American Jesuits Are in a Free Fall, and the Crisis is Getting Worse

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Excitement is building for Jesuits worldwide as their general congregation to elect a new superior general is quickly approaching this fall. The election presents an important opportunity for them to reflect on the future of the Society of Jesus — and to address serious concerns. Even under a Jesuit Pope, the order suffers from a steady decline in membership, dissent and moral confusion within its ranks, and a widening gulf between many Jesuit universities and the Church.

Perhaps that’s why there has been so much attention lately to the announcement that 20 new Jesuit priests were ordained this year in the United States, Canada and Haiti. That’s good news, with the hope that these new priests will be true Soldiers of Christ and embrace the fullness of Church teaching, like their predecessors of old and some notable giants today.

Unfortunately, the ordinations have given rise to misleading claims that the Jesuits’ membership woes are coming to an end. Last month, a Jesuit official told the National Catholic Register that “the trends of new Jesuit entrants show demographic stability is on the horizon.” As best I can determine, that’s fantasy. It’s easy to understand why the Jesuits would look for any sign of hope after decades of decline, but exaggeration is dangerous if it diverts attention away from a very real crisis that is deeper than the numbers alone.

Again, someone seems to have spun a tale to Catholic World Report, which last week declared that, contrary to warnings in recent years, “there never really was an ‘implosion’ of the Jesuits worldwide.”

But there was … and still is. The “implosion” claim was made by Matthew Archbold of The Cardinal Newman Society in 2013, when he cited predictions of “a demographic free fall with declining ordinations and former Jesuits outnumbering active Jesuits in the United States.” Most convincingly, he cited hard data published in 2011 by Georgetown University’s Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) that clearly supported the forecast.

I checked the CARA data again — including a newer study of Jesuit numbers released in 2015 — as well as both Jesuit and Vatican sources, and the numbers remain dismal. Jesuit membership has been spiraling downward for more than 50 years. It’s possible that new entrants and ordinations during the three-year pontificate of Pope Francis could help slow the rate of decline in the Jesuit order, but that’s yet to be proven. What’s certain is that the Jesuit order has a membership crisis, and there’s no reason to predict stability or growth anytime soon.

First, let’s take a look at the local numbers. It’s suggested that this year’s 20 Jesuit ordinations is a high number for the North American region, and therefore we should be excited about it. Perhaps so, but there’s not much data to confirm the long-term impact on the order. According to the website for the North American Jesuit provinces, the continent had 28 new Jesuit priests last year, 19 in 2014, and 16 in 2013. Therefore, 20 is relatively good, and yet it’s a substantial decline from last year’s 28 — the largest number of Jesuit ordinations for North America in 15 years.

Should Jesuits be concerned that last year’s number was not sustained? Or should they be excited, because 20 ordinations is significantly higher than in prior years? Is it just a momentary benefit of having a Jesuit pope, or is it a trend? Unfortunately, I couldn’t find data for North America earlier than 2013, when Pope Francis went to Rome. After a fruitless Web search, I requested information from the communications secretary of the North American provinces, but I was only given numbers of Jesuits worldwide.

Another Jesuit official told the Register that there’s a second reason for hope: Although the number of U.S. entrants to the Society of Jesus declined from 102 in 1982 to a low of 45 in 2010, it has since increased to the “mid-50s” this year. Here we’re not talking about ordinations to the priesthood, but novices preparing to be priests and brothers.

That’s indeed hopeful, yet uncertain. While the Register was told there have been no fewer than 45 entrants in the U.S. alone since 1982, CWR reports that 44 men entered novitiates in both the U.S. and Canada in 2015. CARA documents Jesuit membership in the United States (including Jamaica, Belize and Micronesia) and reports 177 entrants from 2009 to 2013, which is an average of just 35 per year. The numbers don’t match up.

Regardless, the numbers of entrants do not tell us as much as we’d like about the future of the Jesuits. If the numbers of new entrants and priests is increasing annually, that’s a hopeful sign. But ultimately, showing growth in the Society of Jesus requires producing a net gain of their membership numbers. This means counting not only new additions but also subtracting the many novices who depart each year before completing their studies. Furthermore, we must subtract the number of Jesuits who pass away each year.

If we take the deceased into account, any prediction of approaching “stability” in the Society of Jesus seems ludicrous. The Register reports that the average age of the North American Jesuits is 65. In the period 2008-2013, CARA counts 445 Jesuit deaths in the United States, an average of 89 per year. In the same period, the U.S. Jesuits had a net gain of just 10 novices per year, subtracting those who departed from those who stayed.

Putting it all together, American Jesuits are still in a free fall. CARA reports that the number of Jesuits in the United States declined by more than half in just 25 years, from 4,823 in 1988 to 2,395 in 2013. Presented in five-year increments, the data shows much sharper declines in the most recent two periods (15.2 percent in 2003-2008, 14.4 percent in 2008-2013) than in the prior three periods (hovering around 12 percent). That’s not improvement by any stretch of the imagination; it’s a worsening crisis.

Are things any better for the Jesuits worldwide? Well, some regions are certainly doing better than others. As CARA notes, “The clear majority of younger Jesuits are now coming from Asia and Africa.” The Center adds, “As Jesuits gather in 2016 for a General Congregation and to elect a new Superior General, the demographic center of the Jesuits will be in South Asia and the global South.”

That’s true, but somehow CWR cites the CARA data wrong when it reports: “… the number of Jesuit priests in East Asia (including Australia, Philippines, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, China, Thailand, and Myanmar) as well as the number of Jesuit priests in Latin America have stayed steady since the 1980s.” In fact, CARA’s study of Jesuit membership finds a 33 percent decline in Latin America and a 13 percent decline in East Asia during the period 1988-2013.

CWR also exaggerates its case for stability in the Society of Jesus with this statement: “Although Jesuit priests in Europe and United States declined in number, there was an increase in the number of Jesuit priests in South Asia (including India, Nepal and Sri Lanka) and Africa.” The implication is that the membership decline in Europe and the United States (7,057 Jesuits from 1988 to 2013) was somehow offset by the much smaller increases in South Asia and Africa (880 Jesuits during the same period).

