Facing Hard Truths About Secular Colleges

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Editor’s Note: The article below is included in the forthcoming fall 2021 edition of the Newman Society’s Our Catholic Mission magazine. A version of this piece was published at The Catholic Thing.

An article by R.R. Reno made waves this summer, especially in academic circles, because of his frank rejection of “elite” secular universities.

Reno is editor of First Things magazine, which caters to a generally highbrow readership. He is a graduate of the prestigious Haverford College, earned his Ph.D. at the Ivy League’s Yale University, and taught theology at Creighton University—a Jesuit institution that has national prominence, despite having drifted away from its Catholic mission.

Still, Reno no longer recruits Ivy League graduates for employment.

“I don’t want to hire someone who makes inflammatory accusations at the drop of a hat,” he writes, responding to the increasingly hostile “cancel culture” on Ivy League and other “elite” college campuses. He also doesn’t want to hire graduates who have become “well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up” against the prevailing campus ideologies.

“I have no doubt that Ivy League universities attract smart, talented and ambitious kids,” Reno acknowledges. “But do these institutions add value? My answer is increasingly negative. Dysfunctional kids are coddled and encouraged to nurture grievances, while normal kids are attacked and educationally abused.”

Toxic for Catholics

Most Catholic college students attend secular colleges (and largely secularized Catholic colleges) where the anti-reason “cancel culture” threatens anyone who espouses Catholic teaching and even Western culture. Shouldn’t the Church be doing more to warn them of the dangers?

Jennifer Frey, a philosophy professor at the public University of South Carolina, is a faithful Catholic who promotes multidisciplinary dialogue about virtue and goodness among her faculty. But as she explained recently in The Point Magazine, she is confronted by the very definition of secular higher education today. Its focus is deliberately concentrated on scientific knowledge, it rejects philosophical thinking about higher truths, and it excludes the essential truths of theology.

“My own vision of what a university should be is inspired by the Catholic tradition in which it originally came to be: a university is, in its essence, a community of scholars and students who seek the truth together as a common end for its own sake,” writes Frey. She cites St. John Henry Newman and his argument for theology as the foundational discipline of all education, “since God is the only coherent source of the sort of unity and order that such a search presupposes.”

Photo via Adobe Stock

Newman’s vision of a true university “has no chance of being realized outside of a Catholic context,” Frey acknowledges. But she strives for some “alternative vision of a secularized university” that at least recaptures an appreciation of various theologies. It might be the most that can be accomplished in a public university today—but it this the education young Catholics deserve?

Concerns about secular education go well beyond academics, of course. Student life on most secular campuses is toxic to students trying to uphold Christian morality and to simply live healthily. Many students lack sleep and good physical habits, they abuse alcohol and possibly drugs, and they may suffer anxiety as a result of promiscuous lifestyles and shallow relationships. Most secular institutions today aggressively promote gender ideology and sexual immorality, even to the point of demanding students’ assent in contradiction to our Catholic faith.

The Church has made it a priority to provide Catholic centers and Bible studies on secular campuses, offering some opportunity for Christian fellowship and the grace of the sacraments. But these cannot alter the general campus culture, which is increasingly dangerous for young Catholics. Such apostolates also cannot provide an authentically Catholic education, in which the insights of our Catholic faith bring light to every subject and provide a solid foundation for personal formation.

Parents’ right to know

The Catholic Church must not turn a blind eye to the growing dangers of secular education. There is surely nothing “elite” about colleges that embrace depravity and lack commitment to truth and reason. Long ago, they turned against faith-filled, liberal arts education. Many today seem intent on malforming young people.

“We do not flourish without communion with the good,” Frey argues, and that first requires forming students in “virtues like wisdom, courage and justice.” These are best cultivated in the home and within an education that is centered on Christ.

