Guide for the Catholic Reader: Selected Reading List, Rubric, and Rationale for Catholic Education

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Guide for the Catholic Reader

Selected Reading List, Rubric, and Rationale for Catholic Education

Denise L. Donohue, Ed.D., and Daniel P. Guernsey, Ed.D. 

 

Preface This guide is designed especially for Catholic education broadly—including parents, diocesan and school leaders, teachers, librarians, homeschool curriculum publishers, and textbook publishers—and draws upon The Cardinal Newman Society’s Policy Standards on Literature and the Arts in Catholic Education. The guide focuses first on the purpose and goals of literature in Catholic elementary and secondary education. It then provides guidance for readers on how to approach a text. This is followed by a rubric to help determine which texts are best suited for Catholic education and to ensure that selection criteria are clear, understood by all, and targeted to the integral Christian formation of students.   The final section is a limited recommended reading list, which is mostly confined to better-known, time-tested works. These have been selected for a variety of reasons including their beauty, their cultural and historical significance, their suitability for examining the human condition in light of Catholic sensibilities, their capability to inspire virtue or warn against vice, their ability to elucidate other times and cultures to better understand our own, their capacity to entertain and inspire, and their fitness to guide the moral imagination. The list is not exhaustive but represents some reading selections used by schools recognized by The Cardinal Newman Society for their exemplary Catholic identity.   There is a limited amount of time in one childhood to read literature, so selections should come from the best books. These books should be read “fruitfully,” doing more than finding the main points so as to answer computer-based or multiple- choice questions. Students should enjoy the experience of reading, understand and identify with characters, grow in virtue, and expand their imagination, empathy, and creativity.  

Rationale for the Selection of Literature in Catholic Education

Catholic education seeks to “bring human wisdom into an encounter with divine wisdom,”1 cultivate “in students the intellectual, creative, and aesthetic faculties of the human person,” prepare them for professional life and to take on the duties of society and the Church, and introduce a cultural heritage.2 Literature is an essential tool in Catholic education, helping impart “a Christian vision of the world, of life, of culture, and of history” and an ordering of “the whole of human culture to the news of salvation.”3  

Literature “strive[s] to make known the proper nature of man, his problems and his experiences in trying to know and perfect both himself and the world.”4  

Because Catholic education strives for the perfection of its students and the world, literature is a natural and important part of that mission. At its best, it invites truthful exploration of the human condition and development of the aesthetic sense of the soul.   Catholic education does not teach reading simply for reading’s sake or for its utility. Catholic educators teach reading so students can access, evaluate, and experience the knowledge, wisdom, beauty, and insights of others. Truths distilled from this information can then be applied to their individual quest for truth, holiness, and salvation and shared with others in pursuit of the common good.   Literature provides rich material for reflection on essential questions such as: “What is the meaning of life?” “What is the nature of my relationship, rights, and duties to God and to others?” “Is this a thing of beauty or value?” “Is this representative of good or evil?” In this way, literature is foundational to Catholic education’s culture and faith-based mission.  

Literature is selected to advance the mission of Catholic education through a “critical, systematic transmission of culture”5 guided by a Christian vision of reality.6  

Catholic education seeks to critically and systematically transmit culture, and so it turns to works of literature and the arts that explicitly or implicitly transmit and form culture and values. The academic community, inspired by a Catholic vision of reality, must thoughtfully and deliberately craft a complete program that provides the right literature, music, art, and drama at the developmentally right time and integrate it with the cultural and idea-shaping materials students encounter in all academic areas, moving students to see the beauty and inner harmony of all knowledge as ultimately coming from the one transcendent Truth, God Himself. Additionally, in Catholic education the critical and systematic transmission of culture occurs “in the light of faith.”7 This requirement precludes simply presenting a wide variety of literature, arts, and music based simply on individual faculty or staff training or preference. Catholic educators should not simply expose students to random popular works in hopes these might attract immature fancy or spark debate. Careful curation and guidance are needed to avoid possible confusion, error, indifference, or despair. Young people encountering weighty issues antithetical to the faith and without proper guidance may be manipulated by outside forces or their own youthful presumption, impertinence, or prejudice.   It is the role of a Catholic educator to suggest and model a response to the critical questions provoked in carefully chosen works in order to provide a coherent and consistent Catholic understanding to help youth manage their shifting viewpoints and come to a mature and freely-chosen understanding of reality and its faith-based moorings.8 The Catholic teacher is model and mentor, not an aloof and uncommitted purveyor of unevaluated content. All literature must be critically and systematically evaluated and transmitted in the light of faith.  

Because Catholic education’s mission is different from that of secular schools, its libraries and its selection and use of literature should reflect these differences and serve the higher aims of Catholic education.  

The mission of Catholic education is uniquely focused on the integral formation of students’ minds, hearts, and bodies in truth, health, and holiness. Catholic education is committed to the pursuit of truth and seeks to explore the harmony between truth and beauty. Catholic education is also concerned with the eternal salvation of its students and Christian service to promote the good.9 Catholic educators should approach literature with an eye toward the impact it has on this mission and the right ordering of the intellect, will, imagination, and spirit.   The exploration of literature in Catholic education must never work against the mission by leading students into sin, driving them to despair, or impairing their ability to understand and serve the common good. This concern is greatest in the youngest ages, while older students can be carefully assisted to make right choices and judgments through reading works that present increasingly complex and even mistaken material. Care should always be taken to avoid confusion and scandal. Catholic educators should place priority on publications of substantial quality and educational value, including Catholic spiritual formation. Great care must be exercised as older students grow in their awareness and exposure to man in his fallen state. Such knowledge can then be used to better serve the redemptive and evangelical role that Catholic education also serves.10   In Catholic education, curricular programs and school libraries ought not simply replicate their secular counterparts. Their mission is not to present uncritically all possible human thought and viewpoints, but to present the best literature critically and in the context of a Catholic worldview. Students, in a developmentally appropriate way, need to be exposed to seminal works of literature, drama, and poetry.11 Catholic educators can make use of non-Christian sources and of books which present non-Catholic understandings of critical human issues, but these should not remain unchallenged or leave students spiritually or humanly damaged in the process. Accounts of the human experience that are opposed to a Christian understanding of the world can be appropriate for older students who are well-formed and have a good foundation.

Such accounts may at times be edgy and uncomfortable but must not be extreme, they should not be left unchallenged, and they should not put a student at spiritual or emotional risk. A Christian humanism, founded in the Catholic intellectual tradition that focuses on the best in literature and the arts, can provide for a balanced approach in forming students to critically examine their contemporary experiences.   Finally, it must also be remembered that literature, and especially Western literature, is not just a tool for personal and spiritual formation but a field of study in itself. Especially at the upper high school level, works of literature need to be considered as distinct elements in particular academic fields, with its own specific logic and methodology of design, study, and evaluation. Students should learn to appreciate the works’ historical development and interactions. Great works of literature are not only tools of human formation and artifacts helpful in the development of academic knowledge but also works of artistic merit. Students should also be taught to interpret and value a work of literature on its own terms.

Checklist for the Selection of Literature

The following is a checklist that may be helpful to educators choosing literature for courses and general reading. The selection of literature in Catholic education should:

  • support the mission of Catholic education;
  • have enduring value and educational significance and be more for intellectual, moral, inspirational, and artistic weight than for entertainment, popularity, appearance on reading or award lists, or enticing students to read;
  • assist the student to a right ordering of the intellect, will, imagination, and emotions in the pursuit and understanding of truth, beauty, and goodness;
  • include evaluation of themes and events in terms of Catholic norms, values, and worldview so as to provide insight into a Catholic understanding of the human person in his redeemed and unredeemed state and in his relationship to God, family, and others;
  • be free of significant and shocking profanity;
  • be free of explicit discussion, presentation, or description of sexuality, sexual activity, or sexual fantasy;
  • not be a proximate cause of sinful thoughts or actions, or a pathway to the occult;
  • not be contrary to truth;
  • not be a temptation to despair or diminish faith; and
  • be read under the guidance of a knowledgeable and spiritually formed adult particularly when controversial, emotional, or otherwise sensitive material is If assigned for summer reading, parents are made aware of any sensitive material and agree to take on this role.

Because a student is generally not able to opt out of major literature assignments, and because there is a myriad of possible materials that can meet a Catholic school’s literature goals, there are many selections that satisfy educational objectives. If exceptions are made, they should be limited to extraordinary circumstances, with primary concern for the student’s purity and formation and with approval from top administrators.  

Addressing Possible Questions

Question: We want our library holdings to be broad and varied, not limited by Catholic sensitivities or by only weighty content. Shouldn’t we let students read and view what interests them, not what we pre-determine for them?


Response: Educators do not take this view when a school provides lunch or snacks. We give students a choice of healthy options suited to the conditions. If the goal is just to get kids to put something in their mouths, then cotton candy and soda will undoubtedly serve this end better than carrots and grapes. But if the goal is to teach them to appreciate healthy, natural food and build their physical well-being and strength, then candy and chips (which are not bad in and of themselves) may get in the way of something better like juice and crackers. In the same way, we want rich and varied literature and art which will help build the health of students’ minds, souls, and imaginations. Cynical, dark, titillating, disordered, vain, bitter, or completely frivolous fiction may get in the way of an encounter with more difficult but meaningful and formative materials, which serve a higher end. There are more good and great books and art to experience than any one student can handle, so there is no shortage of material to take the place of the mediocre, meaningless, or malformed material flooding much of the market today.

 

Question: Shouldn’t we let the English teachers decide for their classrooms and the librarian decide for the library? They are the content experts, after all.

 

Response: Curriculum and library holdings should be driven by the mission of Catholic education, not by varied teacher strengths and interests or a librarian who may or may not be intensely knowledgeable of the curriculum and mission. The curriculum transcends departments and teachers. It is a function of the whole academic community, in service to the school’s Catholic mission. The administration and faculty must work together to ensure mission integrity and the complete Catholic nature of the institution. They must also ensure that it is effectively imparting a Christian vision of the world, of life, of culture, and of history, which transcends all departments and individual disciplines. They cannot in false humility assert lack of competence or vision but must engage both the academic and faith communities in open discussion about the curriculum and library holdings in light of the Catholic mission. The administration and faculty must also ensure the necessary integration among the various academic disciplines which, because they all seek knowledge and truth, comes from God and finds perfection and truth in their unified source. As St. John Henry Newman observed, the various disciplines “have multiplied bearings one on another, and an internal sympathy, and admit, or rather demand, comparison and adjustment. They complete, correct, and balance each other.”12



Question: Shouldn’t teachers design their own courses and teach books they like and are familiar with? This will help make teaching stronger and more engaging.

 

Response: Teachers should model the “life-long learning” that is the goal of all schools. As discipline experts they are well-trained to examine and deliver new content (whether
of their choosing or not) within the discipline. This content should be set by the school as a whole in line with its Catholic mission. Most Catholic English teachers were trained in secular English departments and are most familiar with works encountered there. The Catholic school must not shy away from asking teachers to master and skillfully teach works that are outside of the purview of modern, secular English departments. They must be trained and prepared to deliver rich works from the Catholic cultural and intellectual tradition and ensure that classic works from outside that tradition are critically examined from a Catholic worldview. The Catholic intellectual tradition includes works of literature and art (e.g., The Illiad, The Aeneid, the works of Milton and C.S. Lewis) that, while not Catholic and even containing problematic elements, have been found to foster authentic cultural, spiritual, and social development for Catholics and indeed all of humanity.

 

Question: Many schools stock library books that are recommended by major library associations, have won Newberry awards, or are very popular right now according to
major publishers. Don’t the kids need to read these?