Instead, the huge declines in Europe and America — together with the significant declines in Latin America and East Asia — have driven a worldwide decline in Jesuit membership since 1965. Over the prior 425 years, the order had grown to its largest number of 36,038 priests and brothers, as reported in the Vatican’s Annuario Pontificio. But from 1965 to 2015, membership dropped precipitously to 16,740. That’s a fall of more than 50 percent in just 50 years.

I’ve been told by the spokeswoman for the North American provinces that this year’s membership is 16,376 worldwide. That makes perfect sense; it’s consistent with the trends. By contrast, recent news reports claim “more than 17,000” and “just over 18,000,” but they cite no sources for their data. Those numbers couldn’t possibly be correct.

So there was a sharp decline over the last 50 years — but perhaps most of the drop occurred during the late 1960s and the 1970s, that tumultuous period following Vatican II, when there was widespread dissent from Humanae Vitae? Surprisingly, that’s not the case. The decline in Jesuit membership was indeed steepest (19.5 percent) during that first decade (1965-1975), when many priests and religious abandoned their vows. But the most recent decade (2005-2015) has also seen a sharp decline of 15.7 percent. Over the last three decades, the loss as a percentage of members has been getting worse, from a decline of 10.4 percent in 1984-1995 (no numbers are available for 1985), to 13.3 percent in the next decade and 15.7 percent most recently.

How about raw numbers? The Vatican reports that from 2005 to 2015, the Jesuits declined by 3,110 priests and brothers, which is less than half the actual decline (7,020) in the troubled decade of 1965-1975. But still, there were twice as many Jesuits in the first decade as the last. And the membership decline has worsened over the last three decades: from a drop of 2,665 in 1984-1995, to 3,035 in 1995-2005, to 3,110 this past decade. Again, that’s no sign of revival; the loss of members has been getting worse.

Moreover, those losses are not sporadic. Jesuit membership has declined every year since 1965, except for a brief uptick from 1984 to 1986.

Facts are facts. Maybe there are glimmers of hope in recent numbers, but overall the Society of Jesus is losing ground. Instead of counting on a bump in numbers thanks to Pope Francis, Jesuits might do better to consider whether these numbers reflect a greater instability in the order and a loss of reputation in the Church. While there are a number of exceptional Jesuits, the Society suffers from repeated controversy and moral confusion among others in its ranks. The reputation of the Jesuits as the “foot soldiers” for Christ is repeatedly undermined by many of their Jesuit universities, which are rapidly losing their Catholic identity and fidelity.

Normally we would celebrate the Memorial of St. Ignatius of Loyola on July 31, but this year it yields to the Sunday feast. This Sunday might be an opportunity for wayward Jesuits — instead of the usual celebration of the great Saint and his Company — to focus attention on the Eucharist and the unity of all the Faithful with the Magisterium of the Church, which should be the foundation for Jesuit education and spirituality. I bet that St. Ignatius would approve.

This article was originally published by The National Catholic Register.

The Land O’ Lakes Statement Has Caused Devastation For 49 Years

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In hindsight, what they did was appalling.

But when several Catholic university leaders gathered in the summer of 1967 at a remote retreat in Land O’ Lakes, Wisconsin, did they fully anticipate the consequences of their vision for “modern” Catholic education? Hopefully not.

It was 49 years ago, on July 20-23, when Notre Dame’s Father Theodore Hesburgh, C.S.C., gathered his peers to draft and sign the “Land O’ Lakes Statement,” a declaration of the independence of Catholic universities from “authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself.”

Over the course of just a few years following the statement, most Catholic colleges and universities in America shed their legal ties to the Church and handed their institutions over to independent boards of trustees. In the quest for secular prestige and government funding, many went so far as to remove the crucifixes from their classroom walls and to represent their Catholic identity in historical terms (such as, “in the Jesuit tradition”).

The wound of secularization deepened over the next few decades: many Catholic colleges and universities weakened their core curricula in favor of the Harvard model of electives and specialization, adopted a radical notion of academic freedom, embraced relativism and political correctness, and largely abandoned the project of forming young people for Christ outside the classroom.

It wasn’t until 1990 that the “Land O’ Lakes Statement” was soundly repudiated by Saint Pope John Paul II in Ex corde Ecclesiae, the apostolic constitution for Catholic universities. Although not yet accepted in its entirety, Ex corde Ecclesiae turned the tide toward renewal of Catholic identity and gave prominence to those faithful institutions that never accepted the Land O’ Lakes mentality. In the meantime, however, Fr. Hesburgh’s declaration did much damage.

It’s for good reason, then, that the “Land O’ Lakes Statement” has become a focal point in American Church history. It’s sometimes described as an explosive, revolutionary act that changed the trajectory of Catholic higher education, which may be an exaggeration. But it certainly was a watershed moment, evidenced by the rapid changes that followed the statement. It was also the culmination of years of unrest in Catholic universities — in many respects, a moral struggle with the temptation to pride and prestige at the expense of Catholic identity.

With the “Land O’ Lakes Statement,” that struggle was momentarily lost. It represented a public, deliberate choice for opportunity over mission, resulting in a voluntary exile from the once-lush gardens of truth and wisdom that had distinguished the world’s Catholic universities.

The Allure of Prestige

For most Catholic university graduates and educators before the late 1960s, alma mater was still as much Mother Church as her academic institutions. But more than a decade before the “Land O’ Lakes Statement,” influential academics were already expressing disappointment with the public status of Catholic universities in the United States.

This was argued forcefully by Monsignor John Tracy Ellis, a Church history professor at the Catholic University of America, whose lament was published and disseminated by Fordham University:

“…in no western society is the intellectual prestige of Catholicism lower than in the country where, in such respects as wealth, numbers, and strength of organization, it is so powerful. …Admittedly, the weakest aspect of the Church in this country lies in its failure to produce national leaders and to exercise commanding influence in intellectual circles, and this at a time when the numbers of Catholics in the United States… and their material resources are incomparably superior to those of any other branch of the universal Church.”

Note that Msgr. Ellis did not claim that Catholics were intellectually lacking, but only that they lacked academic “influence” and “prestige.” The prior claim would have been astonishing, given that Ellis’ university colleagues included (until 1950) then-Bishop Fulton Sheen — who not only was known for his radio and television preaching, but also was described as a highly gifted philosopher.