Secular education, with its focus on training students for functional roles in the economy and society, rejects an authentic higher education that forms the whole person. Catholic leaders must recover confidence in Catholic education and proclaim it, especially (but not only) to the faithful who either have lost appreciation for the superiority of a Catholic education or have been let down by colleges that are not truly committed to their Catholic missions. We need to restore trust as well as confidence.

Frey, who argues the essential roles of theology and philosophy to higher education, concedes that the ideal is a Catholic institution. Reno has chosen to hire graduates of “quirky small Catholic colleges such as Thomas Aquinas College, Wyoming Catholic College and the University of Dallas,” which are not “deformed by the toxic political correctness that leaders of elite universities have allowed to become dominant.” These are among the colleges highlighted by The Cardinal Newman Society in our Newman Guide, which offers Catholic families a variety of faithful options for higher education.

These colleges are for the most part growing each year, even as many private colleges across the country are struggling to maintain enrollment. Catholics should be rallying around these faithful colleges and encouraging families to give them strong consideration. Meanwhile, we need to talk openly about the dangers that young Catholics face at secular colleges and steer them to better options.

I recently spoke to a good friend who provided a strong Catholic education to his children but then sent the eldest to his alma mater, a highly reputed public university. He regrets the choice and bemoans the poisonous campus culture.

“I just didn’t know how bad it had become,” the father told me. I think he deserved to know.

Time for an Exodus from Public Schools?

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Editor’s Note: The article below is included in the forthcoming fall 2021 edition of the Newman Society’s Our Catholic Mission magazine. Mary Rice Hasson, JD, and Theresa Farnan, PhD, are authors of Get Out Now: Why You Should Pull Your Child from Public School Before It’s Too Late. Hasson is the Kate O’Beirne Fellow in Catholic Studies at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C., and director of the Catholic Women’s Forum. Farnan is a founding member of the Person and Identity Project and has taught at Franciscan University of Steubenville and two seminaries. Both have been leading Catholic voices on education, gender ideology and other issues. 

Laura Morris, a public-school teacher in Loudoun County, Va., was excited about returning to a classroom of “amazing” 5th grade students this fall. Instead, in August she quit her job.

In a short, heart-wrenching speech before the county school board that was shared on social media, Morris explained why: the school district’s “transgender” policies and “equity” trainings promote “political ideologies that do not square with who I am as a believer in Christ.” Her final words—before the school board silenced her microphone—urged “all parents and staff in this county to flood the private schools.”

In other words, leave public schools. Catholics should listen well.

A good education forms the whole person: intellectual, emotional, moral and spiritual. But today’s public schools promote a curriculum that is radically antagonistic to Judeo-Christian morality and anthropology. Public schools of past generations were not perfect, but they incorporated an implicitly Judeo-Christian moral viewpoint and vision of the person (anthropology). No more.

Current public-school curricula and programs view the person through the lenses of atheism and materialism, often distorted even further by gender ideology. As a result, Catholic children in public school must navigate a school culture hostile to “ foundational Catholic beliefs. They face pressure from peers, teachers and administrators to use wrong sex pronouns that affirm a classmate’s “gender identity” and to pretend “everything’s normal” when a male student who identifies as a “girl,” for example, undresses in the female locker room. LGBTQ-inclusive sex education programs break down modesty and function as “how to” instructions for children too young to understand or even legally consent to sexual activity.

At the same time, the militantly secular atmosphere within public schools sends the message to Catholic students that their religion has no place in the public square and that they should be ashamed of Catholic moral teachings, which are painted as intolerant and hateful. The Church’s beliefs about marriage and gender are described as bigoted, “transphobic,” and a form of “cis-heteronormative” oppression. The schools exalt the individual as “self-creator” and define fulfillment in terms of pleasure and self-gratification.

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reported in 2015 that weekly Mass attendance was only five percent among millennials who attended non-Catholic schools (photo via adobe stock).

The impact is predictable. The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate reported in 2015 that weekly Mass attendance was only five percent among millennials who attended non-Catholic schools.

