Catholic College Scholarship Contest Invites Applications

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MANASSAS, VA – The Cardinal Newman Society (CNS) is pleased to announce its seventh annual Essay Scholarship Contest. The winning essay writer will be awarded $5,000 toward the cost of attending a faithful Catholic college recognized in The Newman Guide in the fall of 2023.

In addition, several Newman Guide colleges have agreed to supplement CNS’s scholarship with additional $5,000 grants to the winner over three additional years, according to criteria established by each college.

All of the details about the Contest can be found at this link: https://newmansoc.org/EssayContest

The CNS scholarship is made possible thanks to the generosity of Joe and Ann Guiffre, strong advocates of faithful Catholic education.

The contest is open to high school seniors in the United States who sign up for the Newman Society’s Recruit Me program and check out the recognized colleges in The Newman Guide during their college search.

The topic for this year’s contest is to reflect, in 400-600 words, on the following:

The Cardinal Newman Society recently released a 7-minute video on the advantages of choosing a faithful Catholic college. Pick a key point or theme from the video and explain why attending a Newman Guide college will have special value for you.

Essays will be judged by how well they demonstrate appreciation for faithful Catholic education, as well as the quality of the writing.

Last year, the Newman Society announced Sarah Davis, a homeschooled student in Pennsylvania, as the winner of the CNS’s sixth annual Essay Scholarship Contest. She received a $5,000 scholarship toward her education at Christendom College in Front Royal, Va. She may also be eligible for additional $5,000 grants from Christendom College.

In her winning essay, Davis reflected on how attending a faithful Catholic college that is strongly devoted to the Eucharist will uniquely impact her religious, moral, intellectual, and social formation. The winning essay was a timely piece, as the U.S. bishops conduct a three year “Eucharistic Revival” to increase devotion to the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

“If our Eucharistic Lord reigns over the college which I attend, I will be challenged to let Him reign over my own heart and life,” Davis wrote. “In front of the Blessed Sacrament, I will find the strength to conscientiously perform my duties as a student, treat others with true charity, and keep fighting for sanctity.”

“Therefore, no matter what God asks of me after college, I can be assured that this devotion to the Eucharist, nurtured during college, will be my strong foundation as I continue to grow into the woman God has created me to be.”

Davis’s entire essay can be read here.

Questions about this year’s Essay Scholarship Contest can be directed to Programs@CardinalNewmanSociety.org.

 

For Media Requests: Please contact Kevin Murphy, vice president of marketing and communications, at KMurphy@CardinalNewmanSociety.org or 703-367-0333 ext. 108.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Statement on ruling in Starkey v. Roncalli High School and Archdiocese of Indianapolis

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The Cardinal Newman Society hailed Wednesday’s federal court ruling in Starkey v. Roncalli High School and Archdiocese of Indianapolis as a “landmark ruling with enormous implications for Catholic education and its First Amendment right to expect fidelity and moral behavior from all employees, not just teachers, whose duties impact the Christian formation of students.”

The ruling in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Indiana upholds the ministerial exception according to last summer’s Supreme Court ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Morrissey-Berru. But the Supreme Court case concerned a lawsuit filed by a religion teacher in a Catholic school. The Indiana case is an important development, because it affirms that the federal court cannot interfere in the employment decisions of a Catholic school regarding its guidance counselor.

The case involves Lynn Starkey, who attempted to sue Roncalli High School and the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. She was fired from her job as Co-Director of Guidance when she entered into a same-sex union, a clear violation of Catholic moral teaching and of moral standards for Catholic school employees.

“Wednesday’s ruling is a landmark ruling with enormous implications for Catholic education and its First Amendment right to expect fidelity and moral behavior from all employees, not just teachers, whose duties impact the Christian formation of students,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society.

“Catholic schools must have the freedom to hire educators and other employees who model the teachings of the Church. Catholic schools around the country should take an example from Roncalli High School and the policies of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, which have clear moral standards for Catholic school employees. As this case shows, courts will uphold religious freedom when they see consistent application of Catholic moral standards.”

Statement from the Cardinal Newman Society on 7th Circuit Ruling in Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Paris

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In a very important victory today for religious freedom, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 7-3 in Demkovich v. St. Andrew the Apostle Parish (July 9, 2021) that the ministerial exception bars “hostile work environment” claims.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not yet ruled directly on this point, so the 7th Circuit’s decision is extremely important to Catholic educators and other religious employers.

