The Nondiscrimination Dance

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Last month, eighth-grade students at Notre Dame Academy (a Catholic school in Toledo, Ohio) took a field trip to Chicago to see The Nutcracker. Just minutes before the curtains opened, however, the trip chaperones decided the class should leave. The chaperones had discovered that the onstage parents of Clara, the main character, would be portrayed as same-sex married.  

Consider the chaperones’ dilemma. No doubt the theater seats had been paid for, and students would be unhappy about missing the performance. Perhaps the characters’ same-sex marriage would have little impact on the audience. Nevertheless, the chaperones could see that the audience was being subjected to an agenda not normally included in The Nutcracker. The Catholic Church teaches clearly that same-sex marriage is gravely sinful, and the chaperones had a responsibility to the children they accompanied. A faithful adult might not be swayed by a fictional portrayal, but students might assume that since the same-sex relationship in a cherished Christmas performance was part of a Catholic school field trip, it was in line with Church teachings on sex and marriage.

The right thing to do, then, was avoid the potential scandal and discuss the issue in light of Catholic teaching back at school. Dean of Students Jessica Beaverson was one of the chaperones who made the call. According to multiple social media posts, Principal Sarah Cullum was consulted and supported the walkout. These administrators and chaperones should be regarded as heroes for making such a quick and wise decision on the spot—but they have been vilified instead.

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Protecting Your Right To Educate: How Catholic Education Can Defend Against Emerging Legal Threats

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Half a century into a sexual revolution that has upturned notions of sexual morality and even gender identity, Catholic education is under attack like never before. Religious schools and colleges are facing protests and lawsuits, while presidential candidates are promising to revoke schools’ tax-exempt status—all because Catholic educators hold fast to Church teachings that were considered common sense even a decade ago.

Catholic schools and colleges have not sought out and do not want this confrontation. They exist to form young people to serve and worship God and to spread love and hope to others, rooted in the Church’s teaching on the dignity of the human person and God’s design for human sexuality. But educators are finding that, due to forces beyond their control, their freedom to operate according to conscience and mission is shrinking.

As legal and cultural pressures continue to swell, Catholic school leaders must decide now how they will respond. Many Catholic schools decided a long time ago to assimilate with changes in modern culture. Others have tried to placate critics by offering limited compromise to pressure from students, parents, or outsiders.

Instead, Catholic educators ought to take a different approach by viewing the current crisis as a call to deepen and strengthen their organizations’ religious identity.[1]  The good news is that there is much that Catholic educators can do to help protect their ability to continue serving the public and operate according to mission. Despite the cultural trends, our nation has retained its strong founding commitment to religious liberty. But like Jesus, who has little patience for the lukewarm, the strongest religious liberty protections are available to those schools that communicate and live out their convictions—boldly, clearly, and consistently.

The first part of this Issue Bulletin provides context, illustrating some of the legal conflicts and other pressures on religious organizations from new and emerging standards in culture and law that conflict with their convictions.

The second part outlines practical steps that Catholic education leaders can take to prepare to meet these challenges. Most importantly, this part urges schools and colleges to undertake a mission audit that will help leaders identify where their convictions are likely to be challenged and help them better articulate their convictions in light of these challenges. The audit proposes a series of strategic decisions that help religious organizations understand present and anticipated conflicts, improve religious liberty protections, and prepare themselves for the challenges that may come.

The audit outlined here draws from the author’s experience working on such audits with dozens of Christian schools and major national Catholic ministries. This proven process not only improves legal defenses, it also helps invigorate the apostolate by giving community members a new and stronger sense of their calling and how they relate to the organization’s religious mission.

Religious liberty threats to Catholic education

To properly discern the path forward, Catholic school and college leaders must begin with a sober assessment of today’s cultural context and the legal pressures that are being brought to bear on religious organizations that are holding fast to Christian anthropology.[2]

The Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges must feature prominently in any retelling of where Catholic educators in America find themselves today.[3] In one sense, the declaration that the Constitution protects the right to same-sex marriage was simply the latest in a long line of Supreme Court decisions, stretching back to Griswold v. Connecticut, 318 U.S. 479 (1965), that have developed a constitutional right to self-determine one’s sexual identity and sexual activity without consequences, a right that invariably is exercised by striking down laws and policies seeking to preserve the nuclear family and traditional sexual morality.[4]

Yet the Obergefell decision is much more than just another step down the same road the Supreme Court has been on for fifty years. It marked an important and ominous turning point in the relationship between sexual liberties and religious freedom. Rather than satisfying the cultural left, Obergefell has led to increasing hostility against Christian values and institutions that hold fast to their traditional views and resist cultural trends. Traditional views and even the concept of “religious liberty” itself have come under increasing attack.

In the years before Obergefell, the pitch for redefining marriage was often made on libertarian grounds. Same-sex couples were merely seeking a legal status that would give them hospital visitation rights[5] and alleviate tax penalties.[6] On the flip side, religious conservatives were pushed to answer how expanding marriage would affect their own lives.[7] The clear implication was that it would not at all.

But in June 2015, when the Supreme Court announced a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the narrative changed abruptly and progressives began attacking religious institutions. The same day the Court dropped its opinion, the ACLU announced its opposition to religious freedom laws.[8] Two days later, The New York Times religion columnist Mark Oppenheimer called for an end to tax exemptions for religious institutions that disagree with the new public policy resulting from the Obergefell decision.[9]

The following year, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights concluded a three-year study of the balance between religious liberty and nondiscrimination laws with a report, “Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties.” The Commission concluded that, for the most part, this “peaceful coexistence” will be achieved by forcing religious liberty claims to yield before emerging civil liberty claims.[10] The most incendiary part of the report is the statement of Commission Chairman Martin R. Castro, who said that “[t]he phrases ‘religious liberty’ and ‘religious freedom’ will stand for nothing except hypocrisy so long as they remain code words for discrimination, intolerance, racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, Christian supremacy or any form of intolerance. . . . This generation of Americans must stand up and speak out to ensure that religion never again be twisted to deny others the full promise of America.”[11]

The recent attacks on religious liberty have not been confined to rhetorical flourishes but have taken place in the courtroom as well. In many of these lawsuits, progressives have claimed the moral high ground by arguing that discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity is akin to race discrimination. For example, in Craig v. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Christian baker Jack Phillips argued that he had not discriminated against a homosexual couple “because of” their sexual orientation, but because of their intended conduct—entering into a same-sex marriage.[12] The Colorado court rejected this argument. It said that while “Masterpiece thus distinguishes between discrimination based on a person’s status and discrimination based on conduct closely correlated with that status,” “the United States Supreme Court has recognized that such distinctions are generally inappropriate.”[13] In another Christian wedding vendor case, this time involving a florist, the Washington Supreme Court made a direct analogy to the civil rights era, asserting that “[w]e agree with [the plaintiffs] that this case is no more about access to flowers than civil rights cases in the 1960s were about access to sandwiches.”[14]

