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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Episode 40: She Protested a Drag Show at a Catholic College—What Happened Next Will Stun You

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In Part 2 of Emily Torres’s testimony, she continues her story of standing for truth at a Catholic university that seems to have abandoned its identity. From confronting radical gender ideology to being verbally harassed for defending the Church’s teaching on marriage and pro-life issues, Emily increasingly found herself isolated on campus.

Despite threats, public ridicule, and faculty pushing blasphemous theology, Emily refused to back down. She organized protests and reported blatant anti-Catholic behavior to college administrators, only to be met with silence.
Now a Catholic high school teacher and soon joining Catholic Answers, Emily shares the lessons she’s learned and offers wisdom for students and parents navigating today’s culture wars.

Her witness is a reminder that even in darkness, grace sustains, and truth demands courage.

It also should provoke a sense of urgency. Every Catholic family needs to know about The Newman Guide. It is the antidote to the radical ideologies lurking in our educational institutions.

Click here to watch on YouTube

Episode 39: What Emily Torres Found at Her ‘Catholic’ College Will Shock You — Drag Shows, Free Condoms, Pro-abortion activism, and More…

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Emily Torres shares her powerful conversion story, from growing up in a nominal protestant home to discovering the truth of the Catholic faith as a teenager. But after enrolling at a prominent Catholic university that claims to seek God in all things, Emily instead encountered an environment that promoted an anti-Catholic agenda:

From Free Condom Fridays held outside the campus chapel, pro-abortion protests, drag shows mocking religious life, trigger warnings on Scripture, and professors pushing gender ideology, Emily faced a flood of scandal, hostility, and confusion. When administrators dismissed her concerns and defended the events, Emily took a public stand.

Hear how her commitment to truth led her to the Cardinal Newman Society and deepened her faith in the midst of adversity. This is a powerful testimony of courage, conviction, and the urgent need for faithful Catholic education.

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Newman Guide Education ‘Strongest Training Plan’ for Heaven, Says Scholarship Contest Winner

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“As a devoted runner, I imagine life as a marathon, Heaven as my finish line, and a solid Catholic education as the strongest training plan,” says Teresa White, a homeschooled student in Illinois, who is the winner of The Cardinal Newman Society’s ninth annual Newman Guide Scholarship Contest.

White will receive a potential $20,000 off tuition at a Newman Guide Recommended college.

The Cardinal Newman Society will award a $5,000 scholarship toward her education this fall at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D.  The University has agreed to another $15,000 in scholarships over the subsequent three years ($5,000 per year) if she continues meeting the University’s requirements.

“I want to attend a college where classes are enriched with Catholic teaching rather than anti-Christian secularism,” White explains. “The contagious joy in the pursuit of Truth that students at Newman Guide Recommended colleges possess is magnetic and this is the community in which I will flourish.”

“Attending a truly Catholic college will decidedly strengthen me spiritually, prepare me to be a virtuous defender of the Faith, and assist me in living out my vocation according to God’s plan,” she concluded.

The Contest is open to practicing Catholics in the United States who are high school juniors or seniors. Each entrant must:

Next year’s Contest will open in December 2025 and close in February 2026, and the winner will be announced in May 2026.

“The Newman Guide has really simplified my college search,” says White. “They did the research and compiled data, which helped me choose to apply to the right universities. Attending an authentically Catholic college is the best investment I can make since it will prepare me for a career while deepening my faith.”

Rising high school juniors and seniors who would like to be eligible for next year’s Contest should sign up for our Newman Guide Recruit Me program, which allows Newman Guide Recommended colleges to compete for them by sharing information about the college’s academic program, campus activities, spiritual life, and more.

This year’s Contest saw a 225 percent increase in student applications, reflecting a growing interest in Newman Guide education.

Last year’s winner, Dominic Kalpakgian of California, is attending Franciscan University of Steubenville in Steubenville, Ohio. The 2023 scholarship winner, Jacob Kristine of Pennsylvania, is attending Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia.