 

Response: No, they do not. Each of these sources of influence have their own agendas, viewpoints, and cultures that they are advancing—some even in direct opposition to
the Church’s goals. Especially in young adult fiction, book awards are given to works promoting abortion and homosexuality (e.g., Skim and This One Summer by Mariko
Tamaki). To advance the Catholic mission, librarians can carefully select among thousands of books. They should do so thoughtfully with mission in mind, not slavishly based on fashion, popularity, or dubious authority. Catholic librarians’ criteria are how well the holdings serve the Catholic mission, knowing that students have access to virtually all these books on their own through the internet or public library, should they be so inclined to actively seek them out. Catholic education should develop in students a Catholic sensibility, so that they can make good judgments about what is worthwhile. But it takes time and focus to do so.

Guidance in Approaching a Text

Before students begin a text, it is helpful that teachers provide a list of questions, items, or concepts to identify as they read. These might be guided by essential questions, or they might come from the Transcendental Taxonomy13 created by The Cardinal Newman Society to draw out the truth, goodness, and beauty (or their opposites) in any text or study. They might also focus on basic questions such as:  

  • Are there acts of virtue and vice presented in the text, and how does the author portray these acts throughout the text?
  • What are the assumptions or propositions the author makes about the nature of man, God, family, society, and creation?
  • What major emotions do you feel while reading certain sections of the text, especially the end?
  • How does the author approach God’s graciousness, presence, and transcendence?
  • Is there a deeper meaning the author is trying to convey here?
  • Is there anything in this text that elevates my soul to God?

Instruct the students in how to annotate the text. Have them always read with a pencil or pen in hand and liberally highlight, underline, mark, or make comments in the margins about:

  • things that delight them;
  • things they find discomforting or confusing;
  • phrases or descriptions they find striking or beautiful;
  • significant passages they believe seem to capture the main themes of the text/author; and
  • passages which might help them identify any focus concepts or essential

These highlights can help them anchor their later class discussions and writings in the text and provide points to develop deeper exploration. Other questions to consider:

  • Imagine your favorite saint just read this What would be the points of conversation between the two of you?
  • What characters attracted you/repulsed you, and why?
  • How does this measure up in terms of a Catholic worldview, values, and human redemption?
  • Sum up “the moral of the story” in one sentence from the author’s point of view, and, if different, your own.
  • Did reading the text reveal to you anything new about yourself or help you grow in any way?

 

Holistic Rubric for Selecting Literature in Catholic Education

Compare the literature selection to the description provided in each box and circle the score that most closely applies to your selection. A compelling reason must be given for a score of 2 along with supports to mitigate areas of concern. Should the selection fall in the ‘1’ category, another choice needs to be made.    

Score Description
    4 Excellent Choice There are multiple or significant timeless themes presented which: transcend culture and poli- tics, allow for a richer and deeper understanding of humanity, and lend themselves to profound discussion about authentic truth and reality from a Catholic worldview. The work powerfully provokes a deeper understanding of virtue (or the destructive consequences of the lack thereof) and its effects on human flourishing. The work is uniquely suited to assist the student to a right ordering of the imagination, passions, and emotions. The work has significant artistic weight and strong intellectual merit. The writing is very well crafted and can serve as a model for student emulation. The work has been read for generations. There is no profanity. There is no blasphemy. There is no description of sexual activity or sexual fantasy. The content does not diminish the student’s faith or innocence or lead the student to sin or despair. The instructor is expertly equipped to provide a Catholic perspective on content and themes.
    3 Good Choice There are themes presented which: transcend culture and politics, allow for a deeper under- standing of humanity, and lend themselves to discussion about authentic truth and reality from a Catholic worldview. The work allows for discussion of virtue (or the destructive consequences of the lack thereof) and its effects on human flourishing. The work assists the student to a right ordering of the imagination, passions, and emotions. The work has artistic merit and intellectual merit. The writing is well crafted. The work is likely to be read by future generations. There is no shocking or significant profanity. There is no blasphemy. There is no description of sexual activity or sexual fantasy. The content does not diminish the student’s faith or innocence or lead the student to sin or despair. The instructor is effectively equipped to provide a Catholic perspective on all essential content and themes.
    2 Fair Choice Themes are primarily cultural and political, somewhat limiting discussion about transcendent concerns. Discussion about authentic truth and reality from a Catholic worldview is possible but not forefront. The work allows for discussion of virtue (or the destructive consequences of the lack thereof) but its impact on human flourishing is ambiguous and/or ambivalent. Disorder in the work may somewhat confuse the student’s passions or emotions. The work is currently popular in some English or liberal arts courses but has not yet proven its staying power over time. There is no shocking or significant profanity. There is ambivalence or neutrality toward the Catholic faith. There is no excessive or explicit description of sexual activity or sexual fantasy. The content does not diminish the student’s faith or innocence or lead the student to sin or despair. The instructor is adequately equipped to provide a Catholic perspective on most content and themes.
  1 Poor Choice Themes are primarily cultural and political, limiting discussion about transcendent concerns. Discussion about authentic truth and reality from a Catholic worldview is significantly impeded by a worldview that is provocatively and enticingly anti-Christian. Virtue and vice are confused, ridiculed, or presented as inconsequential. Disorder in the work is not resolved or leads the student’s passions or emotions astray. The work is culturally popular, but rarely found in school curricula, and has not yet proven its staying power over time. There is shocking and explicit violence. There is shocking or significant profanity. The work is blasphemous. There is excessive or explicit description of sexual activity or sexual fantasy. The content may diminish the student’s faith or innocence or lead the student to sin or despair. The instructor is insufficiently equipped to provide a Catholic perspective on all content and themes.

 

See pg. 10 of PDF for evaluation form

 

Selected Reading List for Catholic K-12 Students

  This list suggests options for Catholic educators and is not intended as an exhaustive list of all possible texts. Titles with an asterisk (*) are suggested for use when using The Cardinal Newman Society/Ruah Woods Standards of Christian Anthropology. Even with a shared rationale for teaching literature, deciding which generally acceptable books are best suited to the needs and abilities of specific learners will need to be determined by those closest to them. The non-exhaustive list below demonstrates that Catholic educators have no need to risk assigning lesser or morally ambiguous reading. There are more than enough excellent works available to fill any curriculum.

Grades K-4 Fiction – General


Adapted Greek and Roman myths
Aesop’s Fables
Bible stories
Folk tales
Mother Goose Nursery Rhymes
Poetry
Selected Fairy Tales from Grimm
Selected Fairy Tales from Hans Christian Andersen

Grades K-4 Titles


A Book of Nonsense (Lear)
A Pair of Red Clogs (Matsuno)
A Seed is Sleepy (Aston)*
Abraham Lincoln (d’Aulaire)
Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Viorst)
An Egg is Quiet (Aston)*
Andy and the Circus (Daugherty)
Angus and the Ducks (Flack)
Beauty and the Beast (Lamb)
Before I Was Me (Fraser)
Blueberries for Sal (McCloskey)*
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? (Martin)
By the Shores of Silver Lake (Wilder)
Caps for Sale (Slobodkina)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (Dahl)
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Dahl)
Charlotte’s Web (White)
Clown of God (De Paolo)
Corduroy (Freeman)
Cranberry Thanksgiving (Devlin)
Curious George Series (Rey)
Farmer Boy (Wilder)
Favorite Uncle Remus (Harris)
Flower Fables (Alcott)
Frederick (Lionni)
Frog and Toad Series (Lobel)
Harold and the Purple Crayon (Johnson)
Heavenly Hosts: Eucharistic Miracles for Kids (Swegart)
Heidi (Spyri)
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Numeroff)
Homer Price (McCloskey)
Just So Stories (Kipling)
Lentil (McCloskey)
Little Britches (Moody)
Little House in the Big Woods (Wilder)
Little House on the Prairie (Wilder)
Little Lord Fauntleroy (Burnett)
Madeline (Bemelmans)
Make Way for Ducklings (McCloskey)
Mama, Do You Love Me? (Joosse)
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Burton)
Millions of Cats (Gag)
Mirette on the High Wire (McCully)
Molly McBride and the Purple Habit (Schoonover-Egolf)
Mr. Popper’s Penguins (Atwater)
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH Series (O’Brien)
Mufaro’s Beautiful Daughters (Steptoe)*
Nate the Great Series (Sharmat)
On the Banks of Plum Creek (Wilder)
Owl Moon (Yolen)
Ox-Cart Man (Hall)
Papa Piccolo (Talley)
Peppe the Lamplighter (Barton)*
Peter Pan (Barrie)
Pinocchio (Collodi)
Pied Piper of Hamelin (Browning)
Rikki Tikki Tavi (Kipling)
Roses in the Snow: A Tale of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary (Jackson and Kadar-Kallen)
Saints Chronicles Series (Milgrom and Davis)
St. Clare of Assisi: Runaway Rich Girl (Hee-ju)
St. George and the Dragon (Hodges)*
Stone Soup (Brown)
Storm in the Night (Stolz)
The Animal Hedge (Fleishman)*
The Blue Fairy Book; The Red Fairy Book (Lang)
The Bobbsey Twins (Hope)
The Borrowers (Norton)
The Boxcar Children Series (Warner)
The Children’s Book of Virtues (Bennett)
The Elves and the Shoemaker (Galdone)
The Emperor’s New Clothes (Hans Christian Andersen)
The Five Chinese Brothers (Bishop and Wiese)
The Little Engine That Could (Piper)
The Little Flower: A Parable of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (Arganbright and
Arvidson)
The Long Winter (Wilder)
The Lost World (Doyle)
The Moffats (Estes)
The Mystery at Midnight (Hendey)
The Princess and the Kiss (Bishop)
The Quiltmaker’s Gift (Brumbeau)*
The Reluctant Dragon (Grahame)
The Secret Garden (Burnett)
The Selfish Giant and Other Stories (Wilde)
The Snowy Day (Keats)
The Story About Ping (Fleck and Wiese)
The Story of Ferdinand (Leaf)
The Story of Peter Rabbit (Potter)
The Swiss Family Robinson (Wyss)
The Trumpet of the Swan (White)
The Twenty-One Balloons (Du Bois)
The Velveteen Rabbit (Williams)
The Very Hungry Caterpillar (Carle)
The Wind in the Willows (Grahame)
These Happy Golden Years (Wilder)
Through the Looking Glass (Carroll)
Treasure Box Set (Maryknoll Sisters)
Ugly Duckling (Hans Christian Andersen)
Wee Gillis (Leaf)
Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak)
Winnie the Pooh (Milne)