Many of these legal and cultural attacks have focused on faithful Catholic schools and colleges:

  • In 2009, before the Obama administration implemented the HHS Mandate, the EEOC said that Belmont Abbey College, a Catholic liberal arts school near Charlotte, N.C., was guilty of sex discrimination because its employee health plan did not cover contraceptives.[15]
  • In 2011, a Catholic school in Fort Wayne, Indiana, dismissed a junior high school language arts teacher, Emily Herx, when she continued with in vitro fertilization treatments after the pastor informed her that this violated Church teaching and asked her to stop. Ms. Herx alleged that this constituted sex discrimination, and the EEOC agreed. In December 2014, the jury found for Herx and awarded her $1.9 million in damages.[16]
  • In 2014, a Catholic school in Macon, Georgia, dismissed its music teacher after he announced on Facebook his upcoming same-sex wedding. In March 2015, the EEOC determined that this was sex discrimination under Title VII. On June 29, the day after the Obergefell decision, the plaintiff filed his Title VII lawsuit against the Catholic school.[17]
  • In 2016, the California Assembly took up proposed legislation, SB 1146, that aimed at stigmatizing and punishing religious colleges and universities that expect their students to adhere to the school’s traditional beliefs on sexual identity and sexual morality. The bill, in its strongest form, opened up such religious schools to civil lawsuits from LGBT students and blocked students who wanted to attend such schools from receiving Cal Grants, California’s need-based aid system.[18] The bill’s sponsor, California Senator Ricardo Lara, wanted “to shed light on the appalling and unacceptable discrimination against LGBT students at these private religious institutions throughout California.” Another California legislator, Assemblyman Evan Low, called colleges claiming a religious exemption from Title IX “the worst of the worst in terms of institutions that discriminate.”

The attacks on faithful Catholics have only intensified over the past year:

  • In late 2018, Democrats in the Senate Judiciary Committee contended that a judicial nominee should be rejected simply because he belonged to the Knights of Columbus.[19]
  • In May 2019, the House of Representatives passed the “Equality Act,” a bill that would make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” while eliminating religious liberty protections.[20] Fortunately, the bill died in the Senate.
  • In September, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos came under attack for visiting a Catholic school in Pennsylvania that is not inclusive of transgender students and staff and has a strict policy against “sex reassignment.”[21]
  • In October, presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke called for stripping churches and schools of their tax-exempt status if they oppose same-sex marriage.[22]
  • Also in October, the Supreme Court heard three cases that ask the Court to redefine “sex discrimination” under Title VII, the federal employment nondiscrimination law, to include both “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” The Supreme Court is expected to decide these cases by June 2020.[23]

In 2019 alone, Catholic schools have faced lawsuits for terminating employees for premarital sex,[24] entering a same-sex union,[25] and for publicly advocating for same-sex couples.[26] Leaving aside school-teacher conflicts, Catholic schools have faced backlashes within the Catholic community for refusing admission to the child of a same-sex couple[27] and for refusing to celebrate a same-sex wedding in the campus chapel.[28]

Catholic education leaders must decide now how they will respond to this crisis.

As these pressures mount, Catholic educators must decide now how they will respond to the aggressive pressures being brought to bear on religious institutions that hold fast to their convictions. School and college leaders with little appetite for conflict or budget for protracted litigation will likely prefer an approach that would allow them to sidestep these conflicts. But the options here are not promising. Instead, Catholic educators are urged to undertake a mission audit to help them develop and implement strategies to strengthen their religious identity and their religious liberty defenses.

Attempts to avoid conflict are either futile or involve compromises inconsistent with the mission of a Catholic school.

Catholic school and college leaders would rather focus on education and evangelism than on costly and time-consuming legal and public relations battles. But there are good reasons to think that efforts to avoid conflict or placate the Church’s critics are either impractical or unprincipled.

One option, to simply agree to conform policies and personnel matters to the emerging consensus, is a non-starter for schools and colleges that take seriously the mission of Catholic education as articulated by Vatican II and recent popes.[29] Nor is it realistic for Catholic educators to simply hope that this cultural moment will pass them by without incident. Underlying this reality, the 2019 lawsuits mentioned above were filed in Kansas and Indiana, Midwestern states far from the coasts.

Another option would be to make some compromises with the culture in the hopes of brokering a peace. The pervasive attacks on traditional moral teaching have led some religious leaders to try to compromise and thereby win some good will from gender and sexuality activists. Mormon and Evangelical leaders have tried this approach in recent years, with decidedly mixed results. In 2015 the Mormon Church threw its weight behind the “Utah Compromise,” an attempt to broker a truce in the culture war by pairing new civil rights protections with religious-liberty protections for faith-based organizations.[30] At the end of 2018, major Evangelical Christian groups—including the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities and the National Association of Evangelicals—endorsed their own version of this compromise approach under the slogan “Freedom for All.” Here, as in Utah, the policy of giving progressives some of what they wanted was sold as a political strategy to preserve religious liberty.[31] One supporter described the effort in these terms:

As Christian higher educators, we are increasingly persuaded that the most viable political strategy is for comprehensive religious freedom protections to be combined with explicit support for basic human rights for members of the LGBT community.[32]

So far, however, there is little reason to call the “Fairness for All” approach a success. While progressive activists celebrated what they were able to accomplish in Utah, they quickly signaled that it was not enough, and that they would push for more whenever they had the opportunity.[33] Advocates specifically complained that the “Utah Compromise” yielded too much so-called “religious liberty.” As noted above, the left has come to see “religious liberty” as a code word for bigotry; there is no reason to think that religious conservatives can change people’s minds on this by compromising on nondiscrimination law.

Some Catholic universities have also demonstrated the weakness and futility of the compromise approach to these culture war battles over sexual morality. The University of Notre Dame has extended spousal benefits to same-sex partners[34] and covers most FDA-approved contraceptives in its health plans,[35] yet it was still sued for refusing to fund abortifacients[36] and its student body president is calling for the school to abandon single-sex dorms and parietals on the basis that they are “heteronormative” and discriminate against transgender and same-sex attracted students.[37] Marquette University hosts a student “Pride Prom”,[38] yet like Notre Dame is still facing pressure over its “outdated” single-sex dorm policies.[39]

If compromising Catholic principles in order to placate progressive critics is a flawed political strategy, it is perhaps an even worse legal strategy. At one point, Notre Dame told a federal judge that, consistent with Ex Corde Ecclesiae, it was prohibited from paying for, providing, or facilitating access to contraceptives.[40] But in 2014, the University reversed course and voluntarily began complying with the HHS Mandate.[41] This sort of inconsistency invites courts to probe as to whether a school’s stated religious convictions are sincere, a key inquiry in religious liberty cases. Perhaps even worse, it encourages protestors and plaintiffs by giving them reason to hope that Catholic institutions will cave if only the heat is turned up hot enough.

Catholic schools and colleges are instead urged to undertake a mission audit to strengthen their religious identity and religious liberty defenses.