Unless we take seriously, right now, the need to give every Catholic child a Catholic education, our churches will be nearly empty of young people before the decade is over. And our nation will suffer as well. Eight years ago, only about one in 10 Catholic children attended Catholic schools. Today Hispanic families account for the majority of Catholic children, yet more than 95 percent of them enroll in public schools.

This really is a watershed moment. Public school parents are shocked at the prospect of daughters changing for gym in the presence of male (“transgender”) students, angered by the erosion of athletic opportunities for their daughters, and troubled that teachers encourage impressionable kindergarteners and vulnerable teens to “explore” alternative “gender identities.” They are alarmed over school policies that intentionally keep them in the dark about their own child’s “gender” confusion and frustrated that they are unable to shield their children from school curricula or programs that will undermine their child’s faith. Remote learning during the COVID lockdowns gave many parents an unvarnished look at their children’s daily lessons and the “woke” indoctrination embedded within.

Many parents today are rightly questioning whether public schools are the right choice for their children. There is no better time for Catholic dioceses to explain why a Catholic education—whether at home or in hybrid, classical, or parish schools—is not only a good option but the best option. The Church must do three things at once:

  1. educate parents about the ideological capture of public education and the very real threats that gender ideology and “wokeness” pose to their children’s faith and psychological stability;
  2. convey the vision of Catholic education (broadly speaking), which offers unparalleled benefits for faith, character-building and educational excellence; and
  3. work alongside parents and the larger Catholic community to ensure that financial costs will never prevent a Catholic child from receiving a Catholic education, not only by reducing costs in parochial schools but also by promoting less costly options.

These steps require a radical shift in mindset not only among parents but also among priests and diocesan personnel, who have long regarded public education as a lesser but benign alternative. Perhaps that was true in the past; it is not true today.

It is critical for diocesan bishops to assess each pastor’s commitment to Catholic education, in all forms. A priest who thinks Catholic education is unimportant, or who discounts homeschooling as a means of Catholic education, would seem to be a poor fit for a parish with many young families or a parish school. On the other hand, a bishop or pastor who is committed to ensuring a strong Catholic identity in diocesan schools, willing to listen to parents’ insights and be open to new educational models, and motivated to reach out to Catholic Hispanic families, whose children represent the future of the Church, will see the Church flourish in spite of the challenging culture.

Now, more than ever, Catholic parents, clergy, parishes and philanthropists need to prioritize Catholic education. Like Laura Morris, we must be unafraid to say that today’s public schools promote “political ideologies do not square with who [we are] as believer[s] in Christ.” Our children deserve better, and there are no do-overs on childhood. Let’s give our kids the education they need not only for the here and now, but for eternal life.

A Pastor Saves His Flock by Catholic Education

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Editor’s Note: A version of this piece was published at Crisis Magazine.

“We shall have to build the schoolhouse first and the church afterward,” the bishop declared, expressing his alarm about the corruption of young Catholics in secular schools. “In our age, the question of education is the question of the Church.”

These famous words of Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes, who was New York City’s first Catholic shepherd in the mid-1800s, seem no less relevant today. And in Fairfax County, Va., where critical race theory, gender ideology and emptied classrooms because of COVID have sparked protests by angry parents, a parish priest is taking up Hughes’s mission of helping Catholic children get out of public schools by every means possible.

Father John De Celles (Photo by Paul Haring)

When the pandemic hit last year, Father John De Celles of St. Raymond of Penafort Parish in Springfield, Va., instituted a one-time $2,000 scholarship for each child in his parish who switches from a public elementary or secondary school to a Catholic parochial or lay-run school. Father has renewed that offer again for the 2021-22 school year, thanks to the generosity of parishioners who don’t have school-age children.

In addition, this year he doubled the parish’s annual, renewable scholarships to $1,000 for students in Catholic grade schools and $2,000 for students in Catholic high schools. On a case-by-case basis, St. Raymond’s offers additional financial aid to families in need and helps cover the direct educational costs of families who homeschool.