Grades 5-8 Titles


A Christmas Carol (Dickens)
A Story of Joan of Arc (Earnest)
A Wrinkle in Time (L’Engle)
Ablaze: Stories of Daring Teen Saints (Swaim)
Across Five Aprils (Hunt)
Across the Plains (Stevenson)
Adam of the Road (Gray)
All Creatures Great and Small (Herriott)
Amos Fortune, Free Man (Yates)
An Old Fashioned Girl (Alcott)
Anne of Green Gables (Montgomery)
Around the World in Eighty Days (Verne)
Beowulf: A New Telling (Nye)
Black Beauty (Sewell)
Black Stallion (Farley)
Beric the Briton (Henty)
Black Ships Before Troy: The Story of the Iliad (Lee)
Blessed Marie of New France (Windeatt)
Bonnie Prince Charlie (Henty)
By Pike and Dyke (Henty)
Caddie Woodlawn (Brink)
Captains Courageous (Kipling)
Cricket on the Hearth (Dickens)
Cyrano de Bergerac (Rostand)
David Copperfield (Dickens)
Death Comes for the Archbishop (Cather)
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Stevenson)
Facing Death (Henty)
Fingal’s Quest (Pollard)
For the Temple (Henty)
Forget Not Love: The Passion of Maximilian Kolbe (Frossad)
From the Earth to the Moon (Verne)
Gentle Ben (Morey)
Great Expectations (Dickens)
Hans Brinker (Dodge)
Helen Keller: The Story of My Life (Keller)
Hero of the Hills (Windeatt)
Holy Twins: Benedict and Scholastica (Norris)
I Am David (Holm)
I, Juan de Pareja (De Trevino)
If All the Swords in England (Willard)
In Freedom’s Cause (Henty)
In the Reign of Terror (Henty)
Jack and Jill (Alcott)
Jo’s Boys (Alcott)
Johnny Tremain (Forbes)
Journey to the Center of the Earth (Verne)
Kidnapped (Stevenson)
King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (Green)
King of the Wind (Henry)
Lay Siege to Heaven (De Wohl)
Leif the Lucky (D’Aulaire)
Lilies of the Field (Barrett)
Little Men (Alcott)
Little Women (Alcott)
Log of a Cowboy (Adams)
Madeline Takes Command (Brill and Adams)
Misty of Chincoteague (Henry)
My Ántonia (Cather)
My Side of the Mountain (George)
Mysterious Island (Verne)
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Douglass)
Number the Stars (Lowry)
O Pioneers (Cather)
Old Yeller (Gipson)
Oliver Twist (Dickens)
Our Town (Wilder)
Patron Saint of First Communicants (Windeatt)
Penrod and others (Tarkington)
Pied Piper of Hamelin (Browning)
Radiate: More Stories of Daring Teen Saints (Swaim)
Red Hugh Prince of Donegal (Reilly)
Redwall Series (Jacques)
Rip Van Winkle (Irving)
Robin Hood (Pyle)
Robinson Crusoe (Defoe)
Rolf and the Viking Bow (French)
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry (Taylor)
Saint Benedict: The Story of the Father of the Western Monks (Windeatt)
Saint Catherine of Siena (Forbes)
Saint Dominic (Windeatt)
Saint Helena and the True Cross (De Wohl)
Saint Hyacinth of Poland (Windeatt)
Saint John Masias (Windeatt)
Saint Martin de Porres (Windeatt)
Saint Monica (Forbes)
Saint Rose of Lima (Windeatt)
Saint Thomas Aquinas (Windeatt)
Sarah Plain and Tall (Patricia MacLachlan)
Son of Charlemagne (Willard)
Sounder (Armstrong)
St. Benedict, Hero of the Hills (Windeatt)
St. Joan, The Girl Soldier (De Wohl)
St. Patrick (Tompert)
St. Thomas Aquinas for Children (Maritain)
Tales of King Arthur (Talbott)
Tanglewood Tales (Hawthorne)
Tarzan Series (Burroughs)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Green)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (Doyle)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
The Black Arrow (Stevenson)
The Black Cauldron (Alexander)
The Blood Red Crescent (Garnett)
The Bronze Bow (Speare)
The Call of the Wild (London)
The Children of Fatima (Windeatt)
The Children’s Homer (Colum)
The Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis)
The Deerslayer (Cooper)
The Dragon and the Raven (Henty)
The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
The Fledgling (Langton)
The Gift of the Magi (O. Henry)
The Hiding Place (ten Boom)
The Hobbit (Tolkien)
The Horse and His Boy (Lewis)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (Doyle)
The Innocence of Father Brown [or others] (Chesterton)
Island of the Blue Dolphins (O’Dell)
The Jungle Book (Kipling)
The Knight of the White Cross (Henty)
The Last Battle (Lewis)
The Last of the Mohicans (Cooper)
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Irving)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (Lewis)
The Little Flower (Windeatt)
The Little Prince (Saint-Exupéry)
The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien)
The Miracle Worker (Gibson)
The Miraculous Medal (Windeatt)
The Oregon Trail (Parkman)
The Pearl (Steinbeck)
The Prince and the Pauper (Twain)
The Ransom of Red Chief, and Other Stories (O. Henry)
The Railway Children (Nesbit)
The Red Badge of Courage (Crane)
The Red Keep (French)
The Restless Flame (De Wohl)
The Song at the Scaffold (Von le Fort)
The Spear: A Novel of the Crucifixion (De Wohl)
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (Pyle)
The Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe (Walsh)
The Story of Rolf and the Viking Bow (French)
The Sword and the Stone (White)
The Time Machine (Wells)
The Trumpeter of Krakow (Kelly)
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Lewis)
The Wanderings of Odysseus: The Story of the Odyssey (Sutcliffe)
The War of the Worlds (Wells)
The Weight of a Mass (Nobisso)
The White Stag (Seredy)
The Witch of Blackbird Pond (Speare)
The Yearling (Rawlings)
Thomas Aquinas and the Preaching Beggars (Larnen and Lomask)
Tom Sawyer (Twain)
Treasure Island (Stevenson)
Tuck Everlasting (Babbit)
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (Verne)
Two Years Before the Mast (Dana)
Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Stowe)
Under the Lilacs (Alcott)
Westward Ho (Kingsley)
Where the Lilies Bloom (Cleaver)
Where the Red Fern Grows (Rawls)
White Fang (London)
With Wolfe in Canada (Henty)
Won by the Sword (Henty)
Work (Alcott)

Grades 9-12 Fiction Titles


A Good Man is Hard to Find (O’Connor)
A Man for All Seasons (Bolt)
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
A New Voyage Round the World (Dampier)
Aeneid [excerpts] (Virgil)
Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides (Aeschylus)
An Enemy of the People (Ibsen)
Animal Farm (Orwell)
Beowulf (trans. Tolkien)
Billy Budd, Bartleby the Scrivener, and other short stories (Melville)
Brideshead Revisited (Waugh)
Brothers Karamazov or Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky)
Canterbury Tales [excerpts] (Chaucer)
Citadel of God: A Novel about St. Benedict (De Wohl)
Come Rack! Come Rope! (Benson)
Death of a Salesman (Miller)
Diary of a Country Priest (Bernanos)
Doctor Faustus (Marlow)
Doctor Zhivago (Pasternak)
Don Quixote (Cervantes)
El Cid (trans. Racine)
Emma (Austen)
Frankenstein (Shelley)
Great Expectations (Dickens)
Gulliver’s Travels (Swift)
Huckleberry Finn (Twain)
Jane Eyre (Bronte)
Joan of Arc (Twain)
Kim (Kipling)
Kristin Lavransdatter (Undset)
Lieutenant Hornblower Series (Forester)
Le Morte D’Arthur (Malory)
Les Misérables (Hugo)
Lord Jim (Conrad)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
Man in the Iron Mask (Dumas)
Medea, The Trojan Women, The Bacchae (Euripides)
Metamorphoses [excerpts] (Ovid)
Mill on the Floss [others] (Eliot)
Moonstone [and others] (Collins)
Murder in the Cathedral (T.S. Eliot)
Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky)
Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone (Sophocles)
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Solzhenitsyn)
Oresteia (Aeschylus)
Paradise Lost [excerpts] (Milton)
Persuasion (Austen)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen)
Quo Vadis (Sienkiewicz)
Sense and Sensibility (Austen)
Short Stories (Poe)
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Anonymous)
Stories (Chekhov)
The American (James)
The Betrothed (Manzoni)
The Blithedale Romance (Hawthorne)
The Chosen (Potock)
The Cloister and the Hearth (Reade)
The Count of Monte Cristo (Dumas)
The Complete Stories (O’Conner)
The Divine Comedy [excerpts] (Dante)
The Epic of Gilgamesh (Anonymous)
The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
The Heart of Darkness (Conrad)
The House of Seven Gables (Hawthorne)
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo)
The Iliad [excerpts] (Homer)
The Invisible Man (Wells)
The Living Wood (De Wohl)
The Longest Day (Ryan)
The Mayor of Casterbridge (Hardy)
The Odyssey [excerpts or full] (Homer)
The Old Man and the Sea (Hemmingway)
The Open Boat (Crane)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wilde)
The Power and the Glory (Green)
The Scarlet Letter (Hawthorne)
The Scarlet Pimpernel (Orczy)
The Song of Roland (Anonymous)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee)
Tom Brown’s School Days; Tom Brown at Oxford (Hughes)
Up from Slavery (Washington)
Vanity Fair (Thackeray)
Wuthering Heights (Bronte)
SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It
Hamlet,
Julius Caesar
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
Richard II
Romeo and Juliet
The Merchant of Venice
The Taming of the Shrew
The Tempest

Grades 9-12 Poets


Matthew Arnold, W.H. Auden, Hilaire Belloc, William Blake, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Lord Byron, G.K. Chesterton, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Richard Crashaw, Emily Dickenson, John Donne, T.S. Eliot, Robert Frost, A.E. Hausman, George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, Joyce Kilmer, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Andrew Marvell, Alexander Pope, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Siegfried Sassoon, William Shakespeare, Percy Shelley, Robert Southwell, Edmund Spenser, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Dylan Thomas, Francis Thompson, William Wordsworth, William Butler Yeats

Grades 9-12 Spiritual Classics


Abandonment to Divine Providence (de Caussade)
An Introduction to the Devout Life [excerpts] (St. Francis de Sales)
Dark Night of the Soul (St. John of the Cross)
Summa Theologica [excerpts] (St. Thomas Aquinas)
The Bible
The Catechism of the Catholic Church [selections]
The Confessions [excerpts] (St. Augustine of Hippo)
The Desert Fathers [excerpts]
The Glories of Mary (St. Alphonsus Liguori)
The Imitation of Christ [excerpts] (Thomas à Kempis)
The Life of St. Francis of Assisi [excerpts] (St. Bonaventure)
The Practice of the Presence of God (Brother Lawrence)
The Rule of St. Benedict
The Screwtape Letters, Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man (Lewis)
The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius (St. Ignatius of Loyola)
The Story of a Soul (St. Thérèse of Lisieux)
True Devotion to Mary (St. Louis de Montfort)
Grades 9-12 Non-Fiction Titles
Apology, Dialogues, Euthyphro, Republic [excerpts] (Plato)
Autobiography (Franklin)
Democracy in America [selections] (De Tocqueville)
Funeral Oration (Pericles)
Harvard Address and/or Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech (Solzhenitsyn)
Humanae Vitae (St. Paul VI)
I Have a Dream (King)
Letter from a Birmingham Jail (King)
Meditations (Marcus Aurelius)
Nicomachean Ethics, Book I (Aristotle)
Night (Wiesel)
Politics, Book I (Aristotle)
Self-Reliance (Emerson)
Slave Narratives (Douglass, Jacobs)
The Communist Manifesto (Marx)
The Conquest of Gaul (Caesar)
The Declaration of Independence
The Documents of Vatican II [selections]
The Federalist Papers [selections] (Hamilton, et al.)
The Gettysburg Address (Lincoln)
The Gulag Archipelago [Abridged] (Solzhenitsyn)
The Histories [selections] (Herodotus)
The Magna Carta
The Prince (Machiavelli)
The Rights of Man (Paine)
The Social Contract (Rousseau)
Treatise on Law and excerpts from other works (Aquinas)
The United States Constitution
Veritatis Splendor (St. John Paul II)

 

 

 

1 Congregation for Catholic Education, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School (1988) 57.
2 Congregation for Catholic Education, Educating Together in Catholic Schools: A Shared Mission Between Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful (2007) 12.
3 Congregation for Catholic Education (1988) 53.
4 Saint Paul VI, Gaudium et Spes (1965) 62.
5 Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School (1977) 49.
6 Congregation for Catholic Education (1977) 36.
7 Congregation for Catholic Education (1977) 49.