Rather than trying to appease the Church’s critics, Catholic organizations should instead look to clarify and strengthen their religious identity. This is the best way for Catholic schools and colleges to embrace their distinctive mission. In his 2008 address to Catholic educators at The Catholic University of America, Pope Benedict XVI identified an “educational emergency” and urged leaders to fulfill the mission of Catholic education:

A particular responsibility, therefore, for each of you and your colleagues, is to evoke among the young the desire for the act of faith, encouraging them to commit themselves to the ecclesial life that follows from this belief. It is here that freedom reaches the certainty of truth. In choosing to live by that truth, we embrace the fullness of the life of faith which is given to us in the Church.[42]

As The Cardinal Newman Society has stressed, the Church calls Catholic educators “to remain vigilant in their mission” by resisting the temptation to conform to the world. Schools and colleges must do this “by preserving a Catholic culture which proclaims essential truths about the nature and dignity of the human person.”[43]

Fortunately, this ecclesial mandate is also a strong and wise legal strategy. While the challenges facing churches and religious organizations are daunting, our nation’s bedrock commitment to religious liberty remains strong. This historical commitment continues to live in the First Amendment’s protections for religious and expressive freedom, broad religious liberty statutes, and specific exemptions found in a number of laws.[44]

In order to best protect their religious liberty, it is imperative that Catholic schools and colleges understand and take full advantage of these protections. To do so, Catholic educators should undertake a mission audit to help them understand where they are likely to face challenges and to ensure that they have an architecture in place to protect their freedom to minister and work in accordance with their faith.

Just as a general audit helps an organization understand its financial soundness, a mission audit will help a religious organization understand how its religious convictions affect its work and how these convictions may face conflict. The proposed mission audit outlines the kind of practical steps religious institutions can take to avoid such conflicts, improve their ability to claim religious liberty protections, and prepare themselves for potential challenges.

Often organizations are initially motivated to undertake a religious mission audit for defensive reasons: because they are acutely aware that distinctly Christian educators and employers are in legal and cultural crosshairs and want to know how to best protect their institution and its mission against attacks. But the audit has positive aspects as well. Over the past six years, our firm’s religious institutions group has helped dozens of Christian schools, several dioceses, and large religious organizations through this audit process to help them strengthen their legal protections by strengthening their religious identity. In our experience, religious organizations find the audit process revealing and instructive. The process helps Catholic schools and colleges:

  • Better articulate their charism inside and outside their community;
  • Clarify and implement this charism as it relates to their various programs, departments, and positions; and
  • Better steward their school’s charism and resources.

 

  1. Quick steps to protect mission

Many school and college leaders see the need for a mission audit but want to know what steps they should be taking in the short term. The mission audit we recommend begins with getting leaders around a table to make sure they have clarity about their mission and convictions.

Building on this consensus, leaders should ask some high-level questions to get a sense about what they need in order to accomplish their mission and whether documents and policies adequately convey these requirements. The most important areas to review are employee expectations, student expectations, nondiscrimination statements, and facilities use policies. Schools may also want to make sure they understand the nondiscrimination requirements they are subject to through professional or extracurricular organizations like sports leagues.

In undertaking this overview, school leaders may find it helpful to refer to guides that have been prepared and made available by religious liberty groups.[45]

  1. Mission audit overview

While publicly available guides and templates can be a good start, most schools and colleges should invest in a more detailed and individualized strategy. Every organization’s circumstances are different, and sophisticated entities should not entrust their legal exposure to an online resource any more than they would forego individualized financial advice.

Each organization’s process will need to take into account the challenges in its locality, as well as the religious liberty provisions specific to the organization type and location. The audit outlined below is a sizable undertaking, but such planning is necessary as a matter of stewardship and prudent leadership. While each such audit must be tailored to the particular entity, every organization’s process should involve three basic steps.

              a. STAGE ONE: Clarifying the audit’s scope and objectives

The first step in the audit process is for school and college leaders, together with legal counsel, to discuss the institution’s general concerns and establish the scope of the audit. Most mission audits should address the following subject areas:

  • Corporate Documents
    • Is the school or college taking advantage of available opportunities to establish its identity as a religious organization under relevant laws?
  • Public Accommodations
    • Does the school or college have policies and procedures for facility use and rental? If so, does its process properly balance reasons for renting its facilities with its ability to control how the campus is used?
  • Nondiscrimination Policies
    • Do nondiscrimination policies—in handbooks, policy manuals, and elsewhere—accurately reflect how the school or college makes decisions?
  • Student Conduct Issues
    • Do promotional materials, enrollment process, student handbook, disciplinary process and procedures, etc., appropriately communicate and secure consent regarding the community’s standards and their connection to the religious identity of the school or college?
  • Employee Conduct Issues
    • Does the school or college understand how available religious liberty protections apply to each position? Has it laid the proper groundwork so that it is able to invoke available religious liberty protections when necessary?
  • Sexual Abuse
    • Do policies and procedures for handling allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct reflect best practices? Is the school or college well-positioned to handle allegations in a manner that balances justice and mercy and that prepares it to address related public relations and legal challenges?

      b. STAGE TWO: Audit current policies and procedures

The second stage of the audit involves reviewing how the school or college operates at present. The audit usually begins with a document review and continues with follow-up questions and conversations. A thorough document review typically involves the following:

  • Corporate documents;
  • Human resources documents;
  • Student-related documents;
  • Sexual abuse policies and procedures;
  • Facility rental policies and procedures; and
  • Documents related to third-party obligations, including sports leagues, grants, and government contracts.

           c. STAGE THREE: Developing recommendations to protect the organization

While the first two stages of the audit help a school or college understand where it stands, this final stage is the most important. Here, educators will identify and implement strategies to help them continue to pursue their mission despite the present and emerging threats to religious liberty.

The first goal is to identify obstacles that can be avoided. The school or college could seek to:

  • Eliminate unnecessary legal conflicts;
  • Eliminate peripheral activities;
  • Reduce dependence on government funding; or
  • Reduce oversight from licensing or accrediting organizations.

For those conflicts that are not easily avoidable, religious organizations should work to improve their ability to claim crucial protections for religious liberty. By one scholar’s count, there were 2,000 religious exemptions in state and federal law in 1992.[46] The audit should help educators identify the religious liberty protections most relevant to their activities and identify ways to reshape policies, practices, and documentation in light of these protections.

Here the audit will aim to:

  • Strengthen or clarify the school’s or college’s relationship to its religious tradition or to a religious authority;
  • Clarify the organization’s status as an “expressive association;” and
  • Strengthen the educators’ ability to claim exemptions from employee discrimination laws (including the ministerial exception, Title VII’s bona fide occupational qualification, and Title VII’s religious organization exception).

Finally, the audit recommends ways for the school or college to avoid controversy. While positioning itself to qualify for religious liberty protections, a religious organization should not overlook some simple, practical things it can do to avoid controversy. It should do everything it can to treat employees well and to apply moral standards consistently.

