For Catholic Schools to Survive, Their Catholicity Must Thrive

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We hear a lot about the decline of Catholic schools, but maybe not enough.

The numbers are staggering: Catholic school enrollment has declined more than two-thirds in the last 50 years, from 5.2 million to 1.9 million students.

Even so, Catholic homeschoolers perceive significant growth in their numbers, with the freedom to explore a vast menu of resources that improve upon the stale textbooks used by many schools.

Catholic classical educators likewise see an increase in their ranks, not only among homeschoolers but in schools that have shifted toward the classical model or have been newly founded.

At The Cardinal Newman Society, we hear regularly from parents who are excited by the changes to Catholic schools promoted by their bishops.  These include the hard-won teacher standards championed by Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco.

So why the contradiction?  In certain quarters, families and educators are embracing faithful Catholic education with great enthusiasm.  And yet Catholic schools are still closing; we’ve lost nearly 20 percent of the schools that were in operation just 10 years ago, especially elementary schools.

The answer doesn’t come easily to those who define the crisis simply as a lack of students and money.  These are symptoms of deeper problems in our schools.  There have been too many misguided attempts to attract students and increase tuition revenues, donations and government subsidies.

These strategies are necessary and yet can harm Catholic schools if they ignore the far more serious problem: the diminishment of Catholic identity in recent decades.

Catholic schools in America once were the envy of the Western world, not because they sought prestige, but because they responded directly to the needs of Catholic families.  They embraced goals and methods of forming the mind, body and soul that could only have sprung from the Catholic faith.  Catholic education was excellent, precisely because it was Catholic.

Therefore, attracting families by reaching for secular standards and embracing the goals, methods, curricula and even textbooks of public education can be damaging to Catholic schools.  Ultimately, it fills schools with students who don’t value what we value.

The same can be said for attracting donors by the same methods.

Worse, in an age when both state and federal government are turning increasingly secularist, the pursuit of government aid can be, at best, a short-term solution to financial needs.  The day seems to be coming rapidly when Catholic schools may be permitted to uphold Catholic values only if they are free of government support.

So how do we address the crisis?

As evidenced by the success of many faithful Catholic schools today, I believe that the only path forward for schools that wish to both survive long-term and remain Catholic is to more robustly embrace the Church’s vision for Catholic schools.  I believe this for three reasons:

First, a secular society will only permit religious freedom—if it is permitted at all—to the most consistently and fervently religious schools.  In this, at least, the intolerance of the present age is having some positive impact, by motivating sincerely Catholic schools to establish clear and firm policies that are directly tied to Catholic teaching.

Second, the character of a school is determined largely by its teachers.  If Catholic education is to genuinely form young people to be fully human, it requires teachers who witness to the faith and morals, both inside and outside the classroom.  In today’s culture, hiring such teachers takes a special resolve on the part of school leaders who are firmly committed to faithful Catholic education, even in the face of potential lawsuits and pressure from both outside and within the Church.

Third, as more Catholic families turn to public schools and succumb to the zeitgeist of the age, the remaining market for Catholic schools will include higher concentrations of families who appreciate genuine Catholic education.  Already we are seeing how seriously Catholic schools are attracting students, donors and even local acclaim for their “old-fashioned” methods.  Other schools that strive for students by shedding Catholic identity may find the strategy short-lived, at least if they intend to continue as Catholic schools.

(A scholar recently commented to me that the closing of secularized schools represents the sort of “pruning of the vine” that Pope Benedict XVI predicted in the Church.  I suggested that it may be more akin to dead branches withering and falling away of their own accord, since every effort is being made to save them.  But the scholar’s point was that the Church ultimately benefits from the fruit of the healthy branches.)

No matter how desperate a school’s effort to gain students or financial support, it is even more important that it remains true to its mission and regains anything that has been lost in past years.  Catholic schools should:

Hire only teachers and leaders who embrace that mission and the Catholic faith.

Study and observe the key principles of Catholic education found in the Church’s rich teachings on the nature of the Catholic school.

Subscribe only to school and curriculum standards that explicitly uphold the Catholic school’s emphasis on evangelization and formation.

Establish student and personnel policies that explain and uphold Catholic moral teachings.