These scholarships are not a marketing strategy for the parish school—in fact, there is no school at St. Raymond’s. Instead, parishioners attend nearby parochial schools or Angelus Academy, one of a growing number of faithful, lay-established schools. St. Raymond’s also supports an active group of Catholic homeschooling families.

The goal in promoting all of these options is to ensure that kids get a Catholic formation.

“We need to do whatever we can to help parents get their kids out of these corrupt government-run schools,” Fr. De Celles tells The Cardinal Newman Society. “We talk a lot about ‘evangelization,’ but we’re losing the souls we already have if we let these little ones be prey to the wolves. They will leave us and Jesus. We must do everything we can to save them, literally.”

The parish scholarships and Father’s efforts to highlight the dangers of public schools in bulletins and other parish communications have persuaded families to make the switch to Catholic education. One family told him they “cannot imagine going back to the public school system.”

Another family, whose 5th-grade son transferred from a public school into a Catholic school, told Father, “It was the best decision we made. Your assistance helped to make this happen for us, and we remain eternally grateful to you!”

Fr. De Celles was especially happy to grant a full scholarship to a single immigrant mom with huge financial troubles. He awarded another to a family caught up in financial problems related to the pandemic. This year, he said, the family is back on their feet and able to pay most of the tuition themselves.

“Parents tell me all the time how they love the Catholic schools, and how grateful they are,” Father says.

Returning to an old solution

The outlook for Irish Catholic immigrants in the mid-19th century was dismal, but Archbishop Hughes did not abandon his people. Instead he brought them to Christ through rigorous moral preaching and continually proclaiming the love of the Sacred Heart. The Archbishop’s attentiveness helped the Irish people relearn a sense of sin and guilt and become outstanding citizens and leaders in the city.

Importantly, he knew that education was the way to help the Irish people up from poverty and lawlessness to stable and upstanding lives. Hughes fought against the public school system, which was essentially run by Protestants. His attempt to win state support for Catholic schools caused controversy and a backlash with the Maclay Bill of 1842, which barred religious instruction from public schools and funds for denominational schools. But Hughes was not deterred, establishing even more Catholic schools.

Were the challenges he faced much different from what we face today? American Catholics were openly discriminated against for their religious beliefs. Large numbers of Catholic immigrants were quickly assimilated into public schools, which opposed Catholic teaching. Families were in crisis—especially the poorest in the inner cities—and they were battered by promiscuity, alcoholism, disease and absent fathers.

Today America is much more prosperous, yet the challenges facing the Church and society still include discrimination against Catholic beliefs, the assimilation of Catholic immigrants, sexual immorality, substance abuse, fatherlessness and even a devastating plague—plus the corruption of public schools.

All this suggests a return to the solution of Archbishop Hughes: first and foremost, tend to the spiritual and temporal needs of Catholic families. Renew courageous moral preaching, confidence in the love of Christ. And renew commitment to faithful Catholic education in any way that serves the needs of families, forming Catholics to be lights in the darkness.

Pastors like Father De Celles carry on the mission of Archbishop Hughes and others who established Catholic education in America, including St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. John Neumann and St. Katherine Drexel. Fr. De Celles recalls the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore in 1889, in which America’s bishops urged parents to withdraw their kids from public schools.

“Today we have an even worse problem,” Father says. “In 1889 the public schools were at least teaching with a Christian foundation, albeit Protestant. Now we face an anti-Christian and really anti-Christ school system.”

On the dangers of public education, bishops today are “essentially silent,” laments Fr. De Celles. “Parents and pastors and bishops should be doing everything possible to save their children from the abuse of public schools.”

Protecting children

Northern Virginia’s Fairfax County, where St. Raymond Parish is located, and nearby Loudoun County have become hotbeds for false ideology. For example, the Loudoun County public schools recently required teachers to use students’ preferred gender pronouns. Students who identify as “gender-expansive and transgender” are allowed to participate in sports “in a manner consistent with the student’s gender identity,” Fox News reported.