“This ruling protects faithful Catholic educators and other religious employers from at least some lawsuits, which is especially helpful given the relentless drive to redefine sex discrimination as prohibiting Catholic beliefs about sex, gender and marriage,” said Patrick Reilly, President of The Cardinal Newman Society. “The ministerial exception helps preserve the authentic mission of Catholic educators and all religious organizations.”

The Cardinal Newman Society is excited to have played an important role in the case, filing an amicus brief last October that was prepared by Christian Poland of the Chicago firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP and John Bursch and Rory Gray of Alliance Defending Freedom. The brief helped persuade the full 7th Circuit Court to reconsider and overturn a dangerous 2-1 decision by a panel of the court’s judges, which would have allowed employees fired for moral reasons to work around the ministerial exception by claiming a “hostile workplace” instead of directly challenging their firing.

Today’s ruling comes almost exactly one year after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Agnes Morrissey-Berru (July 8, 2020), which found that the ministerial exception includes Catholic school religion teachers. The Supreme Court protected Catholic schools and colleges from at least some discrimination lawsuits based on conflicts with Catholic moral teaching, but the 7th Circuit panel ruling would have greatly undermined the authority of religious schools, colleges and other organizations over ministerial employees.

The panel decision could have put Catholic education in an “untenable position,” the Newman Society warned in our amicus brief:

“A Catholic school has freedom to hire and fire ministers based on alignment with the Catholic Church’s religious teachings about sex, sexual orientation, and marriage. But if a Catholic school minister engages in a course of conduct that violates the Catholic Church’s teachings, and the school persistently communicates that the minister has strayed from the school’s moral expectations and should repent, the school can now be forced to endure a secular trial.”

The full 7th Circuit Court’s ruling strongly rejects the panel’s opinion and reaffirms the rights of religious employers with regard to ministerial employees.

Statement from the Cardinal Newman Society on amicus brief in Maxon v Fuller Theological Seminary

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The Cardinal Newman Society joined an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in the case Maxon v Fuller Theological Seminary, urging the court to protect the seminary’s right to set religious and moral standards for its students and members, regardless of the Biden administration’s interpretation of Title IX as applying to homosexuality and gender identity.

The plaintiffs, two students who were expelled for violating the seminary’s rules against same-sex unions, argue that the religious exemption in Title IX should not protect a nondenominational and independent religious institution.

“It is dangerous and un-American to deny a share in religious freedom for nondenominational and independent religious institutions,” said Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society. “Such a policy would unconstitutionally discriminate against many of America’s religious schools and colleges, including those Catholic schools and colleges that are faithful to their beliefs but legally independent of the Catholic Church.”

The brief, which the Newman Society joined with the Christian Legal Society and other religious organizations, schools, and colleges, calls on the Ninth Circuit court to recognize that an independent institution controlled by a board of trustees with deeply held religious convictions and a religious mission is “controlled by a religious organization” for the purposes of the Title IX exemption.

The Cardinal Newman Society recognizes faithful Catholic schools and colleges and invited several to join the brief, including Belmont Abbey College (N.C.), Benedictine College (Kan.), Franciscan University of Steubenville (Ohio), Lumen Christi High School (Ind.), Marian High School (Ind.), the Regina Academies (Penn.), and Thomas More College of Liberal Arts (N.H.).

Other signers represent a variety of beliefs, including the American Association of Christian Schools, Association for Biblical Higher Education, Association of Christian Schools International, General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, Jewish Coalition for Religious Liberty, and Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Read the brief here

Newman Society Statement on Supreme Court Decision in Fulton v. Philadelphia

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The Cardinal Newman Society is heartened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark religious freedom ruling today in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia, including the protection it provides for Catholic education. The Court’s ruling echoes the central theme of Hosanna-Tabor, that no religious organization forfeits its First Amendment rights by engaging in a public service. The Biden administration must immediately end its assault on religious freedom and allow the free and faithful practice of religion that our Founders envisioned.

Catholic Schools Should Leave Common Core Behind

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Nearly three years ago, The Cardinal Newman Society urged Catholic school leaders to exercise caution and refrain from rushing into adoption of the Common Core State Standards. In meetings with bishops and diocesan superintendents, we and other education advocates raised important concerns:

  • We said the Common Core was developed for secular public schools and fails to address key priorities in Catholic education.
  • We warned that its utilitarian objectives are contrary to the mission of Catholic education.
  • We noted that the untested Common Core has nothing to offer Catholic schools that already excel and score high on national tests.