8 The general educational approach in this section is proposed by Luigi Giussani in his book The Risk of Education (Cross
road Publishing Company, 2001). See esp. pp. 55-65.
9 Code of Canon Law (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1983) 795.
10 Congregation for Catholic Education (1988) 66, 69.
11 There are many lists of literature and spirituality which might be considered part of the “Great Books” in general and the
Catholic intellectual tradition in particular.

12 St. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1982) 75.

13 https://cardinalnewmansociety.org/wp-content/uploads/Transcendental-Taxonomy.pdf

Catholic Habits of the Mind

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PowerPoint overview of Catholic Habits of the Mind:
 
 

 

By Denise Donohue, Ed.D., and Patrick Reilly

 

Catholic education integrally forms students in mind, body, and soul so they might know and love God and serve their fellow man. Because of this mission, Catholic education has a long tradition of excellence in harmoniously forming students’ intellects and characters through instruction in knowledge and formation in virtue. There are some well-known teachings on developing intellectual virtue in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In order to reinvigorate classroom teaching in Catholic schools and to assist teachers in delivering a deeper and more robust student formation, this paper advocates for the development of three Catholic “habits of mind” to elicit in students: thinking with faith, thinking philosophically, and seeking and valuing the transcendent.

Father Antonin Sertillanges, O.P., wrote substantively of the habits and behaviors of the Christian intellectual in his important work, The Intellectual Life.[1] St. John Henry Newman, in the 19th century, described education as cultivation of the “philosophical habit of mind,” developing greater understanding of both the parts and the whole of knowledge. And St. Thomas Aquinas in the Middle Ages reflected on the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle’s writings on habits, both moral and intellectual.

In the Catholic paradigm—and indeed in the classical terminology that has been foundational to both secular and Christian education for more than two millennia—we call good habits “virtues” and distinguish them from vices, which are consistent bad habits. The Catechism defines virtue as “a habitual and firm disposition to do the good.”[2] The development of virtue leads a student to both human flourishing and to Heaven. Sertillanges identifies “studiousness” as the key intellectual virtue, but it is a part of temperance; indeed, all the virtues that support academic and intellectual work flow from the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance and the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

In Catholic education, virtues overlap and occur throughout all levels and types of student formation. Learning a “pattern of intellectual behavior that leads to productive actions”[3] such as in the secular Habits of Mind program may have some utility in all schools, but a liberal education aims for much more, with even productive actions possessing an ethical dimension.[4] Catholic intellectual virtues help students do more than problem-solve; they help students seek and find the truth of a thing. In Catholic education, this inquiry into the truth ultimately leads to Truth Himself: God. This path is one that secular education cannot fully pursue. Our nature is designed to pursue truth through the inquiry of things, and in Catholic education, this truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ. When illuminated by God’s grace, we understand and determine the interconnection of things, and learn something about the higher causes of things.

In Catholic education, the formation of moral virtue is not only an essential part of the written curriculum[5] but is modeled and taught through the lives and witnesses of its teachers and others who exhibit virtues such as faithfulness, docility, humility, piety, gentleness, compassion, and kindness, among others. Catholic schools are all about formation in virtue, as these dispositions are considered the means of acquiring the goods of this life and the gaining of heaven. Our Lord made explicit to us in his teaching of the beatitudes the result of acquiring specific dispositions: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied…Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:3-10).

The formation of intellectual virtues aligning with a moral formation conforms to the holistic approach of Catholic education, which seeks integral education of mind, body, and soul. Catholic education forms young people with a Catholic worldview and shows them that virtue has positive real-world consequences in this life. It teaches that virtues such as prudence are applicable to intellectual, moral, and physical challenges that may come their way. Most importantly, Catholic education teaches the virtues as the way of Christ and guides the path to sainthood.

Catholic Intellectual Virtues

The Catholic intellectual tradition—developed by St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others—distinguishes intellectual virtues. They focus on what one knows and how that knowledge is used, always within the framework of a moral purpose. These traditional five virtues are art, prudence, understanding, science, and wisdom. Teachers in Catholic education who employ these methods can rest assured of their soundness and heritage.

Art and prudence are considered practical virtues because they are concerned with two forms of action: making and doing. Art directs the intellect in applying certain rules or methods to make useful, practical, beautiful, and pleasing things. It is the capacity of knowing how to do something or knowing different techniques, such as knowing how to use a computer program or how to make a kite fly. Art involves applying knowledge to shape matter, whether that matter is an artistic sculpture or principles of arithmetic. Prudence directs the intellectual powers toward knowing what is best and assessing what ought to be done. It involves analyzing and evaluating the proper means of action with the direction of contributing to our long-term happiness and is the foundational intellectual virtue necessary for all the other moral virtues. According to St. Thomas, prudence is the “form” of the moral virtues, and the human passions and actions are the “matter.”[6] Thus, in any particular situation, “it is prudence that determines what the just, temperate and brave act is.”[7]

Understanding, science, and wisdom are considered speculative virtues, and these are connected by nature to man’s desire to seek and know truth. Understanding cultivates knowledge of first principles or truths that are self-evident, or that reason and logic add to our experience. This knowledge is intuitive and easily attainable, such as the law that something cannot both exist and not exist at the same time under the same conditions.[8] Science uncovers “knowledge of conclusions acquired by demonstration through causes or principles which are final in one class or other.”[9] Science, therefore, is the evident knowledge of something through demonstration. Still, it is much more. It is human reason acting upon knowledge to draw conclusions from sound premises, thereby multiplying knowledge of creation, humanity, and God. It involves the habits of careful observation, experimentation, and measurement to reach conclusions using demonstrative reasoning. Science demands evidence and properly ordered reasoning and this evidence and reasoning assist with determining a certain level of certainty about a thing. Wisdom is the knowledge of conclusions to life’s most profound questions. Its object is truth and is generally identified as the study of philosophy or metaphysics. It seeks the answers to the questions of humanity’s existence and that of the universe, such as, “Why is man the only rational creature?” and “Why are the planets ordered the way they are?” Catholic educators are called to facilitate discussion and to direct the student’s intellect toward grasping the relationship between humanity and these existential realities.

Generally, this is done through philosophical questioning and inviting students to contemplate reality in wonder and awe. Aristotle called wonder the beginning of a love of wisdom—the highest understanding of things, their first causes and principles. Wonder begins, he says, “in the first place at obvious perplexities, and then by gradual progressions raising questions about the greater matters too, e.g., about the changes of the moon and of the sun, about the stars and about the origin of the universe.”[10] Students should not stop at intellectual curiosity, which is satisfied with answers to “How” and “Why.”[11] The type of wonder desired here is a deeper, contemplative wonder that is exemplified by a full-body emotional, aesthetic, and existential response. This wonder leaves one open to the uncertainty and the mystery still evident in the experience.[12] It is at this moment that one can “step off” into the realm of faith, accepting it as a valid way of knowing, a moment in which one can revel in the first cause of all created things: God.

While there is certainly a place for wonder as curiosity in Catholic schools – in all schools –contemplative wonder does not stop with answers in the material world. As Newman says, wonder should lead reason to “ascend” above the actual fact or experience and the strictly material. It should look not only to material causes, comparisons, relationships, classification, and principles but should also evoke a sense of humility and a sense of our powerlessness and adoration before the glory of God, the author and end of all that is true, good, and beautiful. Catholic education teaches students the use and skills of reason to rise toward the transcendent. We teach students habits of reasoning that elevate thought above information and experience. Secular education leaves students hanging at the peak of ascent since it cannot jump off into the realm of religious faith. A Catholic school that teaches religion but fails to form students with skills and habits of philosophical reason is leaving students unable to contend with the issues of post-modernity, where they can quickly fall prey to ideology despite conflicts with their consciences and sense of natural law. They can have years of experiencing God’s love and mercy in Catholic education, the sacraments, and the family, but then they turn away because their inadequately formed minds cannot find God in reality, and they are lost in confusion.

St. John Henry Newman points out that while materialists can experience fascination, wonder is fully experienced when it causes us to “Rejoice with trembling”[13] and focuses not just on creation but also on the Creator. There is a depth and mystery to creation and reality and to our relationship to God, which evokes “a feeling of awe, wonder, and praise, which cannot be more suitably expressed than by the Scripture word fear; or by holy Job’s words, though he spoke in grief, and not as being possessed of a blessing. ‘Behold, I go forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I cannot perceive Him: on the left hand, where He doth work, but I cannot behold Him: He hideth Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him. Therefore, am I troubled at His presence; when I consider, I am afraid of Him’ [Job xxiii. 8, 9, 15].” [14]

A greater emphasis on these true Catholic intellectual and moral virtues and on the transcendent can help ensure the development of habits to assist in the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake and cultivating wisdom for human perfection in the light of faith. These are critical goals in Catholic education, which understand that human nature is oriented toward unity with God the Creator, and man’s gift of reason is intended to serve the free search for truth about God, humanity, and creation. Without an appeal to truth, man’s free will and reason lack purpose, and human dignity is not respected. Catholic intellectual virtues move beyond an emphasis on problem-solving to prepare students as useful workers and citizens. This focus is insufficient to achieve Catholic education’s goal of virtuous living and sainthood.

Additionally, Catholic educators should ensure that their curricula and course plans include but are not limited to memorization, seeking knowledge from sound testimony, identifying first principles, asking about essence, asking about causes, division, and composition of ideas, classification, analogical thinking, communicating with proper language, communicating with elegant language appropriate to the circumstances, discerning the unity of knowledge and bearing of knowledge upon other knowledge, following the methods that are proper to each academic discipline, right use of freedom in intellectual pursuits, and concern for the common good. These approaches harmonize with human nature and aid in complete human flourishing.

Catholic Habits of the Mind

Three ‘habits of mind’ are needed to build the Catholic integrity of an educational program, honor the Catholic intellectual tradition, and put students on the path of true happiness in this world and the next.

Thinking with Faith

Faith is the trust we have in something we do not see, based on the authority and credibility of the source, which is generally a person.[15] An example of human faith is to believe that Alaska exists without ever having been there based on the credibility of others and their testimony. Certitude is not personally confirmed, but the will and the intellect join to assent to the truth that Alaska is a place based on the credibility of witnesses.

Faith becomes supernatural when we are disposed to it through the sacraments and grace, and the matter is based on Divine Revelation from God Himself. Here the will and the intellect are turned toward God, the evidence being the witness of holy men and women, the prophets, the saints, the Apostles, and Jesus Christ. St. John Paul II, in his discussion of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans, writes:

According to the Apostle, it was part of the original plan of the creation that reason should without difficulty reach beyond the sensory data to the origin of all things: the Creator. But because of the disobedience by which man and woman chose to set themselves in full and absolute autonomy in relation to the One who had created them, this ready access to God the Creator diminished. (Fides et Ratio, 1998, 22)

While we have not seen the eternal kingdom, we believe, with the supernatural help of grace through faith, that it exists, so we continue to journey toward that deeper, fuller understanding of God’s plan for us as imparted in Divine Revelation. In faith, the indivisible unity between the intellect and will is more easily discerned. St. Augustine is credited with saying, “believe so that you may understand.”[16] This is the goal of Catholic education: to open the door of faith for students to behold the transcendental realities through learning, discussion, experience, service, and sacraments. It is essential that students cultivate the intellectual and moral habits of being that predispose them to an encounter with faith through learning opportunities and discussions of the importance and validity of faith as a way of knowing. 