The Thomas Reeves biography of the Venerable Sheen reveals a much earlier battle, in which the saintly professor testified to Catholic University’s board of trustees against attempts to make the institution a “Catholic Harvard,” with emphasis on secular prestige. At a 1935 trustees meeting, Sheen called for the “primacy of the spiritual” in Catholic education:

“The task of integrating the supernatural with the natural, of infusing human knowledge with the divine, of complementing our knowledge of things with our knowledge of God, of making all things Theocentric, is the business of a Catholic university.”

He added that the bishops’ national university:

“…is to education what the Catholic Church is to religion, namely, the leaven in the mass. The Church is not one of the sects, it is the unique life of Christ; the Catholic University is not one of the American Universities, it is their soul.”

The Deck is Stacked

It would be wrong, then, to assume that Catholic identity was suddenly under assault by the participants in the 1967 retreat at Land O’ Lakes. It had endured through many trials. The appeal for academic independence from “all authority” had perhaps found its time, when society itself seemed to have turned against tradition and values.

Two other false notions about the Land O’ Lakes meeting deserve to be corrected. For one thing, the retreat was not an isolated gathering of independent reformers; it was surprisingly “official,” one of several regional meetings around the world to help draft a statement by the Vatican-affiliated International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), of which Fr. Hesburgh was then president. The final Vatican-influenced document, “The Catholic University in the Modern World,” was far more traditional in its understanding of Catholic education, and in fact it is quoted in Ex corde Ecclesiae.

Second, although the Land O’ Lakes meeting was identified as the North American regional delegation to the IFCU, it was never truly intended to represent all of the region’s Catholic colleges and universities. Subsequent histories and Notre Dame’s own description indicate that the participants were focused on large, research institutions — an odd emphasis, since none of the represented universities had truly attained that status, but perhaps they aspired to it.

Moreover, it seems the deck was stacked with Fr. Hesburgh’s allies: only 10 universities were represented, including six from the U.S.: Boston College, Catholic University of America, Fordham, Georgetown, Notre Dame and Saint Louis. (The rector of the Catholic University of America was alone in publicly criticizing the resulting statement.) Of the 26 signers, seven were from Notre Dame and its sponsoring Holy Cross Fathers, and ten were Jesuits or leaders of Jesuit institutions.

Some of the signers were especially notable: Archbishop Paul Hallinan of Atlanta, Father Theodore McCarrick (then president of the Pontifical University of Puerto Rico and later Archbishop of Washington) and Father Vincent O’Keefe, S.J. (later Vicar General of the Society of Jesus).

Also intriguing is the signature by John Cogley, a leftist scholar representing the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions. It’s not clear what he was doing at Land O’ Lakes, except that he was a celebrated intellectual in certain circles. He had been religion editor of the New York Times and a principal writer of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech advocating the separation of church and state. He later dissented from Humanae Vitae and became an Episcopalian.

For a Few Coins

I leave it to the reader to explore more of the statement itself, but I’ll make one more claim about the motivations behind it. Above I accused the signers of succumbing to the temptation for worldly prestige. But closely tied to secular prestige is the desire for money, which seems also to have been a related factor.

In 1987, Sister Brigid Driscoll, former president of Marymount College in New York, offered a defense of the “Land O’ Lakes” mentality:

“In the 1960s and early 1970s, most Catholic colleges severed even tenuous ties to the Church…

“We became independent and named lay trustees because of accreditation, the increased sophistication of higher education as a major enterprise and because of the demands of growth…

“Those decisions meant a windfall for the schools a few years later when the federal government offered financial aid to independent colleges…

“Any indication that these schools were under ecclesiastical authority could cast doubt on their independence and thus jeopardize that aid…”

The same year, in the New York Times (Jan. 16, 1987), Fr. Hesburgh made a similar claim:

“Catholic colleges and universities receive a large amount of financial help in different forms from the public monies of the state.

“…if there were no academic freedom and institutional autonomy for Catholic higher education, it might very well be that the [U.S. Supreme] Court would rule that public funding for Catholic institutions of higher learning is unconstitutional.”

In fact, however, the Supreme Court has ruled quite differently in support of religious institutions. Today some of the most faithful Catholic colleges like Franciscan University of Steubenville and Thomas Aquinas College participate freely in federal student aid programs, as does the “ecclesiastical” Catholic University of America.

It’s sadly true that, for the Catholic universities that embraced Land O’ Lakes, secularization has been rewarded with large endowments and state aid. But it’s simply not true that federal aid would have been unavailable to universities that maintained formal ties to the Church. Ironically, Notre Dame still is under some legal control by the Holy Cross Fathers; its students receive grants and loans, and it has received numerous federal grants from the Obama administration (albeit after giving the President an honorary degree).

For many smaller Catholic colleges, secularization has not benefited them financially. They struggle to distinguish themselves from state universities that provide the same job training at less cost.

Marymount College in New York is a case in point. Recall that Sr. Driscoll seemed proud of her institution’s choice to sever “tenuous ties to the Church,” bringing a “windfall” of taxpayer funds. The College closed its doors in 2007 for financial reasons.

This article was originally published by The National Catholic Register.

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California Dreams Up Nightmare for Catholic Education

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A nightmare scenario has further developed in California, threatening to severely harm Catholic colleges as legislators pursue a radical “gender ideology” and the dismantling of religious freedom.

New amendments to an anti-religious education bill working its way through the California legislature clearly impact Catholic colleges’ employment practices, effectively forcing them to drop out of the state’s financial aid programs for students.

Previous versions of Senate Bill (SB) 1146 made religious colleges, except for seminaries and similar programs, subject to the nondiscrimination clause in California’s Equity in Higher Education Act. That clause forbids discrimination against students with regard to “sexual orientation,” and its prohibition against sex discrimination has been interpreted to include self-declared “gender identity.”

The bill also punishes religious colleges that have legally obtained exemptions from the federal Title IX law, which bans sex discrimination in education but has been interpreted by the Obama administration to require accommodations for “transgender” students. It requires those colleges to publicly declare their exemption in a variety of ways to a variety of audiences, including prospective students and employees.

It is, in effect, a modern “Scarlet Letter” for faithful Christian educators.