Fight vigorously for religious freedom, and permit no government encroachment on Catholic education.

Listen to parents and serve them in their task as the primary educators of their children.  Help children know and love their Savior.

Years from now, the surviving Catholic school is unlikely to be satisfied with meeting minimal obligations for retaining the Catholic label.  That’s not enough.

It’s the school where leaders and teachers are eager to provide the very best Catholic formation—to lead young people to Christ and to accompany them on the road to Heaven—that exemplifies the truly healthy Catholic school.  That’s something that families can rally around.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

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California Dreams Up Nightmare for Catholic Education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

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The Incredible Shrinking Case for Common Core

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Did Pope Francis Say ‘Don’t Proselytize’?

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

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

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

So what did the Holy Father actually say?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

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Vatican Envoy to Jesuits and Bishops: Reform Education

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Church and society depend on it.

This article first appeared at The National Catholic Register.

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Fire Theologians, Not Columnists

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There is more than irony in the recent attempt by several theologians to discredit New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, because he dared to write about the tragic confusion surrounding the Synod on the Family without having a theologian’s “professional qualifications.”

There is great desperation in the move — and hypocrisy.

The hypocrisy lies in the demand for credentials, when the field of theology is itself seriously lacking in that regard.

About half of Douthat’s critics are professors of theology at Catholic colleges and universities. Under canon law, they must have the mandatum, a recognition from their local bishop that they pledge to teach in fidelity to Catholic doctrine. But do they? At least a few seem to be headed in the opposite direction.

Under current policy in the United States, it’s difficult to know whether a theology professor has the mandatum, because most theologians won’t say — and neither will their college employers or their bishops. The mandatum is deemed a private matter between the theologian and the bishop, and even many Catholic colleges do not require the mandatum for employment. Students who need to know whether or not a professor has complied with canon law are in the dark.

In James Caridi’s 2011 survey of U.S. Catholic college and university leaders, 36 percent said they did not know whether their theology professors have received the mandatum, 10 percent said some but not all of their theologians have received it, and another 6 percent said no professors have it. When The Cardinal Newman Society followed in 2012 with a request to America’s 10 largest Catholic universities to disclose which of their theology professors have the mandatum, the few that responded admitted that they do not collect such information.

Pope Benedict XVI pressed the issue in May 2012 during the ad limina visit of several American bishops. Urging “compliance” with Canon 812, which requires the mandatum for teachers of theology, the Holy Father said:

The importance of this canonical norm as a tangible expression of ecclesial communion and solidarity in the Church’s educational apostolate becomes all the more evident when we consider the confusion created by instances of apparent dissidence between some representatives of Catholic institutions and the Church’s pastoral leadership: such discord harms the Church’s witness and, as experience has shown, can easily be exploited to compromise her authority and her freedom.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, when he was prefect of the Apostolic Signatura and Rome’s chief expert on canon law, told the Newman Society that “tangible” means the mandatum should be publicly acknowledged:

It’s tangible in the sense that it’s a public declaration, in writing, on the part of the ecclesiastical authority that a theologian is teaching in communion with the Church, and people have a right to know that so that if you, for instance, are at a Catholic university or parents are sending their children to the Catholic university, they know that the professors who are teaching theological disciplines at the university are teaching in communion with the Church.

There is, of course, no similar requirement in canon law that a New York Times columnist be properly credentialed by the Church to opine on Church matters. So it is preposterous that theologians would demand “professional qualifications” from a journalist, while their own profession apparently lacks compliance with the Church’s canon law.

So why attack Douthat? The answer may lie in the theologians’ second charge, that Douthat favors a “politically partisan narrative that has very little to do with what Catholicism really is.” This seems to be another case of the pot calling the kettle black; the driving motivation behind today’s “progressive” Catholics seems to be quite political and secular, and not rooted in faith. The loosening of Catholic mores with regard to sexuality and marriage for “pastoral” reasons has been a key objective of both political and religious progressives since the 1960s.

That’s where I see desperation in the theologians’ move against Douthat. He has challenged the apparent scheming by some parties to control the outcome of the Synod, which centered on this loosening of attitudes toward marital and sexual sin. Pope Francis had opened the doors wide to frank discussion and debate. The progressives saw the opportunity to bum-rush the Church.