In public education, the discussion of faith is limited. The material sciences are held up as the highest and most privileged ways of knowing, and students are taught that knowledge of truth is limited to what can be physically seen, weighed, or measured. While this is a valid way of knowing, it is not the only means of knowing.

Whereas modern society and most secular education today define truth according to consensus and experience, the Catholic educator understands that truth is the conformity of the mind and reality and that all truth proceeds from God. The human intellect is intended to be ordered to truth, and reason allows the intellect to rise above consensus and experience to better know God, His ways, and His creation.

Aquinas says that both the light of reason and the light of faith come from God and work to contribute to the understanding of Divine Revelation and ultimate truth. St. John Paul II writes:

Faith therefore has no fear of reason but seeks it out and has trust in it. Just as grace builds on nature and brings it to fulfillment, so faith builds upon and perfects reason. Illumined by faith, reason is set free from the fragility and limitations deriving from the disobedience of sin and finds the strength required to rise to the knowledge of the Triune God. (Fides et Ratio, 43)

What more fitting place to champion faith as a means of knowing than in a Catholic school? Enlightened by faith, Catholic education teaches habits that form students not only for knowing but also for apprehending the transcendental realities that give ultimate meaning to this life as souls are prepared for the next.

Thinking Philosophically

Saint John Henry Newman taught that the essence of education is cultivation of the intellect for its own sake. He argued that education should cultivate a “philosophical habit of mind” that reasons upon knowledge rather than simply accumulating information from experience and creatively expressing one’s feelings and desires. Education teaches the student to “ascend” above knowledge to new levels of understanding by the right use of reason. He wrote, “…in order to have possession of truth at all, we must have the whole truth; and no one science, no two sciences, no one family of science, nay, not even all secular science, is the whole truth…” (Discourse 4). Instead, God is “a fact encompassing, closing in upon, absorbing, every other fact conceivable.”

Reason needs to be cultivated not only as a logical tool for problem-solving but also as a means of attaining truths foundational to reality and larger than experience—as in contemplation of the natural and eternal law. Collaboration to find solutions and clear communication is necessary, but a Catholic school will want to put additional emphasis on dialectic and persuasion for the purpose of reasoning toward higher truths.

Dialectic is a discussion of seemingly conflicting things that appear to be true at the same time. It is a method of dialogue that aims to arrive at truth instead of defeating or persuading an opponent. It is associated with the Socratic method and the methods of medieval scholastics, including St. Thomas Aquinas. Educators can also teach the Topics of Invention.

The Topics of Invention are a method of classical rhetoric used to examine all aspects of a subject in the context of its circumstances, attributes, and relation to other subjects. Knowledge from an authoritative source – including the Catholic Church – is also used as a valid means of seeking the truth of a thing. Adding the habit of ‘thinking philosophically’ allows for rational dialogue and “ascending” to the higher truths of God, which ought to be the outcome of an integrated Catholic education.

Valuing and Seeking the Transcendent

Catholic education should also ensure that student thinking is oriented toward assigning value and meaning to what is being considered, and students should recognize that transcendent realities are among those things. Pope Francis has noted that:

For me, the greatest crisis of education, in the Christian perspective, is being closed to transcendence. We are closed to transcendence. It is necessary to prepare hearts for the Lord to manifest Himself, but totally, namely, in the totality of humanity, which also has this dimension of transcendence.[17]

Traditionally, in Catholic education, subjects are taught not merely as vehicles for the conveyance of content knowledge and technical skills. Catholic education helps “the pupil to assimilate skills, knowledge, intellectual methods and moral and social attitudes, all of which help to develop his personality and lead him to take his place as an active member of the community of man.”[18]

In Catholic education, the Catholic faith increases students’ understanding, and moral formation increases learning. Processes and methodologies should not thwart the opportunity for students to go beyond the pragmatic, utilitarian, and material world. Church documents are filled with discussions regarding the formative value of all education. For instance:

The Catholic teacher, therefore, cannot be content simply to present Christian values as a set of abstract objectives to be admired, even if this be done positively and with imagination; they must be presented as values which generate human attitudes, and these attitudes must be encouraged in the students. Examples of such attitudes would be these: a freedom which includes respect for others; conscientious responsibility; a sincere and constant search for truth; a calm and peaceful critical spirit; a spirit of solidarity with and service toward all other persons; a sensitivity for justice; a special awareness of being called to be positive agents of change in a society that is undergoing continuous transformation. (Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith, #29-30)

Catholic education focuses on the formation of the intellect, will, and soul of the student. It allows opportunities for students to ponder God’s omnipotence and love and his personal relationship with them. It is a specific charge for Catholic teachers to teach to the transcendent in a way that goes beyond abstraction, naming, listing attributes, and so forth and prepares a human soul for an encounter with real things—something secular schools cannot do.

The integral formation of the human person, which is the purpose of education, includes the development of all the human faculties of the students, together with preparation for professional life, formation of ethical and social awareness, [and] becoming aware of the transcendental, and religious education. (The Catholic School, #17)

The transcendentals of truth, beauty, and goodness can assist in determining value. Transcendentals are timeless and universal attributes of being. They are the properties inherent to all beings.[19]

The pursuit of truth, defined as the mind in accord with reality,[20] is a foundation of Catholic education and is a significant component of the Newman Society’s Catholic Curriculum Standards. From the Congregation for Catholic Education (1997) we read, “Various school subjects do not present only knowledge to be attained, but also values to be acquired and truths to be discovered. All of which demands an atmosphere characterized by the search for truth” (#14). Man, by his nature, is made to seek the truth.[21] For instance, the Catholic Curriculum Standards expect students to “Analyze how the pursuit of scientific knowledge, for utilitarian purposes alone or for the misguided manipulation of nature, thwarts the pursuit of authentic Truth and the greater glory of God.”

What is true is also beautiful. As a timeless and universal attribute of being, beauty helps evoke wonder, awe, and delight of the soul leading to philosophical and theological questions like, “How can something so beautiful exist?”  “Is this beauty only meaningful to me?” “Who created all of this?” and so forth. Catholic education—with its focus on the transcendentals of truth, beauty, and goodness—already teaches wonder as more than an intellectual satisfaction; it is an invitation to think beyond creation and seek the reality – and mystery – of the wisdom of God who created all that we know and experience.

Finally, in Catholic education, we know that the true and the beautiful are also related to all that is good. A thing is “good” when it exercises the powers, activities, and capacities which perfect it. In Catholic education, we also call human action good when all components of the action are noble and virtuous. Habits of Mind tends toward some of these same ends in an aspirational sort of way, but a robust Catholic education can thoughtfully and wholly fulfill the mission of intellectual formation within its own paradigm that looks to the transcendent.

Conclusion

When choosing specific approaches to Catholic education, it is important to understand the nature of the human person and use that understanding as the foundation for any education program.[22] Humanity has been gifted with faculties that work in specific ways. Education works best when it follows a natural order and engages the student’s will and emotions in the learning endeavor. As an embodied soul, it is essential that the whole person—the intellectual, emotional, physical, and spiritual—be ordered so that students can better understand themselves as effective and flourishing human beings, made in the image and likeness of God, brothers and sisters in Christ, and heirs to the eternal kingdom.

Catholic educators interested in cultivating habits of mind might consider incorporating the intellectual and dispositional standards from the Catholic Curriculum Standards, in addition to a Catholic school’s virtue and catechetical program. Standards such as, “Evaluate how history is not a mere chronicle of human events, but rather a moral and meta-physical drama having supreme worth in the eyes of God,” and, “Display personal self-worth and dignity as a human being and as part of God’s ultimate plan of creation,” elevate a student’s thought from the here and now to the eternal.

Catholic schools choosing to highlight the transcendental concepts of truth, beauty, and goodness, which are also embedded in the Catholic Curriculum Standards, will naturally use and develop many of the intellectual behaviors appropriate to a well-formed Catholic student. The Catholic Curriculum Standards seek to form dispositions toward:

  • demonstration of Catholic moral virtues;
  • ardent pursuit of the truth of things and the rejection of relativism;
  • value of the human body as a temple of the Holy Spirit;
  • dignity of the human person and primacy of care and concern for all stages of life;
  • care and concern for the environment as part of God’s creation;
  • appreciation of the beauty of well-crafted prose and poetry, historical artifacts and cultures, the order of creation, and the proportion, radiance, and wholeness present within mathematics; and
  • appreciation for the power of literature, the story of history, and the discoveries of science and how through interaction with them one can identify and choose the personal and collective good.

Using faithful curriculum standards, teaching the Catholic habits of mind described here, and providing a solid virtue program will help ensure a proper Catholic education program.

 

Denise Donohue, Ed.D., is Vice President of Educator Resources and Evaluation and Patrick Reilly is President and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, which promotes and defends faithful Catholic education.

[1] A. D. Sertillanges The Intellectual Life (Westminster, MD: The Newman Press, 1960) at  https://archive.org/details/a.d.sertillangestheintellectuallife/page/n1/mode/2up (accessed on Jan. 21, 2021).

[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993) 1803.

[3] Arthur L. Costa, “Describing the Habits of Mind,” in Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick (eds.), Learning and Leading with Habits of Mind (Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2008)16. Retrieved at http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108008/chapters/Describing-the-Habits-of-Mind.aspx (accessed on Oct. 15, 2020).

[4] St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Q. 57, Art.1 at https://www.newadvent.org/summa/2057.htm (accessed on Jan. 21, 2021).

[5] See the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharist, Disciple of Christ: Education in Virtue program’s list of virtues to learn in a Catholic school at https://golepress.com/welcome/education-in-virtue/ (accessed on Jan. 21, 2021).

[6] St. Thomas Aquinas, De veritate 27, 5 ad 5.

[7] Sr. Teresa Auer, O.P., Called to Happiness: Guiding Ethical Principles (Third ed.) (Nashville, Tenn.: St. Cecilia Congregation, 2013), 163.

[8] See Auer (2013) 156 for examples.

[9] See Martin Augustine Waldron, “Virtue,” The Catholic Encyclopedia Vol. 15 (New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912) at http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15472a.htm (accessed on Oct. 23, 2020) for definitions of the intellectual virtues.

[10] Aristotle, Metaphysics 1.982b.

[11] Anders Schinkel, “The Educational Importance of Deep Wonder” (2017), Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 51, No. 2 (2017), 543.

[12] Schinkel, 544.

[13] Newman frequently references this passage from Psalm 2:11 in his works.

[14] St. John Henry Newman, “Sermon 2: Reverence, a Belief in God’s Presence” 26 at http://www.newmanreader.org/works/parochial/volume5/sermon2.html (accessed on Jan. 21, 2021).

[15] St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (1998) 33.

[16] Fr. David Pignato, “The Primacy of Faith and the Priority of Reason: A Justification for Public Recognition of Revealed Truth,” The Saint Anselm Journal, 12.2 (Spring 2017) 52-65.

[17] “Pope’s Q and A on the Challenges of Education,” ZENIT (Nov. 23, 2015) at https://zenit.org/2015/11/23/pope-s-q-and-a-on-the-challenges-of-education/ (accessed on Jan. 21, 2021).

[18] Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, The Catholic School (Vatican, 1977) 39.

[19] See “Educating to Truth, Beauty and Goodness” from The Cardinal Newman Society at https://newmansociety.org/educating-to-truth-beauty-and-goodness-2/

[20] Aquinas, De Veritate, Q.1, A. 1-3; cf. Summa Theologiae, Q. 16.

[21] See Fr. Robert Spitzer, New Proofs for the Existence of God (Grand Rapids: MI.: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 2010) 259-266.