In Fairfax County, public school teachers, principals and other leaders held a one-hour Zoom conference with author Ibram Kendi, an advocate of critical race theory. As the Federalist reported, the call cost $20,000, and the district spent $24,000 on Kendi’s books while making them required reading for K-12 students.

Fairfax schools are also required to make bathrooms and locker rooms available to students based on their self-identified gender. Students must be identified by chosen names and genders, even in official school yearbooks.

These are just a handful of the dangerous influences in public schools. The bottom line is that many public schools today are promoting a worldview that’s inconsistent with our faith and often anti-Catholic. Parents, especially Catholic ones, are pulling their kids out.

“We sent our eldest daughter to Kindergarten at a public school, with the hope of using public school for as long as possible, given the expensive tuitions for four children in Catholic school,” recalled one of the families that sought help from St. Raymond Parish. “But we pulled her after her first year, when a teacher casually spoke about same-sex marriage.”

“We have tried to instill our faith in our children as their primary teachers, and now more than ever we know how important it is to protect them from what is being taught in the public schools,” the family wrote.

It’s a concern that Fr. De Celles wants everyone in his parish to take seriously. In a parish bulletin in May, Father wrote that the problems “cause me to wonder if it is immoral to send children to these schools.”

St. Raymond of Penafort Parish in Springfield, Va.

“Think about this: we were all rightly outraged when we heard about the abuse of children by priests and bishops a few years back,” wrote Fr. De Celles. “I remember how, for a while, so many people treated all priests as suspect of these horrible deeds. And we still have all sorts of rules in place in the Church that are to protect our children from the possibility of this ever happening. I understood that.”

“But now I wonder, why do we not feel/think the same outrage and suspicion toward our government bureaucrats and elected officials who are also abusing our children by warping their minds with this filth and nonsense? How can we corrupt our kids with this cow manure, and still say we love them, much less expect them and ourselves to remain in God’s favor? How can we do this to our little ones and not fear the fires of hell—for them and us?”

It couldn’t get more serious than that. For Fr. De Celles, helping young Catholics obtain a faithful Catholic education is a pastor’s solemn duty. He is leading the way through his own actions and the generosity and conviction of his parishioners.

It is an approach that will, we hope, be replicated in parishes and dioceses around the country.

Q&A: Walking in the Footsteps of Saints at The Catholic University of America

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As the only Catholic university in America founded by the U.S. bishops, The Catholic University of America boasts a rich Catholic tradition going back to the late 1800s from its campus in Washington D.C. This tradition has provided the school with one of the most unique legacies for an American Catholic institution of higher education: a legacy filled with saints. The Cardinal Newman Society recently asked Catholic University President John Garvey to discuss the many saints and holy people who have walked the halls and sidewalks of “bishop’s university.”

Newman Society: The Catholic University of America is known as the “bishops’ university,” since it is the Church’s national university in the U.S., but not many people know that canonized saints and prominent Church leaders have visited and studied there. Who are some of these saints, and what stories stand out from their time on campus?

President Garvey: For nearly 25 years beginning in 1926, Venerable Fulton Sheen (then Monsignor Sheen) taught in room 112 in McMahon Hall, prayed daily in Caldwell Chapel, and studied in Mullen Library. During those years, The Tower, Catholic University’s student newspaper, published more than 180 articles about Monsignor Sheen — his speeches, debates, books, and radio programs. Today, there is a plaque at room 112 to commemorate those years and the University hosts a website about the life of Fulton Sheen and his cause for sainthood.

Catholic University awarded Mother Teresa her first honorary degree in 1971, eight years before she would receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Thousands of papers and records related to her are housed in our University Archives. Students remember our connection to this saint every fall when we come out by the hundreds to help our surrounding communities on the University’s Annual Mother Teresa Day of Service, which is this coming Sunday.