These provisions apply only to colleges accepting state funds. But nearly all religious colleges in California participate in the Cal Grant program, which provides students up to $9,084 if they attend a private four-year college. Exclusion from the program would make attendance at a Catholic college unaffordable for many, and Catholic colleges would be at a severe disadvantage in competing for students.

All of these terrible elements remain in the new version of the bill. But according to the legal experts at Alliance Defending Freedom, recent amendments added by the state Assembly Judiciary Committee make the situation worse.

The bill now amends not only the Equity in Higher Education Act, but also the state’s Government Code 11135, which clearly concerns discrimination in employment as well as student policies. There was some ambiguity as to whether prior versions of the bill applied only to student policies, but the Government Code clearly references employment practices including hiring, firing, faculty expectations and health benefits.

This is unacceptable for a faithful Catholic institution, which must ensure that its professors uphold Catholic teaching in the classroom and by their personal example.

With regard to students, there has been some helpful clarification in the new version of the bill. A religious college is explicitly permitted to enforce moral codes, mandatory religious practices and housing policies that are applied universally without consideration of a student’s claim to gender or sexuality. Also, a religious college may refuse the use of its facilities for purposes that violate its religious mission — presumably including same-sex weddings.

However, the new bill is explicit in its requirement that religious colleges make single-sex facilities and residences available to “transgender” students, regardless of their biological sex. And if a college offers housing for married students, it must include legally married same-sex couples.

Should this bill become law, I see no option for faithful Catholic colleges but to withdraw from the Cal Grants program. The campaign to force a radical “gender ideology” and sexual immorality on religious colleges could shove them into second-class status. And the campaign likely will not end here; we can expect efforts in California and elsewhere to pass even more draconian laws against religious schools and charities.

Worse — and this is what I fear most — the persecution will tempt California’s less faithful Catholic colleges to capitulate and further erode the foundations of Catholic education.

The precedent for capitulation has already been set. Although Loyola Marymount University and Santa Clara University waged brief but noble battles to remove abortion coverage from their employee health insurance, they fell silent in the face of new state rules forcing that coverage even on religious institutions. And only Thomas Aquinas College and John Paul the Great University have been strong in opposing the Obama administration’s HHS Mandate.

The campaign to rid California of religious education must be fought vigorously. But the future looks bleak: encroachment on Catholic education at both the state and federal level may soon require faithful Catholic schools and colleges to withdraw from government aid programs.

This should be quite possible for Catholic schools, but I don’t know how many of the Catholic colleges can survive financially, unless the forced corruption of moral standards at other colleges will have the happy effect of driving donors and paying students to the few remaining bastions of moral education. How many Catholic colleges choose to compromise their Catholic beliefs rather than give up taxpayer funds is a question of great importance to Catholic families.

What they do in response to this bill, now and if it becomes law, will have lasting consequences for their institutions and for Catholic families. I believe that capitulation might give up the project of Catholic education altogether for all but a few colleges. The time is very late to oppose California’s campaign against religious education, but Catholic college leaders should be fighting it with all the effort they can muster.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

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Discriminatory Blaine Amendment Used Against Education Savings Accounts in Nevada

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Not long after Nevada created the nation’s first nearly universal education savings account (ESA) program for students last year, two lawsuits were filed to block the program that relied on discriminatory, historically anti-Catholic, provisions in the state constitution. Now the program is on hold following an injunction issued this month by a Nevada district court in one of the cases.

Carson City, Nev., District Judge James Wilson ruled on January 11 that the program “would cause irreparable harm to students in Nevada” by taking public funds out of the current public school system structure to create a “non-uniform system of schools.”

The case, Lopez v. Schwartz, was filed by the Education Law Center (ELC) in September on behalf of several parents. ELC argued that the program violated several provisions of the Nevada constitution, including Article 11, Section 2, which states in part that “any school district which shall allow instruction of a sectarian character therein may be deprived of its proportion of the interest of the public school fund.”

“Article 11, Section 2 suffers from the same anti-Catholic taint that plagues the Blaine Amendment,” argued the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty in an amicus brief. The brief noted: “First, it was passed during a time of sweeping anti-Catholic sentiment and with an intent to remove Catholic influence on public schools, and second, it prohibits ‘sectarian’ influences on schools while leaving unharmed ‘generic’ religious practices in public schools.”

The groundbreaking ESA program, passed into law last summer, creates an account for students in which the state deposits an amount equal to 90 percent of the average amount spent by the state per student during that school year ($5,100 for the 2015-16 school year), or 100 percent for students with a disability or with a household income less than 185 percent of the federal poverty level ($5,700 for the 2015-16 school year).

Funds can be used for a variety of educational expenses, such as private school tuition (including religious schools), tuition at eligible higher education institutions, distance education, curriculum, tutoring, exam fees, transportation and specialized services or therapies for students with a disability.

To be eligible for the program, students must attend a Nevada public or charter school for at least 100 uninterrupted school days immediately prior to submitting an application. The first round of funding to the over 3,500 students who applied for the ESAs was scheduled to be sent out February 1.

Wilson ultimately concluded that plaintiffs “failed to carry their burden of proof” that the ESA program violated Article 11, Section 2, but said the program did violate  Article 11, Sections 6.1 and 6.2, and “irreparable harm will result if an injunction is not entered.”

Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt appealed Wilson’s decision to the Nevada Supreme Court: “My Office is working diligently so that parents can enjoy the genuine educational choice envisioned by lawmakers this past legislative session, and remains focused on resolving the matter as quickly as possible to provide families with the certainty they deserve. A ruling from the state Supreme Court will do just that.”

The ACLU of Nevada and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a separate lawsuit, Duncan v. Nevada, against the ESA program back in August. In addition to relying on Article 11, Section 2, the lawsuit also argues that the ESA program violates Nevada’s Blaine Amendment found in Article 11, Section 10 of the state constitution: “No public funds of any kind or character whatever, State, County or Municipal, shall be used for sectarian purpose.”

“The education savings account law passed this last legislative session tears down the wall separating church and state erected in Nevada’s constitution,” Tod Story, executive director for the ACLU of Nevada, said at the time.

“To claim that the ESA Program funds ‘sectarian’ purposes is simply a modern spin on the same discrimination that birthed the Blaine Amendments,” the Becket Fund argued in their amicus brief in the case.