[22] For further reading, we recommend the following resources: Auer (2013); Luigi Guisanni, The Risk of Education: Discovering Our Ultimate Destiny (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1995); Curtis Hancock, Recovering a Catholic Philosophy of Elementary Education (Mount Pocono, PA: Newman House Press, 2005); and St. John Paul II, Fides et Ratio (1998).

Copyright © 2023 The Cardinal Newman Society, 10432 Balls Ford Road, Ste. 300, Manassas, Virginia 20109, (703) 367-0333, www.CardinalNewmanSociety.org. Permission to reprint without modification.

 

Eucharistic Literacy: Forming Teachers as Effective Catechists

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At Mass, you often see mothers whispering into the ears of their squirming toddlers. Occasionally you can catch the words, “Look, it’s Jesus!” Shortly after the consecration, the congregation echoes loudly this whispered declaration of faith, “Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the word, have mercy on us.” Both confessions are needed to help the child see who is present on the altar; who is present to us in the Blessed Sacrament. Eucharistic literacy begins with the family and is supported by the parish family.

What, then, if these great truths learned at home and at Sunday Mass are largely forgotten the rest of the week? In secular schools, Christ is disregarded as irrelevant to daily life, and learning is focused on career readiness and a secular worldview that pretends Christ never redeemed the world. Perhaps, then, it is no surprise that most young adult Catholics who never had a strong Catholic education do not believe the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

There is a need for the Eucharistic revival, and Eucharistic literacy through Catholic education is a crucial component. The revival can take many approaches, but at Sophia Institute for Teachers, we have seen the importance of forming Catholic educators: parents, catechists, and teachers. This mission extends beyond giving them the tools to teach, but also inviting them to experience Divine Love through the Sacraments. How can teachers proclaim, “Look, it’s Jesus,” without knowing His gaze upon them?

There is much that Catholic schools, dioceses, and colleges can do to form educators who are already hired. Since 2014, the Sophia Institute has provided day-long catechetical workshops for tens of thousands of Catholic educators around the country, and we are happy with the impact of this simple solution. A theological scholar’s more intellectual sessions are balanced with practical, pedagogical sessions from a Sophia master teacher that model concrete ways to make these concepts present to the students. The teachers’ imaginations are fed, and then they are sent home with lesson plans to use with their students. But most importantly, there are sessions for reflection and prayer, with the Holy Mass at the center of the day. 

At our recent workshop on the Eucharist called, Encountering God’s Love in the Sacraments, Franciscan University’s Dr. James Pauley made four points for teaching students during this Eucharistic Revival:

1 | teach and show them how to deeply invest,

2 | help them develop fluency in Sacramental language,

3 | help them see the Mass as the supreme encounter with love, and

4 | provide them a joyful witness to Jesus in the Eucharist.

All four of these points were incorporated into the pedagogical sessions hosted by our master teacher, Jose Gonzalez. He led teachers in meditating on the mysteries of the Eucharist through sacred art. They learned, some for the first time, about how the Old Testament revealed the gift of the Eucharist in the New Testament. And Jose drew on his experience to offer engaging ways to speak and teach about the Mass and the Liturgy. All these activities were ordered to the joyful experience of Holy Mass and Adoration together.

The results were encouraging: 93 percent of attendees reported feeling more confident and renewed in teaching the Faith, 89 percent gained new lesson ideas, and 93 percent learned new content about the Eucharist. These figures align with typical feedback from our workshops.

This is how we will see a genuine revival in our schools. Teachers of all subjects must see that the goal is not only familiarity with the doctrine of the Eucharist, but leading young people and their families to an authentic encounter with the Lord through the Eucharist. Strengthening Eucharistic literacy among students—helping them truly know and gain some understanding of the mysteries of the Eucharist—begins with hiring teachers who themselves are “literate” in the Church’s teaching and devotion to the Holy Sacrament. But just as ongoing formation is needed in all subjects, so is catechetical formation for all teachers.

We invite dioceses to schedule workshops with the Sophia Institute for Teachers, or schools and colleges can follow a similar model in their teacher formation programs. One key is to ensure that each workshop attendee leaves with all the tools they need to continue what they began. We provide multiple lesson plans, following the example of Our Lord by both informing and giving personal witness. Teachers tell their students, “Look, it’s Jesus!” by what they say, the content they teach, and how they behave. The lesson plans offer consistent support, guidance, and encouragement.

Just as ongoing formation is needed in all subjects, so is catechetical formation for all teachers

To help develop “fluency in Sacramental language,” as Dr. Pauley recommends, our Spirit of Truth series of lesson plans immerses the students in vocabulary from an early age. For example, we don’t wait until 5th or 7th grade to introduce the word “transubstantiation” but begin in 2nd grade, when most are preparing to receive First Communion. The students are guided to find the root of the word “substance” and make the connection with the word “transform,” even if the concept is not completely mastered for many years.

We hope that through the encounters with the Lord facilitated by these lessons, teachers will see their pivotal role in the classroom. The teacher stands alongside the parent, proclaiming to the children, “Look, it’s Jesus.” This requires a vibrant faith, fluency in the Sacramental language, and a personal connection with Christ. Belief in the Real Presence can only come from God by grace, but teachers can lead students to Him.

 

Eucharistic Liturgy: A Q & A with Archbishop Cordileone

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It was a special honor for The Cardinal Newman Society: in June, President Patrick Reilly had the opportunity to interview Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone in a public conversation about the renewal of sacred liturgy and Catholic education. 

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileon

Archbishop Cordileone is a hero of ours. He has been a champion of faithful education, standing in support of clear moral standards for San Francisco’s Catholic school teachers. He also has a special dedication to traditional and reverent liturgy through his Benedict XVI Institute, which sponsors beautiful Masses and new sacred art and music, and as ecclesiastical advisor to our Task Force for Eucharistic Education.

One of the pillars of our Task Force is renewing Eucharistic liturgy: improving music, prayer, and reverence in Catholic school and college liturgies. So when Archbishop Cordileone hosted the international Sacra Liturgia conference near San Francisco last June—featuring former Vatican officials Cardinal Robert Sarah and Cardinal George Pell—we jumped at the chance to co-sponsor the event and present a special session with the Archbishop. Here are some excerpts.

Reilly: Let’s start with this concept of Eucharistic education. The Vatican’s documents on Catholic education have made it clear that the sacraments—both participation in the sacraments and also formation of students to receive sacraments—are foundational to an authentic Catholic education. Yet the surveys show that upwards of 70 percent of young adult Catholics today do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Thinking particularly about Catholic education—Catholic schools, Catholic homeschooling, college level—what immediate priorities would you recommend for improving a Eucharistic education in our Catholic institutions?

Abp. Cordileone: We need to make sure the catechesis is correct, is solid, is convincing. But catechesis is more than what’s taught with words. It’s what is experienced. It’s what is lived. It’s especially how our worship is conducted. And it’s the culture of the whole school. 

I would focus then on renewing the liturgical life in the school and focusing on the ars celebrandi which, as [Cardinal Sarah] pointed out, is not just the celebrant of the Mass, but it’s everyone. Everyone has a role in the Mass so that it’s celebrated properly. What kind of music is sung? What are the movements like? Are those who serve the Mass, are they taught to present themselves reverently, to walk gracefully with true liturgical sense? These are little things, but they add up, and they create a sort of an atmosphere…

I mean, there are so many riches the Church has to offer. …This is a Catholic birthright, all the beauty the Church has to offer the world. We need to open up these treasures to young people.

Reilly: Catholic intellectual development is also a birthright. It’s a right of baptism to be able to understand the world and understand reality through the light of our faith. Is there something that maybe more needs to be done in terms of the Church fully embracing the different modes of education, the growing variety of types of education, and not being stuck in one particular model?

Abp. Cordileone: I do believe we need more sort of versatility in the forms of education. I think we’re still trying to transition into a new reality, although we are making progress. But you can’t replace the idea of schools run by religious orders—nuns and brothers and priests…

The Church has, I think, been slow to enthusiastically embrace homeschooling, because we’re so invested in our schools. It’s part of our Catholic identity as Catholics in the United States. We are so proud of our Catholic school system and we’re very invested in that. So I think we’ve been a little bit reticent. But I like the hybrid idea, supporting parents who want to educate their children at home, but having opportunities for them to come together.

Reilly: The Vatican recently issued a document on Catholic education—on Catholic identity in our schools. One of the major emphases of that document was on the witness and the formation of the teacher. And so, when we talk about Eucharistic education, trying to teach young people to behave as if the reality of Christ is within them, how important is it that Catholic educators themselves model this Eucharistic lifestyle?

Abp. Cordileone: It reminds me of that now oft-quoted line of Pope St. Paul VI from Evangelii Nuntiandi, about how the world looks for witnesses more than teachers, and if it looks for teachers, it’s because first they’re witnesses. The teachers do have to be a witness to the identity and the mission of the school. …It’s forming the culture of the school, so that people who appreciate that culture will be drawn to it, and those who don’t will be repelled by it…

School departments have to be very careful about whom they hire in any discipline… not just in religion courses, philosophy courses, but in every discipline. And to try to actively recruit from, again, the good and faithful Catholic colleges and universities.

Reilly: Your Excellency, we certainly appreciate your example and your strength in continuing to improve Catholic education and to bring the faith to as many young people as possible. So thank you, and God bless you!

How to Promote Eucharistic Devotion at Your School

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Teaching young people about the Eucharist is important, but as Pope St. John Paul II warned in Catechesi Tradendae, the academic life can become too “intellectualized” without sacramental and Eucharistic devotion. Our students need to know of Christ’s Real Presence in the Mass, but then they need to love and adore Him.

At Donahue Academy, a parish K-12 school in Ave Maria, Fla., that I am honored to lead, we have taken several steps to promote Eucharistic devotion. Of course these are not the only ways of doing it, but they might suggest ideas for other Catholic educators. 

1. Make devotion an explicit, visible part of the mission

Our School’s mission statement declares it to be a place “in which students encounter Christ and pursue excellence in all things. Our students will deepen their love of God and others through the pursuit of all that is true, good, and beautiful.” 

We express that mission visibly in our school seal, which includes images of our parish church, a monstrance, a stylized Sacred Heart as part of a shamrock (our school’s team name), a book, and the words Christum novisse (encountering Christ). The seal serves as a story platform where we share how students will encounter Christ and pursue excellence through the sacraments (especially the Eucharist), their love for God and each other (the Sacred Heart), and their studies (the book).

While other schools will have unique articulations of their missions, all Catholic schools hold a common mission outlined by the Church. This mission is articulated in The Cardinal Newman Society’s Principles of Catholic Identity in Education:

1 | Inspired by Divine Mission

2 | Models Christian Communion and Identity

3 | Encounters Christ in Prayer, Scripture & Sacrament

4 | Integrally Forms the Human Person 

5 | Imparts a Christian Understanding of the World

One can quickly see how devotion to the Eucharist hits all five principles. The Eucharist is the summation of everything we are trying to do as a Catholic school. If students get the Real Presence right, everything else naturally falls into place.

2. Make Mass a central, reverent, and frequent part of school life

Offering daily Mass creates a strong, vibrant Catholic culture. At Donahue Academy, we have a slightly longer school day (15-20 minutes based on grade level), and by offering Mass without a homily, our worship ends in 25 minutes. Mass is held in the gymnasium, and even that helps build community by having one grade set up in preparation for Mass and another grade tear down. The worship space is kept dark, with Gregorian Chant playing as students arrive. We kneel directly on the floor or in the bleachers, stressing the importance of reverence even when it seems a bit uncomfortable. 