Conclusion

Undertaking a mission audit is a crucial task for Catholic schools and colleges today. This Issue Bulletin has explained why a Catholic school or college should undertake an assessment that will help identify challenges and religious liberty protections specific to its locale and activities and then make adjustments to better protect itself from challenges. Failure to act promptly to identify and address legal and institutional weaknesses can have enormous consequences for Catholic educators’ ability to fulfill their calling.

While a thorough audit is a time-intensive and resource-intensive process, such planning is necessary in today’s environment as a matter of stewardship and prudent leadership. To reduce the cost of the audit, many schools and colleges choose to undergo an audit with others that they recognize as peers. This approach not only saves money, but it also helps schools and colleges learn from each other’s insights, struggles, and successes.

Catholic educators should carefully choose the legal counsel that will guide them through this process. A thorough mission audit is best undertaken with counsel that is familiar with religious organizations and with religious liberty issues, as such familiarity will help guide the school or college through the complex moral, religious, and practical problems facing religious education today.

 

Eric Kniffin is an attorney in Colorado Springs, Colorado specializing in religious institutions. He is a partner with the law firm of Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP and can be reached at 719-386-3017 or ekniffin@lrrc.com.

 

[1] DISCLAIMER: This paper should not be construed as legal advice or legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances. The contents are intended for general informational purposes only, and readers are urged to consult their own lawyers concerning particular situations and any specific legal questions they may have.

[2] For a more detailed survey of the cultural and legal threats against Christian institutions in the wake of Obergefell v. Hodges, see Eric N. Kniffin, Protecting Your Right to Serve: How Religious Ministries Can Meet New Challenges without Changing Their Witness, Heritage Foundation (Nov. 9, 2015) at 3-7, https://www.heritage.org/civil-society/report/protecting-your-right-serve-how-religious-ministries-can-meet-new-challenges.

[3] 135 S. Ct. 2584, 2594 (2015).

[4] For a helpful overview of this line of Supreme Court cases and the sexual revolution, see Helen Alvaré, Religious Freedom Versus Sexual Expression: A Guide, 30 J. L. & Religion 475 (2015). See also Helen Alvaré, With Power Comes Responsibility: The Rise of Sexual Expressionism and the Decline of Children’s Interests, Cambridge Univ. Press (2017).

[5] See Human Rights Campaign, Hospital Visitation Guide for LGBTQ Families, https://www.hrc.org/resources/hospital-visitation-guide-for-lgbt-families

[6] Bill Mears, Same-sex marriage and DOMA: 5 things we learned from oral arguments, CNN (March 28, 2013), https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/27/us/new-york-doma-windsor/index.html

[7] See Ethics & Religious Liberty Comm’n, How will gay marriage impact your marriage? (Aug. 4, 2014), https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/how-will-gay-marriage-impact-your-marriage.

[8] Louise Melling, ACLU: Why we can no longer support the federal ‘religious freedom’ law, Washington Post (June 26, 2015), http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/congress-should-amend-the-abusedreligious-freedom-restoration-act/2015/06/25/ee6aaa46-19d8-11e5-ab92-c75ae6ab94b5_story.html.

[9] Mark Oppenheimer, Now’s the Time to End Tax Exemptions for Religious Institutions, Time (June 28, 2015), http://time.com/3939143/nows-the-time-to-end-tax-exemptions-for-religious-institutions/.

[10] U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Peaceful Coexistence: Reconciling Nondiscrimination Principles with Civil Liberties (Sept. 7, 2016), http://www.usccr.gov/pubs/Peaceful-Coexistence-09-07-16.PDF.

[11] Id. at 29.

[12] 370 P. 3d 272, 280 (Colo. App. 2015).

[13] Id. at 280-81 (collecting cases).

[14] State v. Arlene’s Flowers, Inc., No. 91615-2, 2017 WL 629181, at *16 (Wash. Feb. 16, 2017) (quotation and alteration omitted).

[15] Charlotte Allen, The Persecution of Belmont Abbey (Oct. 26, 2009), https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/weekly-standard/the-persecution-of-belmont-abbey.

[16] Rebecca S. Green, “Jury sides with fired teacher,” The Journal Gazette (Dec. 20, 2014), http://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/courts/Jury-sides-with-fired-teacher-4094706; Herx v. Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Inc., 48 F. Supp. 3d 1168 (N.D. Ind. September 13, 2014) (denying diocese’s ministerial exception defense).

[17] Dr. Susan Berry, Gay teacher files federal discrimination lawsuit against Catholic school, Brietbart (July 1, 2015), http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/01/gay-teacher-files-federal-discrimination-lawsuit-against-catholic-school/.

[18] See California Legislative Information, SB-1146 Discrimination: postsecondary education, Bill Analysis, Aug. 1, 2016, https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billAnalysisClient.xhtml?bill_id=201520160SB1146#; Jane Adams, California bill takes aim at religious colleges that seek to bar transgender students, EdSource (May 31, 2016), https://edsource.org/2016/california-bills-take-aim-at-religious-colleges-that-seek-to-bar-transgender-students/564869.

[19] Ed Condon, Judicial nominee faces Senate scrutiny over Knights of Columbus membership, Catholic News Agency (Dec. 21, 2018), https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/senators-quiz-nominee-about-membership-of-extreme-knights-of-columbus-78683

[20] Despite religious freedom concerns, House passes Equality Act, Catholic News Agency (May 17, 2019), https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/despite-religious-freedom-concerns-house-passes-equality-act-71069.

[21] Caitlin O’Kane, Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos visits school with anti-transgender policy, CBS News (Sept. 19, 2019), https://www.cbsnews.com/news/betsy-devos-education-secretary-transgender-school-visiting-harrisburg-catholic-policy-transgender-students/.

[22] Tobias Hoonhout, Beto O’Rourke Calls for Stripping Churches of Tax-Exempt Status If They ‘Oppose Same-Sex Marriage’, National Review (Oct. 11, 2019), https://www.nationalreview.com/news/beto-orourke-calls-for-stripping-churches-of-tax-exempt-status-if-they-oppose-same-sex-marriage/.

See also Eric Kniffin’s recent interviews with Drew Mariani: Drew Mariani Show, Beto O’Rourke Proposes Yanking Tax Status on Churches (Oct. 11, 2019), https://relevantradio.com/2019/10/beto-orourke-proposes-yanking-tax-status-on-churches/; Drew Mariani Show, Religious Liberty and the 2020 Presidential Election (Nov. 11, 2019), https://relevantradio.com/2019/11/is-a-new-democratic-candidate-jumping-in/.

[23] Adam Liptak, Supreme Court Considers Whether Civil Rights Act Protects L.G.B.T. Workers, NY Times (Oct. 8, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/08/us/politics/supreme-court-gay-transgender.html.

[24] Associated Press, Former Kansas City Catholic school teacher says she was fired for being pregnant and unmarried, KMBC News (Aug. 20, 2019), https://www.kmbc.com/article/former-kansas-city-catholic-school-teacher-says-she-was-fired-for-being-pregnant-and-unmarried-michelle-bolen/28759819#.