Blaine Amendments, named for former Speaker of the House and U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine, are provisions currently found in 37 state constitutions prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds at “sectarian” schools. After Blaine’s failed attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution with the proposal in 1875, versions of the amendment were “added to state constitutions in order to enforce the nativist bigotry of the day” against Catholics, according to The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty. The provisions are now being interpreted to discriminate against non-Catholics as well.

“Activist groups are treating religious schools and the students who choose to attend them like second-class citizens,” said Diana Verm, legal counsel of the Becket Fund. “It is deplorable to see a discriminatory 19th century law being used to prevent children from access to quality education simply because the school may have religious ties.”

The lawsuit brought by the ACLU of Nevada and Americans United for Separation of Church and State is still awaiting a decision by the district court in Clark County, Nev., but the ACLU voiced support for Wilson’s decision in the Lopez case.

“The ACLU of Nevada is still diligently pursuing a permanent remedy to stop this unconstitutional voucher program,” said Amy Rose, legal director of the ACLU of Nevada. “We are pleased to see that another court recognizes that this program runs afoul of the Nevada Constitution.”

Laxalt, who is also defending the ESA program in the Duncan case, stated last week that the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a case challenging Missouri’s Blaine Amendment was a good sign for Nevada.

“My Office is encouraged by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that will be of crucial significance in our defense of Nevada’s Educational Savings Accounts,” he said. “The program is currently being challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, who are asking state courts to twist the Nevada Constitution in ways never imagined, much less intended by our framers, barring parents and private schools with religious affiliations from participating in this important statewide program.

“Nevada’s Constitution does not require religious discrimination,” he continued, “and we are hopeful our nation’s highest Court will confirm that the U.S. Constitution does not allow that either.”

As The Cardinal Newman Society reported last week, a case challenging a discriminatory Blaine Amendment in Missouri’s state constitution will go before the U.S. Supreme Court this year to decide if the state can rely on the historically anti-Catholic constitutional provision in its denial of a grant to a Christian preschool meant to aid in resurfacing the playground with recycled tires.

The U.S. Supreme Court will also make a decision on February 19 to hear a case challenging Colorado’s Blaine Amendment. The Newman Society reported in December that petitioners are challenging a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that blocked scholarship funds to hundreds of families in Douglas County, Colo., who were supposed to be able to use the scholarship to attend a private school of their choice, regardless of a school’s religious identity.

SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Missouri Blaine Amendment Case

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A case challenging a Blaine Amendment in Missouri’s state constitution will go before the U.S. Supreme Court this year, the Court announced last week, to decide if the state can rely on the discriminatory, historically anti-Catholic, constitutional provision in its denial of a grant to a Christian preschool meant to aid in resurfacing the playground with recycled tires.

“No state can define religious neutrality as treating religious organizations worse than everyone else,” said Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) Senior Counsel David Cortman in a statement about the Court’s decision to hear the case, Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia v. Pauley, during its January 15 conference.

“That isn’t neutrality; it’s a hostility to religion that violates the First Amendment,” he continued. “That’s the primary issue that the Supreme Court will address. In this case, the state should not have excluded this preschool from the recycled tire program simply because a church operates the school.”

ADF is representing Trinity Lutheran Church Learning Center in the case. In 2012, Trinity Lutheran applied to Missouri’s Playground Scrap Tire Surface Material Grant Program, which provided funds to schools to resurface playgrounds with the recycled tires, making them safer for children.

Although Trinity Lutheran’s rankings in the application process were high enough to earn the grant, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources denied funding to the preschool because of a section of the state constitution prohibiting government aid to religious institutions, known as a Blaine Amendment.

Blaine Amendments, named for former Speaker of the House and U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine, are provisions currently found in 37 state constitutions prohibiting the use of taxpayer funds at “sectarian” schools. After Blaine’s failed attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution with the proposal in 1875, versions of the amendment were “added to state constitutions in order to enforce the nativist bigotry of the day” against Catholics, according to The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty.

State officials cited the Blaine Amendment in Article 1, Section 7 of the Missouri constitution:

Public aid for religious purposes — preferences and discriminations on religious grounds. — That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof, as such; and that no preference shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.

While the case focuses on a Lutheran preschool, Eric Rassbach, an attorney with The Becket Fund, which filed an amicus brief in the case, told The Cardinal Newman Society that the Supreme Court’s decision “absolutely could have an impact for Catholic schools.”

Rassbach explained that the Missouri state government’s argument could be implemented to mean “that religious entities would not be able to contract with the state. It would mean that religious entities would get no grants, even for completely secular purposes like playground safety.”

If the Supreme Court upheld the state’s argument, “It would be open season on Catholic institutions,” he said.

ADF Senior Legal Counsel Jordan Lorence argued that the state of Missouri’s reasoning was tantamount to saying, “We’re not going to allow the Jewish synagogue to hook up to the sewer system,” or, “We’ll send the police to investigate any burglary unless it’s at the Buddhist monastery.”

“These are just normal, regular governmental services that are available to everybody, and they single out the religious users and say, ‘You cannot participate because of this really extreme and abstract notion of separation of church and state that’s in our constitution,’” he said. “And we’re hoping that the United States Supreme Court will rule in this case that you can’t have such an extreme regime of benefit program under the First Amendment.”

ADF argued in their petition to the Court: “No public benefit could be further removed from the state’s antiestablishment concerns than a grant for safe rubber playground surfaces that serve no religious function or purpose.”

“Children’s safety is just as important on church daycare playgrounds as it is on other daycare playgrounds,” said ADF Senior Counsel Erik Stanley. “Missouri and every state should understand that the U.S. Constitution prohibits religious hostility, which is what Missouri exhibited when it denied Trinity Lutheran’s scrap tire grant application. This case has huge implications for state constitutional provisions across the nation that treat religious Americans and organizations as inferiors solely because of their religious identity.”

Also at issue is the 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decision last year denying relief for Trinity Lutheran by invoking the Supreme Court’s 2004 decision in Locke v. Davey. In the Locke decision, the Supreme Court held that the state of Washington could deny scholarship funds for the purpose of pursing a degree in devotional theology.