Daily Mass is required for grades K-8, but with parental permission, grades 9-12 can select Mass or a silent study hall that begins with reading the daily Gospel. Approximately 80 percent of our high school students voluntarily attend Mass. On Fridays, Mass attendance is required, and a short sermon is added along with beautiful, sacred music sung by a choir. We invest heavily in our choir and shower them with treats and awards as they serve multiple functions in our community. We heavily recruit and entice students to join the choir to ensure its elevated status.

In addressing the current loss of Eucharistic devotion in the Church, Father Peter Stravinskas has said, “Clear, unambiguous, orthodox teaching on the Holy Eucharist must be bolstered by unequivocal signs and symbols in the sacred liturgy. Students desperately need a sense of the sacred, of mystery, and of awe in God’s presence. To get students to encounter Christ in the Eucharist, we must do Liturgy and worship extremely well.” 

In celebrating the Eucharist, we Catholic educators should be thoughtful, intentional, and spare no expense in time, effort, or accoutrement to fill this need. The challenge is real, and the response must be guided by the Spirit and the rich traditions of the Church, of which so many students and parents are unaware. Great things await students under such direction! 

3. Make the Tabernacle accessible 

We turned our most central and visible classroom space into a beautiful Eucharistic chapel, big enough for an entire class to visit. Every day our students walk by the chapel, prompting many to stop in for a visit. When the faculty “catch” the students praying or vice versa, powerful values are communicated and quietly strengthened. The ease and naturalness of a Eucharist encounter goes a long way!

4. First Friday Adoration

The U.S. bishops’ conference emphasizes that Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament flows from the sacrifice of the Mass and serves to deepen our hunger for communion with Christ and the rest of the Church.

For younger students, we start small with some singing and prayers, but we slowly help them grow in the ability to dwell peacefully in silence before the Lord. Each class takes time to adore Christ throughout the day, and we include the entire school in Benediction. The space is kept dark and prayerful with candles and lingering incense.

For the older students who may spend up to a full-class period in His Presence, we have Rosaries, Bibles, prayer books, and journals on hand.  Also, at our first and last faculty meetings of the year and our Christmas celebration, the faculty gather for 30 minutes of Adoration and Benediction to pray for each other and their students.

5. Eucharistic processions

We offer a Eucharistic procession during Catholic schools week, with stations set up around the outside of the school. We find that having a Rosary procession in October prepares for the needed reverence and focus to achieve a school-wide Eucharistic procession in January. It is important to keep silent and focused and, when appropriate, kneel on the bare ground as a community in worship and humility. Again, the fruits of this are real and even spectacular! 

Magdalen College

Eucharistic Living in College

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Among young adult Catholics, nearly three-quarters do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It’s a staggering statistic, but it’s not all that surprising given the state of our culture and many college campuses today.

Most colleges, even many wayward Catholic colleges, give little regard to the commands of Jesus Christ. Students face toxic campus environments with high rates of binge drinking, drug use, and a rampant hook-up culture. They’re taught from a secular worldview and may be fed false theology.

Now imagine four years—some of the most formative in life—immersed in a truly Catholic culture and education. It’s life-changing! Students are taught proper theology that explains the Real Presence in the Eucharist. And they learn how to live a “Eucharistic life” with Jesus Christ at the center.

At a faithful Catholic college, you’ll find students encouraged to pray, receive the sacraments, form good friendships, grow in modesty and virtue, have good clean fun, and discern their careers and vocations in prayer. These are fruits of Eucharistic living. 

The pillars of Eucharistic living 

One faithful Catholic college that encourages Eucharistic living—that is, helping students live according to the reality of Christ within them—is Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio.

“Saint Francis of Assisi wrote more about the Eucharist in his writings than anything else—and he lived the Eucharist! He called his followers, and he calls us today, to be devoted to the Eucharistic Lord,” explains Father Jonathan St. André, TOR, vice president of Franciscan life at the University. 

We “encourage ‘Eucharistic living’ on campus by making the Eucharist the center of our lives,” Fr. St. André explained, pointing to daily Mass, Sunday Mass, perpetual Adoration on campus, the Festival of Praise that includes Adoration and praise and worship music, and a message delivered one Saturday evening each month. 

Flowing out of the sacraments, “Eucharistic living” is encouraged through the “experience of living in small faith communities called ‘households’ where students live like Jesus Christ, with other students seeking to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit and going out to sanctify the world.” Nearly half of the student body lives in a household, in which students share life’s ups and downs, pray together, and hold each other accountable.

Additionally, “our professors strive in the classroom to communicate the integration of faith and reason in every discipline.” Fr. St. André added, “We also encourage our students to see that they possess great dignity as creatures of body and soul, and this is manifest in their humanity; a humanity ennobled by the gift of the Eucharist.” 

Beauty encourages Eucharistic living

The Eucharist is at the heart of Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts in Warner, N.H., where beautiful liturgy, art, sacred music, and Catholic culture help students live a Eucharistic lifestyle.

“Scenic mountain vistas are the backdrop to Magdalen’s 100-acre campus atop Mount Kearsarge, and a brick and granite chapel stands at the center. It is the intentional hub of the community,” explains Tristan Smith, director of collegiate choirs at Magdalen. At midday, all classes and activities are paused for daily Mass. Liturgy of the Hours, all-night Eucharistic adoration, and Eucharistic processions are frequent on campus. 

Magdalen is intentional about exposing students to beauty, which leads them to Christ. Students learn chant, polyphony, and classic hymns, they write Byzantine icons, and they participate in reverent liturgy in both Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms.

Holy Week liturgies on campus are especially impressive, with Gregorian Chant included in Palm Sunday Mass and Spy Wednesday Tenebrae Service, and bells and Alleluias marking the Great Easter Vigil. “All our efforts combine to render our best gifts of beauty to God,” the College declares.

“When visitors stop by Magdalen College, they often express wonder at the hospitality of students, the reverence of the liturgies, or the rich harmonies of the 70-voice choir. Upon departing, visitors feel like they are leaving home,” remarks Smith. 

“They are not wrong,” he says. “When young Catholics invite Christ into their heart, He makes it His home, seamlessly and effortlessly. The Eucharist is our resting place; a resting place that we at Magdalen College call home.”

Living with Christ 

With the Eucharist at the center of campus, students at faithful Catholic colleges are encouraged to make a right ordering of priorities and a right way of living. 

That’s exciting to a growing number of college-bound students, such as Sarah Davis, who is The Cardinal Newman Society’s 2022 Essay Scholarship Contest winner. Davis is a freshman at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va., this fall because she wants to “maintain and augment” the foundation she’s received in the faith, “rather than having to struggle to keep it.”

“I am convinced that a faithful Catholic college which is strongly devoted to the Eucharist will uniquely and positively impact my religious, moral, intellectual, and social formation,” explains Davis. While many students lose their faith in college, Newman Guide colleges are helping students grow in faith rooted in the Eucharist. 

And it’s no wonder, therefore, that Newman Guide colleges are disproportionately preparing students for vocations to the priesthood and religious life. Christendom College has fostered more than 90 vocations to the priesthood. Approximately 10 percent of alumni of Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, Calif., have pursued a religious vocation.

Ultimately, the goal for all students at faithful Catholic colleges is Jesus Christ Himself. Rather than sadness and a college experience that spirals them into sin, faithful Catholic education leads students to lasting happiness and holiness.

 

What Makes Catholic School Libraries Different?

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Adapted from Literature, Library, and Media Guide for Catholic Educators
By Denise Donohue Ed.D. and Dan Guernsey Ed.D.

 

As Catholic education’s mission is different, a Catholic school library is also different since all elements within an institution—including its library—should adhere to its mission. Catholic school libraries don’t have to abide by secular association’s book lists. As a matter of mission, and religious freedom, they should look nothing like public school libraries. 

The mission of Catholic education is to form students in sanctity in this life for salvation in the next. Providing students with wholesome literature that satisfies the moral imagination and assists in the formation of virtue and full human flourishing are the prescription for this, not writings that denigrate the human person or leave students with sinful thoughts or feelings of shame or despair. This follows a catechetical best practice of not leaving students without the hope of the resurrection and God’s eternal love when talking about Jesus’ death on the cross. When we allow young people to read literature that is sorrowful or confusing, especially about the unique nature of the human person, without countering these messages with the Good News of Jesus Christ, we do both them and us a disservice.

WHEN THE ‘HARMLESS’ GETS IN THE WAY OF THE EXCELLENT, IT’S NOT AS HARMLESS AS FIRST THOUGHT.

A Catholic school library does not seek to provide access to “all kinds of books,” but rather the best and most meaningful books aligned with the school’s mission. Even books that appear to have nothing harmful in them may not make sense to include in the library’s collection if it is unduly attracting students away from the best readings. For example, the cartoon-enhanced book, Ellie McDougal, may be more attractive and less work than Little Women, and the book Captain Underpants may be more enticing than Captains Courageous. But there is no doubt which books are better for our children. When the “harmless” gets in the way of the excellent, it’s not as harmless as first thought.

Efforts should be made to steer youth to lasting and meaningful works that have high quality writing and artistry and ideals of enduring value. There are plenty of other options outside of the school and the school library for trite and frivolous reading.

For the youngest readers, it’s important to be aware of impure archetypes that might mislead or confuse them about real hostile forces, both human and demonic, and young adult selections should avoid novels that center on suicide, death, extreme alienation, sexuality, or modern broken families or which present parents as enemies and obstacles to “freedom.” These should be replaced by books promoting exploration, courage, loyalty, and nobility when students are working through sometimes difficult developmental changes.

Individuals working in the library should accept their responsibility as curators of formative material, taking seriously their task of acting in loco parentis (in the place of parents), and support Catholic parents in their desire for faithful Catholic education. The Catholic school does not intend to censor books out of the public domain, but, within its own private domain and targeted audience, the school must be faithful to its mission of human formation for this life and the next.

 

Classic Literature Rises Above Agendas, Ideology

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If education is the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another as G.K. Chesterton once said, then literature is the substance nourishing or corrupting that soul. With this sublime view, it’s no wonder literature now sits in the crosshairs of today’s culture wars as certain groups fight to remove classic works from school curricula and libraries in favor of new works that press false ideologies and political agendas. These often push secular materialist worldviews on even the youngest of children, effectively destroying and replacing the Catholic worldview.

For instance, Scholastic Book Club—which is often promoted to students in Catholic schools—sells books promoting both gender theory and critical race theory. The Moon Within concerns a young girl and notions of “gender fluidity.” Several books by Alex Gino introduce children to homosexuality and gender dysphoria. In Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You, activist Ibram Kendi accuses Booker T. Washington, President Barack Obama, and other Black American leaders of being “assimilationists” guilty of implicit racism.

These themes have made even deeper inroads onto Catholic college campuses—and then back into Catholic schools. Loyola University Maryland’s Karson Institute, for instance, recently teamed up with Ms. Magazine to issue lesson plans and an annotated bibliography promoting critical race theory literature in K-12 schools.

An eternal response

Catholic school administrators should approach this challenge of literature selection as they do all challenges—through the light of their unique mission.

In the Declaration on Christian Education (Gravissimum educationis), Pope Paul VI highlights how Catholic schools are to “order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.”

As Catholic educators strive to expand the knowledge, understanding, and humanity of their students, they should not make literature selections simply based on the fleeting fancies of what students want to read, what is politically correct or what is culturally in fashion. Instead, they should seek works of excellence that encompass aesthetic beauty and artistic merit; have stood the test of time and address perennial challenges of humanity. Literature that is outstanding and describes instances of human excellence and Christian virtue are solid, lasting choices.