[25] Arika Herron, Cathedral fired a gay teacher. Brebeuf protected one. They are married to each other, lawyer says, Indianapolis Star (July 10, 2019), https://www.indystar.com/story/news/education/2019/07/10/cathedral-teacher-fired-same-sex-marriage-sues-indianapolis-archdiocese-identifies-himself/1694669001/.

[26] Mary Farrow, Archdiocese faces third discrimination complaint over same-sex marriage policy, Catholic News Agency (Oct. 29, 2019), https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/archdiocese-faces-third-discrimination-complaint-over-same-sex-marriage-policy-48517.

[27] Christine Hauser, Catholic School in Kansas Faces a Revolt for Rejecting a Same-Sex Couple’s Child, The New York Times (March 8, 2019), https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/08/us/kansas-catholic-school-same-sex-parents.html.

[28] Thomas O’Neil-White, D’Youville grad says college denied her same-sex wedding, WBFO 88.7, (Oct. 21, 2019), https://news.wbfo.org/post/dyouville-grad-says-college-denied-her-same-sex-wedding.

[29] See Cardinal Newman Society, Church Vision for Catholic Education, https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/church-vision-catholic-education/.

[30] Laurie Goodstein, Utah Passes Antidiscrimination Bill Backed by Mormon Leaders, The New York Times (March 12, 2015), https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/12/us/politics/utah-passes-antidiscrimination-bill-backed-by-mormon-leaders.html.

[31] J.C. Derrick, Boards back SOGI compromise, World Magazine (Dec. 12, 2018), https://world.wng.org/2018/12/boards_back_sogi_compromise.

[32] Id.

[33] Zack Ford, The ‘Utah Compromise’ Is A Dangerous LGBT Trojan Horse, ThinkProgress (Jan. 29, 2016), https://thinkprogress.org/the-utah-compromise-is-a-dangerous-lgbt-trojan-horse-db790ad3b69e/.

[34] Rosa Salter-Rodriguez, Notre Dame same-sex benefits rile bishop, The Journal Gazette (March 16, 2016), https://www.journalgazette.net/news/local/Notre-Dame-same-sex-benefits-rile-bishop–1U13HACU.

[35] Emma Green, Notre Dame Switches Its Position on Birth-Control Coverage – Again, The Atlantic (Feb. 7, 2018), https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/02/notre-dame-switches-its-position-on-contraception-coverage-again/552605/.

[36] Gina Cherelus, Notre Dame students sue school, White House over birth control policy, Reuters (June 26, 2018), https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-health-birth-control/notre-dame-students-sue-school-white-house-over-birth-control-policy-idUSKBN1JM2I9.

[37] Ellie Gardey, Student leaders fight “heteronormativity’ at Notre Dame, The College Fix (Sept. 16, 2019), https://www.thecollegefix.com/student-leaders-fight-heteronormativity-at-notre-dame/.

[38] Caroline White, Marquette’s Pride Prom to go on as planned despite backlash, petition, National Catholic Reporter (April 13, 2018), https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/marquettes-pride-prom-go-planned-despite-backlash-petition.

[39] Antiquated housing policies cause stress, burdens, MarquetteWire (Oct. 8, 2019), https://marquettewire.org/4018762/opinion/editorial-antiquated-housing-policies-cause-stress-burdens/.

[40] Univ. of Notre Dame v. Sebelius, 988 F. Supp. 2d 912, 915 (N.D. Ind. 2013).

[41] Joan Frawley Desmond, Notre Dame’s Student Health Plan Will Cover Contraceptives, Abortifacients, National Catholic Register (Sept. 4, 2014), http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/notre-dames-student-health-plan-will-cover-contraceptives-abortifacients.

[42] Pope Benedict XVI, Meeting with Catholic Educators (April 17, 2008), http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080417_cath-univ-washington.html.

[43] Cardinal Newman Society, Catholic Identity in Education: Selected Church Documents for Reflection, https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/principles-catholic-identity-education/church-documents-reflection/.

[44] For an overview of these religious liberty protections, see Kniffin, Protecting Your Right to Serve at 9-13.

[45] See, e.g.:

[46] Douglas Laycock, Regulatory Exemptions of Religious Behavior and the Original Understanding of the Establishment Clause, 81 Notre Dame L. Rev. 1793, 1837 (2006) (citing James E. Ryan, Smith and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act: An Iconoclastic Assessment, 78 Va. L. Rev. 1407, 1445 & n.215 (2015)).

Nutcracker ballet

Nutcracker Not-So-Sweet

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During a recent eighth-grade trip to Chicago, chaperones and students of Notre Dame Academy in Toledo walked out of a performance of The Nutcracker after learning that lead characters would be portrayed in a gay marriage. This was a courageous and bold move—a correct application of Pope Francis’s well-publicized encouragement of young people “to make a mess” and his guidance in Amoris Laetitia that “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”

When activists take a traditional and beloved part of a Christmas celebration and attempt to co-opt it into a radical agenda which subverts the very nature of the family, a Catholic school is spot-on in saying, “not on my dime, and not on my time.” The chaperones—led by the academy’s dean—rightly used it as a teachable moment.

In fact, when heading up the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) called upon Catholics to conscientiously object to attacks on the family. As he wrote in his Considerations Regarding Proposals to Give Legal Recognition to Unions Between Homosexual Persons, “The denial of the social and legal status of marriage to forms of cohabitation that are not and cannot be marital is not opposed to justice; on the contrary, justice requires it.”

That said, good for this group in taking a stand for social justice in the face of aggression and at great personal cost. Unfortunately, the story does not end here.

Continue reading at Crisis Magazine…

Virgin and Child with Saints Dominic and Thomas Aquinas

Resolved for New Year 2020: Teach the Faith

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I love the six days between Christmas and New Year’s Day. The Son of God is with us! Now we get a short time to rev up our engines for the new year’s work of evangelization, as Christ commanded.

I propose three resolutions for the Year 2020, under a single theme of education. Why education? The confusion, irreverence, dissent, scandal and blasphemy that we find within the Church today—and the extraordinary challenges of secularism and sexual perversion in our culture—exhibit widespread embrace of falsehood. More than 2,000 years since Christ was born, too few people know the truth of God and his creation.

To help remedy this appalling situation, I pray that in 2020 the Church might finally break free of the dangerously limited notion of Catholic education as a particular system of schools accessed by a dwindling portion of young Catholics. Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of truly Catholic schools! But they are one means of Catholic education—a favored means during the last two centuries, yet never the only means. The need for educating Catholics in truth and devotion is what takes precedence. Some schools, sadly, have even forgotten essential aspects of their mission, while increasingly Catholics are turning to print, broadcast and online resources as well as lay-run schools, homeschooling and innovative hybrid school-and-home options.

Catholic education is the task of formation in faith, truth and reason, and it is the Church’s primary method of evangelization. It is for all of us! Learning is growth, and teaching is key to three of the Spiritual Works of Mercy: instructing the ignorant, counseling the sorrowful and admonishing the sinner. All three works are desperately needed today.