Sister Thea Bowman, whose cause for sainthood has been endorsed by the U.S. bishops, received her master’s degree and Ph.D. at Catholic University. She was an educator, trailblazer, and advocate for the Black Catholic experience. When we formed a committee last year to explore and recommend ways in which the University can promote racial justice on campus, we naturally named it the Sister Thea Bowman Committee, and a road is named for her on our campus.

Servant of God Emil Kapaun, a priest from the Diocese of Wichita and a candidate for sainthood, received a master’s degree from Catholic University in 1948. He was captured by the North Koreans in 1950 while serving as a U.S. Army chaplain, and was killed while a prisoner of war. President Obama awarded him the Medal of Honor in 2013, and his remains have recently been identified. Later this month a Catholic University representative will be present when they bury his remains in Wichita.

The Knights of Columbus, founded by recently beatified Father Michael McGivney, is a permanent fixture here on campus. Our law school was named the Columbus School of Law after we merged our law school with Columbus University in 1954. In 2008 we named a renovated hall McGivney Hall after the Knights of Columbus generously gave $8 million for the facility’s extensive renovations. We have a statue of Blessed Michael McGivney outside of the hall’s entrance.

Cardinals and bishops frequent our campus, often interacting with students. They celebrate Mass with us and many serve on our Board of Trustees. Our chancellor, Cardinal Wilton Gregory, archbishop of Washington, became the first African American cardinal in November 2020. He is part of our community and an inspiration to many of our students.

Newman Society: Considering the honorary degrees awarded to Saint Teresa of Calcutta, Venerable Fulton Sheen, Saint Katharine Drexel and others, why is it important for the Catholic University of America to hold up exemplars of moral virtue?

President Garvey: The role of Catholic University is not simply to produce scholars, but to produce scholars steeped in the Catholic intellectual tradition. These men and women – saints, blesseds, and servants of God – inspire us to live lives of virtue, founded in our faith and in service to others.

Newman Society: Pope Francis, Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have all made historic visits to campus. How did that contribute to students’ experience and their education?

President Garvey joins Catholic University students as they prepare food for those in need at a local community center in Washington, D.C., on the University annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service hosted by campus ministry, 01/20/20 (Photo credit: Patrick G. Ryan, The Catholic University of America)

President Garvey: The Catholic University of America is the only university in the country to have been visited by three popes. Pope (now Saint) John Paul II visited our campus in 1979. We hosted Pope Benedict in 2008 when he delivered an address on Catholic education at the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center. On Sept. 23, 2015, Pope Francis came to our campus, and, for me, it was an honor to be part of the experience as University President. On that day the Holy Father celebrated the canonization Mass of Junípero Serra from the East Portico of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception overlooking our campus where more than 25,000 worshippers gathered. Among them were hundreds of our students, many of whom would later tell me it was a life-changing moment.

That visit to our campus was historic for many reasons. It was the first canonization to take place on U.S. soil. It was the first Mass Pope Francis celebrated in the United States, and it was in fact his first visit to the U.S. in his life. For those of us who attended the Mass, most especially our students, it was a day we will never forget.

Our involvement with the pope’s visit went beyond the Mass. During the summer before Pope Francis’s visit, the Archdiocese of Washington and Catholic Charities launched the #WalkwithFrancis campaign to encourage D.C.-area residents to follow the example of Pope Francis, pledging service and prayer in the weeks leading up to his visit. At the University we embraced the theme, which we wore on bracelets, with Campus Ministry-sponsored service events and a series of educational programs. Our goal as a University was to ensure our community had the opportunity to be part of the historic visit in meaningful and memorable ways.

For the visits by both Pope Benedict and Pope Francis, students in our School of Architecture competed to design the liturgical furniture used for papal Masses. The altars continue in use today, at the Basilica and Washington’s Saint John Paul II Seminary.

