending Freedom, which has been our expert legal resource for many years. Gregory Baylor, ADF’s Senior Counsel for Government Affairs and Director of Religious Schools, has been a regular at our meetings. Together with Roger Severino, a former civil rights official in the first Trump administration, Greg gave Newman Guide leaders a clear picture of the ongoing threats to religious freedom and how we can defeat them.

We are also proud to work with Tom Carroll, founder of the new Catholic Talent Project, which recruits primarily Newman Guide college graduates to be faithful witnesses in Catholic schools around the country. We invited Tom to address our January meeting and discuss how these colleges can better network with faithful Catholic schools.

Thank you for making the Network and this important meeting in January possible with your prayers and support. Make sure you’re subscribed to our email list to stay informed about more news from this and other upcoming events we have with education leaders.

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Newman Guide Network formally launched

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Leader working groups join online platform, plan in-person meetings

Thanks to your support, the Newman Guide Leaders Network is now fully launched and growing quickly! The Network is an essential part of our work to defend the religious freedom and strengthen the fidelity of Newman Guide institutions.

Your prayers and support have made a big difference toward matching the $250,000 pledge of a loyal friend of our mission to launch the Network. He believes what we’re
doing is so vital, he sold his business and pledged a total of $1 million over four years.

We introduced our Newman Guide Leaders Network online platform to 17 leaders of Newman Guide Recommended colleges at our meeting on January 23 in Washington, D.C. Kelly Salomon, Vice President for Newman Guide Programs, demonstrated the platform’s capabilities, allowing leaders to privately collaborate on joint projects and schedule meetings of the 12 leader working groups that make up the Network.

Already, several working groups—including the Student Life Working Group, Career Development, and Academic Affairs—are working toward a June conference. With your donations to match the $250,000 pledge, we will hire two full-time Network employees in the spring. They will start planning for the Leaders Summit in 2026 and growing the Network with Newman Guide recognition of schools and graduate programs.

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Confronting legal and policy threats with Newman Guide leaders

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Your support fuels collaboration with top experts, attorneys, and the White House

With our focus on Catholic formation and evangelization, we can’t ignore the legal threats meant to keep schools and colleges from properly forming students in the faith. Over the last two decades, your support has allowed us to collaborate with leading legal and policy experts to help inform and defend Newman Guide Recommended institutions.

Education leaders tell us that, beyond our core programs—The Newman Guide and outreach to families—CNS leadership on religious freedom is so important.
With your support:

• You help inform educators of critical legal threats to religious freedom and offer advice to fight back.
• You help file court briefs and represent Newman Guide education to government leaders and the media.
• And you help ensure religious freedom protections for Newman Guide institutions by supporting our work to develop policies that are clearly rooted in their Catholic mission—and then help schools and colleges adopt our policies.

Bob Laird, Senior Counselor to the President of The Cardinal Newman Society, is leading and expanding our work on religious freedom. You will hear more about this in the coming months. In addition to strategizing with our partner organizations, Bob will bring our concerns to the Trump administration. Just recently, we spoke with a new Education Department official who is a close ally and former vice president of a Newman Guide college.

It’s a blessing to have Bob leading this charge: a 22-year Army veteran who studied and taught at West Point before helping negotiate nuclear treaties. He led the Arlington Diocese Family Life Office for many years and helped establish a pro-life OB/GYN practice. Now, his devotion to our mission is inspiring!

You may recall reading our report on Policy Priorities for Catholic Education 2024 (posted on our website), which has been making its rounds to new and influential leaders in Washington, D.C. Already progress has been made on some of the priorities—but more must be done to secure Newman Guide institutions. Please, we need your prayers!

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