Every Catholic adult is called to self-educate. Today we have many outstanding publishers of books, videos, software, websites and more. We have faithful Catholic media like EWTN and the Register. We have new and renewed colleges that provide faithful online and in-person instruction grounded in authentic theology.

For children, Catholic education is a solemn duty of every Catholic parent. If a child cannot be taught in a faithful Catholic school or homeschool, then the parent must find other ways of forming the child in the truths of the faith—not only doctrine, but reverent prayer and sacrament. And not only religion, but the great insights of our faith into every other branch of knowledge, including history, science and literature. And not only knowledge, but the skills of reasoning and communication—those uniquely human abilities that resemble God’s wisdom and loving Word.

If a school or CCD program fails to do the job adequately or a secular school is the only option, then a parent must find or create other means of Catholic education. It is as essential as providing food and shelter.

So for 2020, let us resolve to teach the truth of God and his creation to a world suffering from ignorance.

Resolution 1: Teach the Holy Eucharist

The Pew Research study released in 2019 found that only 31% of self-professed U.S. Catholics—26% under the age of 40—believe in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist. A more recent EWTN-RealClear poll found that 49% of Catholics who are registered to vote believe in the Real Presence. Both results are devastating!

If the Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith, then clearly a top priority must be Catholic education for both young people and adults, by teaching sound doctrine and forming Catholics in reverent liturgy and adoration.

This begins with parents and educators. Catholic homeschoolers have demonstrated a notable commitment to both daily and Sunday Mass, preparation for Mass through frequent confession, and Eucharistic adoration. But this should not set them apart—surely Catholic schools and colleges could be encouraging the same, yet most regard the sacraments as personal obligations that are extraneous to the job of education. Catholic schools and colleges should consider adding more frequent Masses, including at least some in the Extraordinary Form, with sacred music. They should provide opportunities for Eucharistic adoration and confession. They should teach students about the Eucharistic miracles.

Parents with children in secular schools need to make an extra effort to work liturgy and prayer into their daily schedule, as well as instruction in Catholic doctrine. But if these are high priorities, then they can be done.

Adults, too, need to be able to explain the Church’s authentic theology of the Eucharist and share the truth with each other. We can no longer assume that even our fellow Catholics know the truth. We must find ways to integrate contemplation of the Eucharist into our daily lives and into group activities.

Through catechesis and exposing fellow Catholics to beautiful and reverent liturgy, we can return Catholic education to its roots and renew faith. We have seen the tragic results of watered-down instruction and lackluster worship. Now we must aim for something better.

Resolution 2: Teach chastity

As our culture keeps going further off the rails, it is all the more important that Catholics uphold virtue and teach and practice chastity. Our witness to chastity can, I hope, bring about a renewal of the culture. It will certainly help preserve us and our young Catholics from grave sin.

Even in Catholic high schools and colleges, the hook-up culture is well-documented and the rates of sexual activity and assault are alarming. These are associated with the mortal sins of contraception, sterilization and abortion, as well as an epidemic of sexually transmitted diseases. Even before high school and throughout adolescence and adulthood, Catholics are faced with the temptation of online pornography and explicit sexuality and violence in movies and television shows.

Teaching chastity in a culture that is downstream from the Sexual Revolution is not easy, but it begins with simple practices and precautions within our Catholic homes, schools and colleges. Make an effort in 2020 to frequently speak the words “near occasion of sin,” an essential point of Christian ethics that seems to have been forgotten or even rejected by many Catholics today. Avoidance of temptation is the reason Catholics once chaperoned activities, dressed modestly, and associated dating with the seriousness of marriage—let’s do it again.

Some practical steps can be taken to build a home or school culture that projects an assumption of chastity. Members of the opposite sex should not be entertained in bedrooms or in any room with a closed door, and Catholic colleges could help set the example by restoring appropriate campus dorm policies. Monitor internet usage and filter pornography from Wi-Fi networks; again, some Catholic colleges are already leading the way.

Resolution 3: Put truth back into education

One factor in the decline of faith over recent decades is the declining respect for truth. When was the last time you heard someone state a proposition—an opinion or claim of some sort—and back it up with sound evidence and reasoning? It is rare, and I suspect that most people today are afraid to try.

Developing strong reasoning skills used to be central to a Catholic education, probably because we expected young people to cogently analyze great literature, explain history and learn difficult theological concepts as taught by Augustine and Aquinas. Today, schools tend to emphasize facts and figures, but young people often lack the wit and wisdom of their grandparents.

Moreover, most Catholics have had a secular education—many never setting foot in a Catholic school or college, others attending Catholic institutions that provided a rather secular program. Not only were they not well-formed in doctrine, prayer and sacrament, but they never gained the insights of our faith into every other study.

If a young Catholic is not formed in truth, then we have failed to educate. Providing a truly Catholic education and fostering skills of reasoning are difficult outside of a Catholic program, but they can be done with great effort by the parents. Immediately, however, we need lukewarm Catholic schools and colleges to step up and show the way—to present the ideal so others can follow. Everything that a Catholic school or college does should reflect its Catholic identity, from its hiring practices and human sexuality policies to its curriculum and library book choices.

In 2020, Catholics should resolve to no longer accept mediocre education. Together we should demand truly faithful education with classical approaches to learning and formation. Simply resolving to make truthful education a top priority, whatever our state in life, would help turn our gaze to God and his magnificent creation. It would refocus our lives to the perfection that God wills for us, by his grace and mercy.

Please pray throughout the next year for the intercession of St. John Henry Newman, himself a great educator and advocate for faithful Catholic education. His desire was that the Catholic laity would seek truth with vigor and hold to truth with devotion. May God grant such wisdom in us, and bless us all throughout the year.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

Archbishop Sheen

Archbishop Sheen’s Idea of Education

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This article by Patrick Reilly, President and Founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, was published at The National Catholic Register prior to the unexpected delay of Venerable Fulton Sheen’s beatification (originally planned for Dec. 21). Please continue to pray for his Cause for sainthood.

Education should teach us the “truth about man,” said Archbishop Fulton Sheen. A graduate of and longtime professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., before he was a television celebrity, Sheen should inspire Catholics to seek out authentic education.

For 23 years, Sheen taught courses such as “Philosophy of Religion” and “God and Society” at Catholic University, making frequent use of Caldwell Chapel on campus. After teaching, he moved into television and radio programs, reaching greater numbers—even until today—with his wisdom, wit and unparalleled teaching ability.

One of his former students, Father William Amann, said that Sheen’s strong faith was obvious in the classroom. “He was a very holy man and it came out certainly in the presentation of his class. His holiness was evident in his demeanor and the classes he gave, his belief in God, and his trust in the Lord.”

For Sheen, education was about training the “whole man—the intellect and will, not just the mind alone.” Related to the intellect, he described the educated person as one who will do three things: “seek truth,” have a “correlation of studies” and have “depth, particularly the deepening of mystery.”