CATHOLIC EDUCATION DOESN’T CANCEL CULTURE; IT SUPPORTS IT WHEREVER POSSIBLE, CRITIQUES IT WHEN NEEDED, AND IMPROVES IT WITH CHRISTIAN INSIGHT.

It is crucial to note, Catholic education does not simply mirror the common culture; nor does it uncritically pass it on. Catholic education doesn’t cancel culture; it supports it wherever possible, critiques it when needed, and improves it with Christian insight.

Antidote for pop culture

One powerful reason Catholic educators should select enduring works of literature is because literature has the potential to break students free from the culture and circumstances that may bind and/or blind them.

Make no mistake, the culture that has most students in its thrall is the current pop culture: it’s TikTok social media, academia, big tech, professional athletics, fashion, and popular music.

It is not yet Homer, Augustine, Mozart, Dante, Dostoyevsky, and Twain that have their hearts and attention. It’s Cardi B, the Kardashians, Lebron James, and whatever is trending on Instagram that grabs their attention and shapes their culture and worldview. That worldview is dominated by materialism, the sexual revolution, relativism, cynicism, and despair. It is saturated with quick fixes of drugs, divorce, and bodily reconstruction. It is not a worldview completely without virtue, but one where, as GK Chesterton noted, the virtues have come untethered from the truth and from each other and are capable of working against ultimate goods.

Therefore, a critical task of Catholic education is to unbind students from the chains of the present and reveal to them the depth and breadth of broad human experiences across all sorts of divisions. The key cultural divisions they need to breach are not just the highly touted and culturally celebrated racial groupings and other sympathetic marginalized groupings of 2022. Modern students are quite knowledgeable and constantly exposed to this culture. The cultures more likely to challenge them and expand their horizons are the cultures of 1822 AD, 1522 AD, 1022 AD, and 222 AD. Introducing students to the thoughts, values, and beliefs of humanity across the ages through literature and history is more likely to lead them into the great conversations of mankind and introduce them to ideas beyond the shallow limits of the “woke world” which surrounds and suffocates them.

Judging a book by its cover

You can’t judge a book by its cover is an idiomatic expression meaning you shouldn’t judge the content of something, or someone, based on appearances. This expression is true in both the negative and the positive, meaning one should not dismiss a work (negative) nor ascribe artistic or intellectual worthiness to it (positive) based on the author’s skin color, gender, personal habits, virtues, or vices. A work’s merit takes precedent over the faults of its author, just as a logical argument should not be dismissed as untrue simply because the truth was

FAITHFUL CATHOLIC EDUCATION TEACHES MORE, OFFERS MORE, AND BRINGS THE LIGHT OF CHRIST TO THE WORLD.

argued by someone distasteful to the hearer. Also, in a related point, literature should not be selected because it makes one feel righteous in fighting for a victim class; nor should victim status work like a golf handicap to elevate mediocre works of literature above truly great work. Despite pressure from activist groups, Catholic educators should refrain from tossing out literature because of guilt by association simply because it comes from a person or culture which has acted unjustly or advocated for a flawed worldview. This would leave slim pickings indeed, as all human beings are sinners and act unjustly and all cultures seek to perpetuate their values. All cultures are comprised of fallen people with fallen ideals or who have failed to live up to those ideals over time.

A compelling Catholic witness

Finally, Catholic educators should not determine literary merit only through the lens of one literary theory (and especially not critical race theory or LGBTQ+ theory). There are more than a dozen literary theories to draw from. Educators should introduce students to various modes of interpretation or theory as appropriate based upon age, emotional, and psychological development, but never neglect to provide a corrective Catholic worldview when issues of aesthetics, faith, and morals are present. Catholic educators need to show older students multiple examples of worldviews in conflict, and then make the case for the Christian worldview through reason, revelation, and through the cohesive and unwavering personal witness of the teacher. The teacher can provide living proof that a Christian worldview can resonate with the student’s personal and existential needs. Young people must remain free to test and accept the value of what is placed before them; there can be no compulsion of will, only compelling presentations of truth to be freely received.

Literature selections made by Catholic educators must, as with all else, serve the mission. If the booklists look the same as at non-Catholic schools, or the works are approached simply using the same secular common culture and lenses of interpretation and meaning, Catholic education will have lost its flavor and competitive advantage. Faithful Catholic education teaches more, offers more, and brings the light of Christ to the world.

 

Three Guiding Principles in Choosing Literature

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It is clear, the cancel culture is bent on canceling the good, the true, and the beautiful. The latest area they seek to override is literature. Classic literature, which has been used in education for generations, is now deemed racist or sexist and needing to be replaced by more modern works. 

Amidst this tumult, parents and Catholic educators might find it difficult to discern exactly which literature is or is not good for their students to read. Therefore, the Cardinal Newman Society has assembled Policy Standards on Literature and the Arts in Catholic Education, recognizing that literature is an essential tool in the formation of a student’s mind, body, and spirit. 

The standards are rooted in three guiding principles:

1. Remember the mission

The first and foundational principle in choosing literature is to recall the mission of Catholic education, which brings students closer to Christ and helps them fulfill God’s calling in this world and to attain the eternal kingdom for which they were created. 

Literature can assist by providing a critical, systematic transmission of culture always guided by a Christian vision of reality. Works should be carefully chosen and analyzed from a Catholic perspective. Even if the work is not Catholic, educators and students should approach the text with a Catholic lens, which always increases rather than limits understanding.

LITERATURE IS AN ESSENTIAL TOOL IN THE FORMATION OF A STUDENT’S MIND, BODY, AND SPIRIT.

For example, students have long been reading ancient pagan Greek texts, such as The Odyssey. Catholics can (and should) still read this book, asking questions about virtue, how much Odysseus is influenced by good ends, and the role of free will. 

According to The Cardinal Newman Society’s Standards, “it is then the role of a Catholic educator to suggest and model a response to the critical questions being provoked in order to provide a coherent and consistent Catholic understanding.” 

Bringing everything back to the mission of Catholic education helps clarify choices and is a sure guide as new challenges arise.

2. Dare to be different

The literature chosen by Catholic educators may be very different from secular schools and colleges, because Catholic education teaches truths that are unknown or rejected elsewhere, and it forms young people for sainthood—much more than college or career. 

In Catholic education, the searching for truth begins with already knowing the fount of truth and seeing the unity between faith and reason. It orients students toward holiness and eternal salvation, while promoting the common good. 

Literature in Catholic education should never lead students into sin or despair, nor cause scandal. As the standards say, Catholic educators aim not to present uncritically all possible human thought and viewpoints, but to present the best literature and arts critically and in the context of a Catholic worldview.” Unlike secular education, which often has little to no orientation towards the truth, Catholic education exposes students to good, challenging literature within the context of truth. 

Some might think this approach opposes great secular literature, so let’s look at one example you might not think of—Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. This book is recommended by The Cardinal Newman Society for grades 9-12, even though it peers into the mind of a murderer. The classic book provides opportunities for students to investigate the effects of sin and the power of forgiveness and redemption—all of which can be taught from a Catholic perspective. Still, the choice of literature should not acquiesce to the latest fad or impulse. Rather it should serve as an opportunity to show forth the distinguishing characteristics of a distinctively Catholic education, which is increasingly different from secular woke schools—Dare to be different!

3. Understanding human nature

Finally, literature as well as the arts should be oriented toward understanding human nature, and human experiences. Good literature teaches students about how people interact in the world, and how they improve. 

Reading literature is more than a utilitarian act where the reader is simply acquiring job skills. It is also about learning and evaluating “the knowledge, wisdom, creativity and insights of others,” explain The Cardinal Newman Society standards. 

The truth that students acquire can be oriented toward their own personal growth in holiness, as well as assisting the common good. A shining example of this is Aesop’s Fables recommended for K-4 students. Each of the short stories offers a moral or virtue to be acquired in the child-friendly format of stories about animals.

 

1. REMEMBER THE MISSION

2. DARE TO BE DIFFERENT

3. UNDERSTANDING HUMAN NATURE

 

Literature should prompt students to ask the “essential” questions, which revolve around the meaning of life, and their relationship to God, others, and the world. 

The “Great Books” which are now being assailed by activists are often ideal choices to prompt readers to ask these kinds of questions. They are considered the best that has been thought and said in Western civilization. The Cardinal Newman Society’s recommended reading list contains many of these works—Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, The Aeneid by Virgil, Beowulf, and Don Quixote by Cervantes, just to name a few.

Helping Catholic educators

Determining what books should be in the curriculum or library can be a daunting task. Appendix C of the Society’s literature standards is a “Holistic Rubric for Selecting Literature in a Catholic School.” This rubric offers a 1-4 rating scale (from poor choice to excellent choice) to help determine whether a book would be fitting for a Catholic curriculum or library. 

For example, a book that is considered a “poor choice” would be focused primarily on the current culture and politics, promotes a worldview that is anti-Christian, and confuses virtue and vice. A book that would be an excellent choice would be timeless, transcending the current culture and politics. It would allow for discussion of authentic truth within a Catholic worldview. It would be a well-crafted book, prompting strong intellectual engagement among the students. 

Our standards are designed to help Catholic educators select books that assist them in teaching a Catholic worldview. As the culture becomes increasingly anti-Christian, educators will face novel challenges designed to derail the authentic transmission of the Catholic faith. The choice of good literature can help offset this assault because it exposes students to good and evil, vice and virtue, escorted by great Catholic educators who incorporate enduring literature into their curriculums and libraries.

 

Suggested Standards of Christian Anthropology to Address Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity in Catholic Education

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Teachers working in Catholic education can use these Standards for Christian Anthropology along with The Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Curriculum Standards to address issues of diversity, equity, and inclusivity from a Catholic worldview. These standards help students see themselves and each other through God’s eyes and will allow them to come to know the importance of communion with each other and with God; that man was made for communion, and not division, and will find true happiness when he makes a complete gift of himself to others and to God.

Standards

  • Express that every person is a gift from God. 1.1.3 TOB
  • Recognize that all creatures are a sign of God’s gift in love. 2.1.1 TOB
  • Relate how we learn more about ourselves through our relationships with others. 2.3.1 TOB
  • Discuss reasons why God made man male and female in Gen. 1:27 and Gen. 2:18-22a. 2.3.2 TOB
  • Explain how original nakedness refers to seeing the world and others as God sees; as Gift. 5.4.1 TOB
  • Define “original nakedness” as experiencing the true and clear vision of the person; as gift and in God’s image. 6.4.1 TOB
  • Exhibit the virtue of reverence for God, his creation, and other people by treating them with respect and honor, for God is all good and his creation is a good gift. 6.4.2 TOB
  • Discuss how we are created in the image and likeness of the Trinitarian God. 2.5.1 TOB
  • Extrapolate how man is created in God’s image through the communion of persons. 4.5.1 TOB
  • Contrast how God can enable people to view the world and others as gifts with how some people view the world and others as a threat, eliciting a response of selfishness and manipulation. 3.6.1 TOB
  • Explain gift-of-self as thoughts, words or actions that place oneself at the service of others and seek the true good of the other. 6.6.1 TOB
  • Discuss how the character of a person is embodied in their comportment. 2.7.1 TOB
  • Analyze how the body reveals that each person is made for relationship with God, others, and the world. 2.8.1 TOB
  • Explain how the human body is a visible sign (a “sacrament”) of God’s invisible love. 6.8.1 TOB
  • Recognize that each person is unique and unrepeatable. 1.11.1 TOB
  • Recognize that God calls us to make a gift of ourselves in love. 1.11.2 TOB
  • Propose how a “communion of persons” involves the loving gift-of-self (i.e., the Trinity, but also the unity of the Church, the family and the unity of man and woman) 7.5.1 TOB