Newman Society: Catholic education should be forming every student for sainthood. How is Catholic University preparing the next generation of saints and leaders for our Church and world?

President Garvey: We encourage our students to love both God and neighbor, and to do so in that order. That’s why I tell freshmen at orientation to not forget to pray. I hope they’ll study hard at Catholic University and make good friends. These are important things. But they’re not the last things. Prayer helps our students balance all the demands of university life, and helps them keep their priorities in view. It also reminds them why they are here — not just here at The Catholic University of America, but here on earth. College can be stressful at times. God’s abiding peace is the best stress reliever. So I encourage them to take advantage of the many opportunities to pray with others at Catholic University.

We want our students to have a vibrant spiritual life, so we provide the sacraments on campus often. Every year I conclude orientation with a Public Service Announcement to the incoming class that includes all Mass and confession times, just so they know how easy it is to keep up their spiritual life.

And from our commitment to love God there naturally flows a deep commitment to serve our neighbor. We begin every fall semester with our Annual Mother Teresa Day of Service and at the start of each spring semester, our community turns out for the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. On nearly every day of our academic year, students can participate in service, from our homeless food runs that take them into the city with meals to after-school reading programs to visits to senior housing facilities. Domestic and international service-learning trips are available every spring break and summer. The NCAA and the Catholic Volunteer Network have recognized Catholic University students for national leadership in giving back to the community.

John Henry Newman

Some Hard Truths About Secular Colleges

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R. Reno made waves a few months ago, because of his frank rejection of “elite” secular universities. Let’s hope Catholic educators were paying attention.

Reno is editor of First Things magazine, which caters to a generally highbrow readership. Before teaching at Jesuit, but largely secularized, Creighton University, he graduated from the prestigious Haverford College and earned his Ph.D. at Yale.

Still, Reno no longer recruits Ivy League graduates for his staff.

“I don’t want to hire someone who makes inflammatory accusations at the drop of a hat,” he writes, responding to the increasingly hostile “cancel culture” at Ivy League universities and most other secular colleges. He also doesn’t want to hire graduates who have become “well-practiced in remaining silent when it costs something to speak up” against prevailing campus ideologies.

“I have no doubt that Ivy League universities attract smart, talented, and ambitious kids,” Reno acknowledges. “But do these institutions add value? My answer is increasingly negative. Dysfunctional kids are coddled and encouraged to nurture grievances, while normal kids are attacked and educationally abused.”

Most Catholic college students attend secular colleges or largely secularized Catholic colleges, where the anti-reason “cancel culture” threatens anyone who espouses Catholic teaching or celebrates Western culture. Shouldn’t the Church be doing something about these dangers?

Continue reading at The Catholic Thing…

A Pastor Saves His Flock by Catholic Education

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In Northern Virginia, where critical race theory, gender ideology, and emptied classrooms because of COVID-19 have sparked protests by angry parents of public-school students, a parish priest is taking up the legendary Archbishop “Dagger John” Hughes’ mission of helping Catholic children get out of public schools by every means possible.

Archbishop Hughes founded the Catholic school system in New York City in the mid-1800s and famously declared, “We shall have to build the schoolhouse first and the church afterward. In our age, the question of education is the question of the Church.”

Faithful Catholic education is no less urgently needed today. So, when the pandemic hit last year, Fr. John De Celles of St. Raymond of Peñafort Parish in Springfield, Virginia, instituted a one-time $2,000 scholarship for each child in his parish who switched from a public elementary or secondary school to a Catholic parochial or lay-run school.

This year, Fr. De Celles has renewed that offer again, thanks to the generosity of parishioners. He also doubled the parish’s annual, renewable scholarships to $1,000 for students in Catholic grade schools and $2,000 for students in Catholic high schools. And on a case-by-case basis, St. Raymond’s offers additional financial aid to families in need and helps cover the direct educational costs of families who homeschool.