But that largely failed. And now that Douthat is issuing warnings that could help thwart anything they hoped to gain, the ivory-tower theologians have lashed out in despair.

The response of many Catholic pundits has been to rush to Douthat’s defense, and rightly so. But I propose something more:

It’s time for Catholics to demand that those who teach theology in Catholic institutions commit to complete fidelity to Catholic teaching, make that commitment publicly known, and refrain from using their academic prowess to oppose those who faithfully seek the good of the Church.

And if theologians can’t abide by those expectations, they should at least find an ivory tower that doesn’t bear the label “Catholic.” Or become columnists.

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

Cardinal Burke Urges Genuine Catholic Education to Renew Culture

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Cardinal Raymond Burke last week gave us yet another trove of wisdom to contemplate, just as the Synod on the Family came to a close. This time, it was about Catholic education, and it came with a stern warning.

In prepared remarks last week given to representatives of Voice of the Family, Cardinal Raymond Burke, patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, warned parents about the threats to their children from wayward Catholic schools while arguing that faithful Catholic education at home and in schools is needed to transform the culture. 

“Today, parents must be especially vigilant, for sadly, in some places, schools have become the tools of a secular agenda inimical to the Christian life,” he said. Corrupted Catholic institutions can lead young people “to their slavery to sin … profound unhappiness, and to the destruction of culture.” 

Cardinal Burke has received a lot of attention for his courageous opposition to those who sought to hijack the Synod in support of Communion for remarried, divorced Catholics. So it may seem odd that he chose to focus on Catholic education during the Synod’s last week. The topic of education got surprisingly little attention at the Synod, even after scholars Theresa Farnan and Mary Hasson publicly urged the Synod fathers to devote more time to it. 

But education and the good of the Catholic family are essentially linked, and Catholic education is a key solution to the challenge of secularism. In a lecture last week at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio — which is a model of faithful education — I expressed my concern that we not limit the New Evangelization to strategies that excite young people about the Faith, but also focus more attention to the renewal of Catholic education. It is in Catholic education that young people experience the deeper formation that prepares them for sainthood in a difficult and often hostile culture. 

The timing of Cardinal Burke’s comments also are relevant to today’s 50th anniversary of the Vatican II declaration on Christian education, Gravissimum Educationis. Next month, the Vatican will celebrate the documents while addressing the “crisis of education” in the modern world, meaning the modern failures to truly bring young people to know, love and serve Jesus Christ. The result is a deep despair and aimlessness in today’s societies — what Cardinal Burke calls a “profound unhappiness.” 

And ultimately, happiness in God is the promise of a genuine Catholic formation. 

It is important that “children know happiness both during the days of their earthly pilgrimage and eternally at the goal of their pilgrimage which is Heaven,” said Cardinal Burke. And it is no contradiction that such happiness means preparing for the Cross. 

“Education, if it is to be sound, that is, for the good of the individual and society, must be especially attentive to arm itself against the errors of secularism and relativism,” Cardinal Burke stated, “lest it fail to communicate to the succeeding generations the truth, beauty and goodness of our life and of our world, as they are expressed in the unchanging teaching of the faith.” 

He addressed particularly the modern confusion in sexuality, including the “so-called ‘gender education’ in some schools, which is a direct attack on marriage at its foundation and, therefore, on the family.” 

“Good parents and good citizens,” said Cardinal Burke, “must be attentive to the curriculum which schools are following and to the life in the schools, in order to assure that our children are being formed in the human and Christian virtues and are not being deformed by indoctrination …Today, for example, we sadly find the need to speak about ‘traditional marriage,’ as if there were another kind of marriage.” 

He referred to Gravissimum Educationis in support of parent-directed education: “As it is the parents who have given life to their children, on them lies the gravest obligation of educating their family.They must therefore be recognized as being primarily and principally responsible for their education.” 

And most profoundly, he reminded his audience of the encyclical by Pope Pius XI, Divini Illius Magistri, and the task of Catholic education to form “the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatual light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character.”

In light of the confusion surrounding the Synod and the greater confusion in the world about marriage, family and even the value of human life, we are in great need of Catholics with this sort of formation. Renewing Catholic education should be among our highest priorities. 

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