“There is a gap in the constitutional protections between the free exercise of religion and the federal establishment clause,” said Lorence. “There’s some no man’s land legally where a state could, the Supreme Court said in Locke v. Davey back in 2004, single out religious groups and exclude them. … You could study religion but couldn’t study to be a pastor.”

Lorance called the 8th Circuit’s decision “Locke v. Davey gone wild,” and said the Supreme Court’s decision to hear the Trinity Lutheran case is “a good sign” they’re going to rein in the decision.

The Becket Fund’s Rassbach agreed that the Supreme Court is likely to grant a favorable ruling in the Trinity Lutheran case. “I think they’re going to say that the First Amendment and the Fourteenth Amendment don’t allow governments, federal or state, to discriminate against religious institutions merely because they’re religious.”

As the Newman Society previously reported, a challenge to Colorado’s Blaine Amendment is currently awaiting review by the U.S. Supreme Court. In that case, petitioners are challenging a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that blocked scholarship funds to hundreds of families in Douglas County, Colo., who were supposed to be able to use the scholarship to attend a private schools of their choice, regardless of a school’s religious identity. The decision to hear that case will be considered during the Court’s February 19 conference.

The Newman Society also reported last month on families in Montana being denied scholarship funds through a new state school choice program for wanting to send students to private religious schools. The state lawmaker who drafted the legislation for the new program said it was “carefully crafted” to allow funding of private religious schools, but the state, relying on the Blaine Amendment language in the state constitution, will not allow the funds to be used at religious schools.

CNS Joins Amicus Brief Opposing HHS Contraceptive Mandate – Zubik v Burwell, U.S. Supreme Court

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School Choice Threatened by Anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments

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In an interview last night on EWTN News Nightly, Cardinal Newman Society President Patrick Reilly called attention to the anti-Catholic Blaine Amendments found in many state constitutions that threaten religious freedom and school choice by blocking funds to families who want to send their children to religious schools.

Reilly said it’s “extremely important” for supporters of faithful Catholic education to focus on repealing the Blaine Amendments right now “especially with the push for school choice, and certainly with the secularization in the country.” He noted that in some states “these Blaine Amendments have been used to block any sort of public support that might eventually go to Catholic schools,” such as vouchers and tax credits.

During the interview, Reilly also pointed out that Blaine Amendments “grew out of one of the worst periods of American history.”

“During the 1800s there was a lot of anti-Catholicism, and President Ulysses S. Grant was actually the one who proposed a constitutional amendment that would prevent states from using any funding to support Catholic schools, so it was very much directed at Catholic education,” he said.

Blaine Amendments are named for former Speaker of the House and U.S. Secretary of State James G. Blaine who, following Grant’s lead, attempted to amend the U.S. Constitution to prohibit the use of taxpayer funds at “sectarian” schools in 1875 while he was Speaker. The federal amendment failed, but versions of the amendment were “added to state constitutions in order to enforce the nativist bigotry of the day” against Catholics, according to The Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty, and are currently found in 37 state constitutions.

As the Newman Society reported last week, it’s possible that the U.S. Supreme Court could overturn all state Blaine Amendments if the Court takes a case out of Colorado challenging a Colorado Supreme Court ruling that blocked scholarship funds to families based on Blaine Amendment language in the state Constitution.

The scholarship program was passed unanimously in March 2011 by the Douglas County School District Board of Education, but was almost immediately enjoined following legal challenges by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and several local organizations. The program awarded scholarships to approximately 500 students in Douglas County, Colo., who were supposed to be able to use the scholarship to attend a private schools of their choice, regardless of a school’s religious identity.

Three petitions were submitted in October 2015 asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide on the constitutionality of Colorado’s Blaine Amendment and the school choice scholarship program in the state. The case “will hopefully be going to the Supreme Court,” said Reilly. The decision of the Supreme Court to hear the case could come as early as January after it reconvenes from winter recess on January 11, 2016.

The Newman Society also reported this week on families in Montana being denied scholarship funds through a new state school choice program for wanting to send students to private religious schools. The state lawmaker who drafted the legislation for the new program said it was “carefully crafted” to allow funding of private religious schools, but the state, relying on the Blaine Amendment language in the state Constitution, will not allow the funds to be used at religious schools.

Patrick Reilly’s full interview begins at 13:53:

Books in classroom

The Incredible Shrinking Case for Common Core

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Recent statements by Common Core co-author David Coleman about Catholic education have led to a lot of confusion. What’s this about a Common Core advocate urging Catholic educators to have the “moxie” to preserve their incredible heritage and not to worry about changes to standardized tests?

I’ll try to explain. Despite Coleman’s support for the Common Core — which I firmly believe to be inadequate and even harmful to Catholic schools — what he said is good for Catholic families.

Last month, my colleagues and I were dismayed to learn that Coleman, a chief author of the Common Core State Standards, will keynote the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) convention in March. The Cardinal Newman Society has raised serious concerns about the Common Core’s impact on Catholic identity and related changes that detract from Catholic schools’ time-proven curricula and methods. The choice of Coleman as keynote speaker suggests support for the Common Core, when what we most need is a frank conversation among Catholic educators and parents about the Common Core and its unsuitability to Catholic education.

In addition, Coleman is president of The College Board, the nonprofit testing company that sponsors the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) and Advanced Placement (AP) tests — and is currently revising them to align to the Common Core. That has caused angst among Catholic families and educators, who wonder if students in non-Common Core schools and homeschools will do poorly on the SAT and have difficulty getting accepted to good colleges.

But when we looked closely at Coleman’s record, we saw some interesting things. For instance, he has a fondness for good literature — precisely what we fear the Common Core might diminish in Catholic school reading curricula — and he studied “classical educational philosophy” at Cambridge University, according to his online biography.

Moreover, last year he penned an outstanding piece for National Review Online, defending the religious freedom of Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian college, and extolling the benefits of a religious liberal arts education. The non-Christian scholar noted that he had been to Wheaton to participate in a conference on the great Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis, and his methods of literary criticism.

This was intriguing. What if the co-author of the Common Core, which was designed for low-performing public schools, would go on record praising the benefits of a truly Catholic, liberal arts education — and even the movement toward more classical education? Could an advocate for the Common Core in public schools appreciate the differences and even the superiority of a Catholic education that rejects the Common Core’s utilitarian emphasis and holds steadfast to its Catholic identity and traditional curricula and teaching methods?