Continue reading at Crisis Magazine…

Newman Society President Discusses Ministerial Exception on Drew Mariani Relevant Radio Show

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Patrick Reilly, president and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, joined the Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio Tuesday to discuss an appeal to the United States Supreme Court regarding the “ministerial exception” and its protection for religious colleges. A recording is available here.

The guest host Ed Morrissey noted that the Newman Society had co-filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court requesting that it block the Massachusetts Superior Court’s narrow reading of the ministerial exception, thereby allowing a professor of social work to sue Gordon College for denying her a  promotion.

The ministerial exception is a First Amendment principle that bars courts from interfering with personnel decisions concerning employees who have substantial religious duties, including religious instruction and formation. The Supreme Court upheld the exception for a school teacher in Hosanna Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC (2012) and reaffirmed the exception for religion teachers at Catholic schools in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru last summer.

“In both cases they made it very clear that teaching the faith is about as ministerial as it gets, that the institutions are protected from lawsuits based on discrimination,” Reilly explained.

The Gordon College case has special importance for the ministerial exception, Reilly said, “because it involves a college, which the Supreme Court has not yet considered, and it also involves someone who is not teaching theology, but is teaching social work,” Reilly said.  “At Gordon College they make very clear that every professor must be teaching the faith as part of their course work [and] they should be protected as part of the ministerial exception.”

The Gordon College case is yet another attempt to “rein in the ministerial exception,” Reilly said, citing a recent case in which a parish employee sued the Archdiocese of Chicago, claiming that the “ministerial exception only applies to hiring and firing decisions and not other employment decisions” including claims of a hostile work environment. The Newman Society petitioned the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals to support the First Amendment rights of religious employers, which the court did in July.

Host Morrissey noted the importance of these rulings and the ministerial exception, pointing out that “the point of the church teaching function is to promote church teaching.”

“To have the state step into those decisions, certainly in Hosanna Tabor, the Supreme Court found it to be almost an explicit intrusion into religious faith and religious exercise,” he said.

Newman Society Urges Supreme Court to Apply Ministerial Exception to Religious Colleges

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On Thursday, The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education, with the International Alliance for Christian Education and the Association for Biblical Higher Education, urged the United States Supreme Court to overturn a Massachusetts high court ruling that would severely restrict the ministerial exception for religious higher education.

The amicus brief was authored and filed on Sept. 2 by Sharon Rose and Samuel Diehl of the Washington, D.C.-based Cross Castle PLLC.

In March, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled in Gordon College v. DeWeese-Boyd that Gordon College is indeed a Christian college and its professors are required to teach and uphold Christian principles, but the Court nevertheless allowed a dissenting social work professor to proceed with a lawsuit against the college for refusing to promote her. Court interference in religious hiring practices is a violation of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause and the ministerial exception, according to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling last year in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Beru.

“Catholic and other religious colleges deserve the same First Amendment protections that have been upheld for religious schools,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “The Supreme Court last year clearly upheld the ministerial exception with regard to a schoolteacher hired specifically to teach religion classes. We now call on the Court to make clear that the ministerial exception applies to professors, regardless of their discipline, at institutions where religious faith informs all that is taught and employees are required to be witnesses to religious beliefs.”

As argued in the brief, “Gordon is entitled to define its faith and determine how that faith is carried out in matters of internal government and employment, not individual faculty members. The standard the Massachusetts Court applied fundamentally threatens Gordon’s and other religious institutions’ ability to accomplish their missions and to maintain their pervasively religious character.”

Newman Society Files Amicus Brief on Upholding Ministerial Exception – U.S. Supreme Court

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The Cardinal Newman Society joined an amicus brief at the United States Supreme Court urging the court to overturn a Massachusetts high court ruling that would severely restrict the ministerial exception for religious higher education.

Archdiocese of Indianapolis Fights for the Right to Have Faithful Employees

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

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

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

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

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

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

Much More to Come

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.