The following Newman Guide Recommended colleges supplement the Newman Guide Scholarship, should a winning student choose to attend their institution:

  • Ave Maria University (Ave Maria, Fla.)
  • Belmont Abbey College (Belmont, N.C.)
  • Benedictine College (Atchison, Kan.)
  • Campion College (Toongabbie East, NSW, Australia)
  • Christendom College (Front Royal, Va.)
  • Franciscan University of Steubenville (Steubenville, Ohio)
  • Holy Angel University (Angeles City, Philippines)
  • Holy Apostles (Cromwell, Conn.)
  • John Paul the Great Catholic University (Escondido, Calif.)
  • Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts (Warner, N.H.)
  • Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College (Barry’s Bay, Ontario, Canada)
  • The Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (Merrimack, N.H.)
  • University of Dallas (Irving, Tex.)
  • University of Mary (Bismarck, N.D.)
  • University of St. Thomas (Houston, Tex.)
  • Wyoming Catholic College (Lander, Wyo.)

Additional details about the Contest can be found here and questions can be emailed to Kelly Salomon, vice president of Newman Guide Programs, at Programs@CardinalNewmanSociety.org.

CNS Joins Amicus Brief on Gender Identity Counseling – Chiles v Salazar, U.S. Supreme Court

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The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Chiles v. Salazar testing the Court’s willingness to expand its conversion therapy for transgender children ruling of June 2025. Kaley Chiles, a licensed counselor in Colorado, wants to use conversion therapy (which attempts to undo the effects of the drugs and processes used for transgender surgeries but is prohibited to do so by Colorado law. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Colorado retaining the prohibition, but in a similar case in Florida, the 4th Circuit ruled in favor of Florida favoring the procedure.

Click here to read.

Tragic Anniversary: 60 Years of Decline in Catholic Schools

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Six decades after the peak of Catholic schooling in the United States, a new report from the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) shows that Catholic school enrollment declined again this year.

It’s a sad way of marking one of the Church’s great accomplishments: a nationwide network of parochial schools that served about 5.6 million students in the 1964-65 school year. But over the next 60 years, enrollment plummeted 70 percent to fewer than 1.7 million students today.

What organization loses 70 percent of its clients over six decades and fails to reform?

Some dioceses are working hard to strengthen their schools, by adopting The Cardinal Newman Society’s curriculum and policy standards and seeking Newman Guide recognition. Individual schools and homeschooling parents are finding new ways of providing Catholic formation. Elsewhere, however, Catholic schools are doing things much like they did for the last few decades, with weak devotion to their Catholic mission.

Catholic families won’t come back to Catholic schools, without substantial reforms and total commitment to authentic Catholic formation. Newman Guide Recommended schools, colleges, and graduate programs are the models for the future.

A crisis ignored

Last week, NCEA quietly released its report, showing a decline of 0.6 percent from the prior year. While 24 new schools opened, 63 closed or consolidated. The takeaway: after a three-year partial recovery from losses during the Covid pandemic, Catholic elementary and secondary schools have once again fallen into decline, albeit at a slow pace.

That’s disappointing to those who believed the hype in the Catholic media, which dangled hope for a long-term recovery for U.S. Catholic education. When Covid struck in 2020, 209 schools closed and the number of students suddenly dropped 6.4 percent—and only about half those students returned in 2021-22. Nevertheless, pundits touted that year’s 3.8 percent growth as the first increase in Catholic school enrollment in more than two decades and the largest increase in more than 50 years. Never mind that the circumstances of a pandemic were quite unusual, and the 2021-22 increase was only a partial recovery from a devastating loss the prior year.

Again in 2022-23, when the recovery stalled and Catholic schools grew only 0.3 percent, school leaders and the Catholic media celebrated a second year of barely staying above water. And last year, when Catholic schools grew zero percent, the celebrations continued. “Catholic schools have emerged as beacons of stability, reversing years of enrollment decline,” NCEA declared.