And furthermore, what if the College Board president could assure Catholics that students will continue to do well on the revised SAT and AP exams, even if they have a traditional Catholic education, focused on the liberal arts and not in any way compromised or caught up in the race to become more like public schools? This would, in effect, dispel one of the key arguments for adopting the Common Core simply so that students can “keep up” with the changes to standardized tests.

In essence, Coleman said exactly what we anticipated in his interview released Monday. On the one hand, he still clearly supports the Common Core, which we believe would compromise the traditional methods, curricula and mission of Catholic schools. He argued that the Standards had been misinterpreted and do not necessarily conflict with Catholic education: “The vulgar implementation of anything can have a reductive and destructive effect,” he said. With regard to the Standards’ push for more reading of “informational texts,” Coleman didn’t think that the emphasis necessarily means that schools will assign fewer classics of literature — a point on which we continue to disagree. 

But what Coleman did say is this, quite emphatically: don’t compromise what Catholic schools do well. On that bedrock principle, we seem to agree entirely. If anything — whether the Common Core or another “reform,” changing social mores, threats against religious freedom or another influence — pressures Catholic schools to compromise their mission and abandon the core liberal arts focus of traditional Catholic education, then we should simply refuse to do so. 

“My desire to celebrate, and name and specify some of the beauties and distinctive values of a religious education are precisely to avoid a leveling quality where you forget that there are special gifts that can be lost without attention,” Coleman said. 

He urged educators in the classical and Catholic liberal arts tradition to “have more moxie” and “be proud” of their approach to education. 

“Don’t be in a defensive crouch. I say that to every group I talk to of religious educators,” he said. “I say, share what you do that is beautiful and distinctive. Don’t just defend your right to exist. Be proud of what you have to offer, which is different.” 

Regarding the College Board’s exams, Coleman doesn’t think that students getting a traditional, Catholic liberal arts education — or even a classical-style education focused on the Trivium of grammar, logic and rhetoric — need to be worried about getting lower scores on the SAT and AP tests. He said that Catholic families should “rest assured” that students will continue to do very well on the tests. 

“As president of The College Board, it is my conviction that a child excellently trained in traditional liberal arts will do superbly on relevant sections of the SAT and other aspects of Advanced Placement work,” he told us. We’ll know in time whether that’s true, but I guessed it to be true even before Coleman said it. A student who has a good, non-Common Core education should be able to think through these tests. Some extra preparation may be helpful to get used to the Common Core-style questions, but hasn’t SAT prep always been a boost to students’ scores? 

Ultimately, Coleman’s interview suggests just one more reason why Catholic educators should not be so eager to rush into the Common Core madness. Many parents, teacher unions and state leaders have turned against the Common Core after just a few years in the public schools. There’s been no boost to national test scores. Catholic educators who may be inclined toward the Common Core should acknowledge the warning signs and take their time, observe how the Common Core plays out, and then decide whether there are certain elements in the Standards that may be worth preserving — and in the meantime, protect what we already have. 

Catholic education is good. In earlier times, it was better. The renewal of Catholic education doesn’t need the Common Core — we just need some “more moxie” to defend and celebrate what makes our schools strong. 

This article was originally published by National Catholic Register and is reprinted with permission.

Pope Francis

Did Pope Francis Say ‘Don’t Proselytize’?

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Catholic education, done rightly, is a special and important means of evangelization, the mission of the Church. It brings young people to Christ and provides for the integral formation of mind, body and soul.

And so, judging from the reaction that I have been hearing from some parents and educators, there is a bit of consternation over Pope Francis’ strong words last week against “proselytism” in Catholic schools. My colleagues from The Cardinal Newman Society who were present for the Holy Father’s conversation with educators—part of the World Congress on Education, a Vatican conference to address the “educational emergency” that leaves young people ignorant of Christ—also noted the Holy Father’s words with some concern.

The fear is that the Pope’s words could be misused, as his words have been abused in the past, to take Catholic education in a more secular direction. That would be a tragic reversal of the renewal of Catholic identity that is taking hold at all levels of Catholic education, and it would be contrary to the Vatican’s stated goals for Catholic school and colleges.

So what did the Holy Father actually say?

Speaking at the Congress, Pope Francis urged educators “to lead young people, children, in human values in the whole of reality, and one of these realities is transcendence.” What is authentic in this world can increase our awareness of God, His creation and His presence, but Pope Francis lamented that education today is exclusively focused on “immanent things” without introducing students to “the total reality.”

So far, so good. But this statement raised eyebrows:

One cannot speak of Catholic education without speaking of humanity, because, precisely, the Catholic identity is God who became man. To go forward in attitudes, in full human values, opens the door to the Christian seed. Then faith comes. To educate in a Christian way is not only to engage in catechesis: this is one part. It is not only engaging in proselytism—never proselytize in schools! Never!

A couple years ago in an interview, Pope Francis also said that “proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense.” And in an address to catechists, he cited Pope Benedict’s own concerns about proselytism in a 2007 address to the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean:

The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by “attraction“—just as Christ “draws all to himself” by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfills her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works in spiritual and practical imitation of the love of her Lord.

These admonitions against proselytizing can seem confusing for American Catholics, who are beneficiaries of the great missionary work of the Church in the New World. The zeal and courage of the early Catholics in America were recently celebrated by the Pope’s nuncio in his address to the U.S. bishops this month—especially in the context of their contributions to Catholic education—and they were celebrated by the Holy Father himself with the canonization of Father Junípero Serra, O.F.M.

Certainly, therefore, Pope Francis could not be condemning catechesis (which he takes care to explicitly reaffirm) or strong Catholic identity in schools—yet even so, problems arise with the term “proselytism,” which can be ambiguous. There’s a negative connotation to proselytizing that’s difficult to pin down, which allows it to be confused with healthy forms of evangelization. As Lawrence Uzzell wrote a decade ago in First Things, “Today’s Christian missionaries often contrast ‘proselytism’ with ‘evangelism’; the former is what they accuse rival denominations of doing, while the latter is what they claim to do themselves.”