For the first, Sheen urged that the “one basic truth we have to learn is the truth of our own existence.” He lamented that people live years of their lives without learning “why they are here, and where they are going.”

“When life is meaningless, it is very dull,” Sheen continued. “When you know the truth of life, then you are most free.”

On the second point, the correlation of studies refers to the idea that “there are certain subjects that ought to be regarded as essential, so that a man will be truly educated.” The tendency in education, Sheen explained, was to use the “shelf theory” and “take any course that you please.” This leads to a “disconnected and disjointed” understanding.

The “really educated man sees a relationship between various branches of knowledge,” said Sheen, urging against “overspecification” in universities. A well-rounded curriculum “will teach a man how to… know himself, know society, know his relationship to the universe, and above all, he will understand his relationship to God.”

Finally, a truly educated person will have a “philosophy of life that is solid” and will “deepen the mystery of things” rather than centering studies around various fads that come and go.

Sheen’s thoughts on education may sound lofty in our nation today, where many colleges, even Catholic ones, have become focused solely on job training. They lack the formation that Sheen insisted upon. Many colleges promote relativism, fail to provide a meaningful foundation in the liberal arts, and leave students empty and unprepared for life.

Sheen explains how a strong Catholic education can make life worth living. If families look carefully, they can find strong Catholic schools and colleges that are worthy of a saint.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

St. John Henry Newman’s Battle for the Church Continues

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Three weeks ago, my family and a group of Cardinal Newman Society pilgrims were newly arrived in Rome — and what a contradiction we seemed!

The whole world was watching the Vatican, anxious to know whether the Amazon Synod would preserve or rupture Catholic tradition.

And yet there we were at the center of it all, full of joy and excitement, eager to celebrate the canonization of the great educator and convert, Cardinal John Henry Newman — much like the Americans who, 140 years earlier, had come to Rome to celebrate Newman’s elevation to cardinal and represent the jubilant Catholics back home.

Now we prepare for the Feast of All Saints, celebrating the greatest of all promises given by Jesus to believers, amid so much unbelief across the West.

While in Rome, I reflected on this irony with our pilgrims. I realized something very important: the timing of Newman’s canonization amid the ugly synod was just right, because Newman is just right for these times.

Specifically, it seems to me that Saint John Henry’s devotion to both teaching and defending truth, together with his beloved manner of “heart speaking to heart,” provide a powerful response to those who imagine that tending to the practicalities and particularities of pastoral care must be somehow opposed to upholding the timeless truths and traditions of our faith.

Some have even warned of schism over this error, but Newman’s example could help heal the rift — or if not, then at least the unassailable reason and precision of his many writings provide a mighty defense of doctrine. In this sense, our newly declared saint promises to be more a “doctor” of the Church than we might have anticipated.

Pope Francis has called the Church a “field hospital,” and today indeed there are many wounded — in part because of the Holy Father’s own inexplicable harshness toward those who would preserve ritual and reverence while embracing the reason that is married to faith. Today’s wounded also include young people — to whom Saint John Henry devoted his educational efforts — who have been greatly harmed by the lack of a strong Christian formation and by dissent, abuse and betrayal from within and without the Church.

After his conversion, Newman saw no conflict between his popularity as a pastor and his battle for truth. Despite being one of the Church’s greatest intellectuals and theologians, the Saint’s focus was always on the immediate concerns and controversies of the people under his care. His primary interest was the authentic formation of the souls right in front of him, always speaking heart to heart, always speaking truth. He was both a loving pastor and a champion of orthodoxy.

His life’s work, Newman said, was the fight against relativism — what he called “liberalism in religion.” He insisted on the unity of faith and reason, the intellect and morality, subjective and objective reality. He proposed faithful Catholic education, precisely because he wished to “reunite” the faculties of conscience and intellect that “man had put asunder” by original sin.

With this heart of an educator, Saint John Henry Newman was devoted to truth and to bringing others to the truth. That is what the word today so greatly needs!

Newman was also, at times, prophetic about the challenges we face today. Already in 19th century Europe, Newman saw the makings of what would be the “age of infidelity,” when the Church would be confronted by a culture unlike anything it had ever seen before: a culture that simply does not tolerate religious belief, except as a private matter. Newman also predicted increased scrutiny of Catholics by secularists, who eagerly seek evidence of hypocrisy. The sins of our priests, he predicted, would become a spectacle to the news media and disbelievers.

That’s surely where we are today — and yet, truly, Newman’s canonization was also a happy moment! One of the Church’s greatest intellectuals and a beloved convert is certainly in heaven. Saint John Henry Newman encourages and inspires the Church at a time when it is under sustained assault.

Sainthood itself refreshes our hope in the mercy of God and the promise of heaven. It is a great blessing to know that a dutiful and faithful man has received God’s great mercy and the reward of heaven.

By his canonization, Newman has become even more capable, by his example and because of our prayers for intercession, to help us once again follow the Kindly Light of Christ. Saint John Henry Newman, pray for us!

(This article is adapted from comments delivered in Rome on the day of Saint John Henry Newman’s canonization, Oct. 13, 2019.)

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

Where is Newman’s University?

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John Henry Cardinal Newman’s vision of higher education has been celebrated for more than 160 years, and it will hopefully get renewed attention after he is canonized this Sunday, Oct. 13.

Still, few colleges today closely resemble his Idea of a University.

If anything comes close to Newman’s vision today, it would have to be those faithful Catholic colleges recognized in The Newman Guide and the National Catholic Register’s College Guide. These are models for the renewal of Catholic education—largely according to Newman’s vision—and their continued efforts toward bringing his “idea” to fruition are a blessing to the entire Church.

I look forward to seeing many representatives of these colleges in Rome this week. Celebrating together with The Cardinal Newman Society’s supporters and friends will be leaders of Christendom College, Thomas Aquinas College and University of Mary, and key faculty members from Thomas More College of Liberal Arts and University of Dallas. We will gather also with friends from the faithful Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and Pontifical North American College.

The students and faculty of Belmont Abbey College got a head start on celebrating last week, with a lecture by Dr. Paul Griffiths. They gathered to rejoice in Newman’s sainthood, but also to embrace his vision for an academic and residential community shared by both students and mentors.

“Newman was deeply formed by his own experience as a student and as a professor,” Griffiths said. Newman expected tutors to be involved in students’ “moral and spiritual” formation and intellectual growth, in addition to students’ engagement with university lecturers and preachers.

On the same Thursday evening as the Abbey lecture, The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., held a conference on “Newman’s Idea of a University—What It Is and Why It Matters.” The event included a panel discussion with President John Garvey and professors from a variety of disciplines, highlighting Newman’s concern for dialogue and integration across a wide variety of studies.

A Catholic college unites “intellect and virtue, which man’s fallen nature has allowed to drift apart,” Garvey wrote in a 2010 article in First Things. He cited one of Newman’s university sermons:

It will not satisfy me, what satisfies so many, to have two independent systems, intellectual and religious, going at once side by side, by a sort of division of labour, and only accidentally brought together. …I want the same roof to contain both the intellectual and moral discipline. Devotion is not a sort of finish given to the sciences; nor is science a sort of feather in the cap… an ornament and set-off to devotion. I want the intellectual layman to be religious, and the devout ecclesiastic to be intellectual.