“Beacons of stability”? Perhaps after six decades of bad news, zero growth seems hopeful. But as we warned last year, it’s perilous to ignore larger trends.

Let’s face facts. Catholic school enrollment across the U.S. took a tumble during Covid, and it never again approached pre-pandemic numbers. Three years after Covid, Catholic schools had gained back only about 60 percent of what they lost in 2020-21. And now, Catholic school enrollment is declining once again.

The 0.6 percent loss in 2024-25 is not nearly as bad as the rates of decline in the two decades before Covid, which averaged around 2 percent each year. But observe the regression from 3.8 percent growth in 2021-22—a partial recovery following a national disaster—to just 0.3 percent growth the next year, zero growth last year, and now a 0.6 percent decline. It doesn’t justify another year of hasty predictions, good or bad.

Hope in school choice?

With nothing good to say about the numbers, the Catholic media coverage is scant relative to last year. One article focuses on the expansion of school choice programs without even acknowledging the enrollment decline.

Sister Dale McDonald, NCEA vice president of public policy, told Catholic News Agency that more than 80 percent of Catholic school students in Florida and Ohio benefit from school choice. Choice programs are also helping more than 50 percent of Catholic school students in Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, and Oklahoma. Nationally, 18 percent of students benefit from school choice dollars, a substantial increase from 13.7 percent last year.

What’s not explained is why national enrollment is declining, even as school choice programs are growing. In the states where most students received aid from school choice programs, Catholic schools saw only modest gains, ranging from 2.4 percent in Iowa and 2.3 percent in Florida to just 0.5 percent in Arizona. In Indiana, enrollment declined 0.2 percent.

It would seem that the cost of Catholic education is not the only concern preventing Catholic families from returning to Catholic schools. Not everything can be reduced to dollars.

Trouble spots

Meanwhile, other trends deserve attention:

  • Declining Catholic students: A faithful Catholic school’s strongest appeal should be to Catholic families, yet it’s the Catholics who are fleeing Catholic schools. Even while total enrollment declined 70 percent since 1964, non-Catholic students tripled in number since 1970 (the earliest date we could find data) and now represent 21.8 percent of students. That’s an increase from 21 percent last year, 11.2 percent in 1980, and only 2.7 percent in 1970. The portion who are Catholics (and some others who did not report their religion) has declined 69 percent since 1970 and an estimated 76 percent since 1964.
  • Preschool padding: Since 1987, when NCEA started counting pre-Kindergarten children, their number at Catholic schools has grown more than 150 percent. Preschool children now account for more than 10 percent of what NCEA calls “elementary school” enrollment. Students in grades 1-8 alone have declined 78 percent since 1964.
  • Poor retention: The retention rate for diocesan superintendents of Catholic schools declined from 73.4 percent last year to 70.5 percent this year. Three years of diocesan leadership is simply not enough to turn around failing schools. Why did 30 percent of superintendents leave?

Ultimately, the hope for Catholic schools lies not in more dollars or more students—these are band-aids for symptoms that point to a lack of appeal to the core constituency of Catholic education, which is faithful Catholic families. Dollars coming from the wrong sources, including government and woke corporations, can weaken Catholic education. Increased enrollment from families who do not treasure the Catholic faith and the blessing of solid Catholic formation will also weaken schools.

Our solution is to embrace faithful standards that lead to Newman Guide recognition and participation in the Newman Guide Network of model schools, colleges, and graduate programs. There is no compromise in Newman Guide education. It is formation that families can trust.

Your support promotes and defends faithful Catholic education!

The Cardinal Newman Society relies on the generosity of our supporters to promote and defend faithful Catholic education — which is the key to seeing the Church restored and our culture renewed. Will you partner with us today to ensure this critical mission continues and grows even as the culture becomes more hostile to Catholic values?

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