In a footnote to its 2007 statement on evangelization, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith acknowledged the term’s ambiguity but settled on the most negative connotation:

The term proselytism originated in the context of Judaism, in which the term proselyte referred to someone who, coming from the gentiles, had passed into the Chosen People. So too, in the Christian context, the term proselytism was often used as a synonym for missionary activity. More recently, however, the term has taken on a negative connotation, to mean the promotion of a religion by using means, and for motives, contrary to the spirit of the Gospel; that is, which do not safeguard the freedom and dignity of the human person.

So proselytism is seen today by the Church as an abuse of religious freedom, and in the context of education, it is a means of teaching the faith that denies the free use of reason and appeal to conscience. It is nothing that a good catechist or evangelist would do.

Very well. But then we have to ask the questions that my colleague Dr. Dan Guernsey asked, soon after hearing Pope Francis condemn proselytism, “How significantly is this a source of the educational emergency facing Catholic schools? How many universities and high schools seem to be coercing their students with unworthy Catholic propaganda?” It would seem that fidelity and Catholic identity should be greater concerns today.

I suspect the answer is that abusive proselytism is not, in fact, a priority concern for the Holy Father. The point about proselytizing was made off the cuff and was not central to his comments to the Congress.

Taken as a whole, his statements centered on rebuilding a more “human” education—relax the “rigidity” of schools, reach out to the margins of society, decrease the emphasis on intellectual “selectivity” that tends to exclude rather than invite participation, and open young hearts and minds to God:

For me, the greatest crisis of education, in the Christian perspective, is being closed to transcendence. We are closed to transcendence. It is necessary to prepare hearts for the Lord to manifest Himself, but totally, namely, in the totality of humanity, which also has this dimension of transcendence. To educate humanly but with open horizons. Any sort of closure is no good for education.

This closure to transcendence is precisely the educational emergency that has befallen secular education and even many Catholic schools and colleges. The focus on “immanent things” and worldly gain is what concerns so many American Catholics about the Common Core in Catholic schools.

Taken as a whole, the comments by Pope Francis to the Vatican Congress should not be construed as pulling the reins on evangelization in schools. Instead, we should celebrate Catholic education as the Church’s key means of evangelization, in human formation that invites the student to know, love and serve God.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

St. Peters Square

Vatican Envoy to Jesuits and Bishops: Reform Education

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The Vatican ambassador’s message, delivered during Monday’s gathering of U.S. bishops in Baltimore, was crystal clear: place priority on the renewal of Catholic identity in Catholic education and restore the great legacy of Jesuit institutions.

It’s an appeal that should make every Catholic parent stand up and cheer!

When Pope Francis was elected, I openly wondered whether our Jesuit pope would acknowledge the elephant in the room: the crisis of Catholic identity at many of America’s Jesuit colleges, especially the disregard for papal authority and doctrinal fidelity by some professors.

We now seem to have an answer.  While it’s not clear to what extent, if at all, Pope Francis contributed to his envoy’s message to the U.S. bishops, it’s hard to imagine that the apostolic nuncio would make such a forceful and direct appeal without the Holy Father’s consent.

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò delivered an address to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops that was at times both personal and emotionally stirring.  He urged attention to two concerns:

One – the need to give particular attention and care to our Catholic educational institutions so that they would regain the luster of their true identity that has shown forth from them in the past.

Two – that Catholic colleges and universities, renowned for the professional formation of their students, should be encouraged to be faithful to the title of “Catholic” that they bear. …While each college or university has its own particular mission, together they ultimately have the solemn obligation to teach the same doctrine of the universal Church and to define the moral obligations that mark us all as Catholic Christians.

This is as close as the Vatican has come to publicly confronting the crisis of Catholic identity at many American Catholic colleges. Even in elementary and secondary education, Archbishop Viganò indicated that the “true identity” of Catholic schools is not so clear today, as it once was.

Lamenting today’s “secularized and increasingly pagan civilization,” Viganò appealed for “renewed strength” in the New Evangelization—a strength that is “solid and unwavering in its commitment to Truth.”  And this strength, “which should be found in the family and in the schools, will exist only in proportion to its Catholic identity.”

He challenged the bishops to “watch over and protect families, and parishes and schools,” citing Pope St. Gregory the Great: “Imprudent silence may leave in error those who could have been taught. Pastors who lack foresight hesitate to say openly what is right because they fear losing the favor of men.”

But the most striking portion of Cardinal Viganò’s address was his reminiscence about his own years in a Jesuit secondary school and at the Gregorian University in Rome, and the heroic role of the Jesuits in bringing the Faith to the New World. It was a detour that imparted a special challenge:

No doubt that this Order has been the leader of evangelization in North America. …The Society of Jesus has had a long and proud tradition of imparting a rich Catholic faith and a deep love for Christ, which in great part is carried on through their mission of education. It is my hope that, with respect to their great tradition, after the example of our Holy Father, they would take again the lead in re-affirming the Catholic identity of their educational institutions.

The call to “take again the lead” was an acknowledgement that the Jesuits have lost their place of honor at the forefront of Catholic education. Restoring the Jesuits’ “great tradition” of education means reaffirming Catholic identity.

Cardinal Viganò’s recounting of the Church’s history in the United States, which he did at much greater length, was inspiring. He reminded the bishops that their predecessors in the early American Church had also gathered in Baltimore to decide “upon a strategy that would shape the growth and development of the Catholic Church.”

The main tool of this strategy was education, which was accomplished through the building of parishes with their own schools, together with the dedicated support of women religious. A prime example of this is St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the great pioneer of American Catholic schools.

In the Cardinal’s prepared text, the only words underlined are these: “Education was primary in the Bishops’ minds; it was an essential means for the Gospel message to be woven into the very fabric of our people’s existence. In so doing, they were following the consistent path of evangelization traced centuries before by the monastic orders” and “the Holy See.”

Today, faithful Catholic education remains essential—Pope Francis said it is “key, key, key”—to the New Evangelization. Not only our bishops, but all of our clergy, religious, educators and especially parents need to believe that. Taking up Archbishop Viganò’s timely challenge, we must make it a priority to build and support authentic, formational Catholic education that brings young people to Christ.

Our Church and society depend on it.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.