Although Newman is often associated with Catholic centers on secular campuses, he was primarily an advocate for Catholic, liberal arts education. The first “Newman Society” was established at Oxford University for Catholics seeking a higher education, only after the Irish bishops thwarted Newman’s plans for a truly Catholic Dublin university and the English bishops rejected his designs for an Oxford Oratory.

For Newman, only a Catholic college has full claim to authentic higher education, because a commitment to truth means that no branch of knowledge can be excluded, including the truths of our Catholic faith. To “withdraw Theology” from colleges is to “impair the completeness and to invalidate the trustworthiness of all that is actually taught in them,” Newman wrote in his Idea of a University.

Higher learning “educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it,” Newman wrote. The “cultivation of the intellect” is “an end which may reasonably be pursued for its own sake.” It helps form a “habit of mind” which “lasts through life” and brings “freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom.”

This type of education ends up being practical, too, although that is not its first objective. Cardinal Avery Dulles explained Newman’s thought during a 2001 address to The Cardinal Newman Society: “Whether one becomes a soldier, a statesman, a lawyer, or a physician, one will need the ability to think clearly, to organize one’s knowledge, and to articulate one’s ideas so as to deal effectively with the questions at hand.”

Newman saw in Catholic education “the incomparable advantage” over secular education of “being able to integrate all truth in relation to Christ, the incarnate Logos,” Dulles said.

At Newman Guide colleges, the difference is striking—and encouraging for a Catholic who is yearning for renewal in the Church and culture. At Christendom College, the entire community has been invited to join in a novena praying for “an outpouring of grace in the world” through Newman’s canonization, several faculty lectures on Newman’s conversion and Idea of a University, and a “watch party” on Oct. 13 to celebrate the canonization from afar. It is this integration of spirituality, academics and joy in God and his creation that marks a true Catholic education.

Faithful Catholic colleges that strive for intellectual and spiritual formation and not simply career preparation are the true heirs of Newman’s vision for higher education. May his vision continue to take hold worldwide, and may Catholic educators everywhere pray for his intercession in asking God’s favor upon the renewal of faithful Catholic education.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

John Henry Newman

To Restore Integrity: Newman’s Idea of Education

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Over the course of his lifetime, John Henry Newman was many things: scholar, reformer, preacher, convert, theologian, priest, and cardinal. Through it all, however, he was an educator. Cor ad cor loquitur (“Heart speaks to heart”) was his motto, and he believed strongly that “personal influence” is the best means of teaching the truths of our Catholic faith.

“Speaking from heart to heart” was so much his manner that students at Oxford and later Dublin’s Catholic University would flock to hear his sermons. His guidance inspired the high-school boys at the Oratory School in Birmingham, England, including Hilaire Belloc. And Newman met personally with parents to forge genuine partnerships in the care of souls – an unusual practice at the time for English boarding schools.

The practical schoolmaster was also a great visionary, whose Idea of a University and University Sketches helped define the Catholic university at a time when education was splintering into diverse models and objectives. Amid many pastoral works, Newman also wrote numerous texts of devotion and theology on topics such as the Blessed Virgin Mary, development of doctrine, the role of the laity in the Church, and the nature of conscience.

It is extraordinary to find so many achievements in one man. And how do we reconcile the private Newman with the public intellectual, who eagerly battled “liberalism in religion”?

Continue reading at The Catholic Thing…

One Word Could Erode Catholic Education

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In three amicus briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court filed last month, the bishops and Catholic educators—together with other major religious groups—urged the Court to uphold the meaning of “sex.”

It’s one little word. But if the Court gets it wrong, our religious freedom could be quickly eroded.

And while all Catholics and Catholic institutions would be endangered, there is a double threat to Catholic education: both to the integrity of its employees, and to its ability to teach young people the authentic Catholic faith.

Continue reading at Crisis Magazine…

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul

Yet Another Lawsuit Against the Church

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The Archdiocese of Indianapolis is the target of yet another lawsuit — this one from a guidance counselor whose contract to help form students at Roncalli High School was not renewed for the coming school year, because she entered into a same-sex marriage.

With this and other similar disputes in Catholic schools, Archbishop Charles Thompson is clearly under assault. And the same fight is coming to every bishop and every Catholic school and college that courageously upholds the mission of Catholic education — as well as those schools and colleges that carelessly go forward without clear and consistent Catholic policies, thereby opening the doors wide to ideological activists and legal trouble.

Just last month, the Indianapolis archdiocese settled a lawsuit by a teacher who was dismissed from Cathedral High School for his same-sex marriage.

That teacher is legally married to a man who still teaches at Brebeuf Jesuit College Preparatory School, where leaders refuse to comply with archdiocesan policy requiring Catholic school teachers to avoid scandal. Now the school’s leaders have filed a canon law suit with the Vatican, challenging Archbishop Thompson’s episcopal right and duty to determine whether the school may be called Catholic.

In the latest lawsuit filed in federal court last week, plaintiff Lynn Starkey accuses Roncalli High School of discriminating against her because of same-sex attraction. But Starkey was employed at Roncalli for 39 years, and even after she violated her contract by entering into a scandalous, permanent, same-sex commitment, Roncalli did not fire her. Instead, it chose not to renew her contract.

Another counselor at Roncalli, Shelli Fitzgerald, is expected to sue in the next month or two. Fitzgerald was placed on administrative leave last fall, following (you guessed it) her same-sex marriage.

These suits join a growing number of attacks against Catholic schools and colleges across the country, because the Church prescribes morality standards in Catholic education. Why are so many Catholic school and college employees eager to challenge such standards? It may be that the standards are not stated clearly enough, or that they are not consistently applied, so that employees are genuinely surprised to lose their jobs. Surely there is also the hope that courts today are willing to support discrimination claims instead of upholding religious freedom. In Starkey’s case, it is especially astounding that a guidance counselor at a Catholic school could fail to appreciate that teaching and witnessing to Catholic moral principles are essential to her job.

Catholics should not be naïve in thinking that there is anything substantially unique about Indianapolis. Catholic education nationwide faces serious threats from within and without, and too many schools and colleges are insufficiently prepared for the legal battles.

The best thing that school and college leaders can do — immediately, without hesitation — is to ensure that every internal policy and practice is consistent with the formation of students in complete fidelity to Catholic teaching, and that employees embrace this mission without compromise. That makes lawsuits unlikely, resists the corruption of Catholic identity, and allows for a vigorous defense of religious freedom in court.

In the weeks and months ahead, there will be more lawsuits. We must pray for our bishops and school leaders to have the fortitude to make a strong stand for faithful Catholic education. Only if Catholic educators get back to their roots and defend their foundations, will they preserve their most important mission of forming students in the faith.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.