Today our concerns are validated and confirmed by a new, thorough and scholarly critique of the Common Core’s use in Catholic schools. After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core is published by the Pioneer Institute in collaboration with American Principles Project and authored by Dr. Dan Guernsey, director of K-12 education programs for The Cardinal Newman Society, along with the impressive Dr. Anthony Esolen, Jane Robbins and Dr. Kevin Ryan.

After the Fall should finally and forever convince Catholic school leaders to move above and beyond the flawed Common Core standards by embracing truly Catholic standards of excellence in education.

For Catholic schools to thrive and fulfill their mission of forming the whole person — mind, body and soul — they must make the Catholic faith the core of all that they do. Sprinkling Catholicism on top of secular Common Core standards, as After the Fall describes the approach recommended by some Catholic educators, in fact weakens Catholic identity and denies students the formation that is essential to a truly Catholic education.

The fact of the matter is faithful Catholic schools already outperform secular schools and help prepare students not only for college and career, but more importantly for this life and the next. They do well because of their emphasis on Christian formation, which is absent from the Common Core and other government standards.

Because Common Core gets man wrong, it gets education wrong. Catholic insight into human nature and into man’s relationships with his fellow man, nature, and God allows for a more complete exploration of the world and not just all that is in it, but also that which transcends it as well. We are about a more substantial project and need more substantial standards. The Cardinal Newman society will soon be releasing resources to aid the discussion of what those standards might include.

Before the publication of this new scholarly analysis, there was already considerable momentum in Catholic education away from dependence on the Common Core and toward a more faith-centered approach to Catholic education. With After the Fall’s devastating critique proving accurate Catholic concerns about the Common Core, we hope this trend will continue.

It’s time for all Catholic schools to turn the page. Catholic is the core of Catholic education.

For more information about the Common Core click here. 

Statement Regarding Common Core

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December 20, 2013 – In recent decades, Church leaders, together with Catholic families, have come to better appreciate that Catholic identity is essential to Catholic schools’ mission, teaching methods, curriculum, and appeal.  It is because of their Catholic identity that schools are most attentive to the needs of students and their families.  “These Catholic schools afford the fullest and best opportunity to realize the fourfold purpose of Christian education, namely to provide an atmosphere in which the Gospel message is proclaimed, community in Christ is experienced, service to our sisters and brothers is the norm, and thanksgiving and worship of our God is cultivated” (U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium, 2005).

Although Catholic schools in the United States—which have served students and the Church in an exemplary way for more than a century—have avoided many of the pedagogical and curricular trends in public schools, some Catholic educators have recently advocated for Catholic schools to adopt or adapt the untested and increasingly controversial Common Core State Standards Initiative.

We have grave concerns.  This school reform effort is nothing short of a revolution in how education is provided, relying on a technocratic, top-down approach to setting national standards that, despite claims to the contrary, will drive curricula, teaching texts, and the content of standardized tests.  At its heart, the Common Core is a woefully inadequate set of standards in that it limits the understanding of education to a utilitarian “readiness for work” mentality.

Well-intentioned proponents of adopting the Common Core in Catholic schools have argued that Catholic identity can be “infused” into the Core.  This approach misses the point that authentic Catholic identity is not something that can be added to education built around thoroughly secular standards, but that our faith must be the center of—and fundamental to—everything that a Catholic school does.

The Common Core revolution in American education was launched behind closed doors and rushed to implementation in public schools with the promise of tax dollars as an inducement—even though all the Standards have not yet been completed, and those that have been released are controversial among many expert educators and parents.  Catholic educators need not rush to follow this potentially dangerous path.

There is an ongoing, healthy debate about whether the Common Core is appropriate in public schools, and even more so in Catholic schools.  Let it run its course.  The Cardinal Newman Society—together with the countless Catholic parents, principals and pastors we have heard from—is concerned that we will be locked into the Common Core before it has been thoroughly and rigorously evaluated.

Most troubling in the public debate about whether Catholic schools should adopt the Common Core is that parents, whom the Church recognizes are the primary educators of their children, have been largely absent from it.  They lack sufficient information to make judgments about the Common Core.  And yet, as the Church has clearly taught, parents deserve a strong voice in deciding whether to embrace this “fundamental shift” in Catholic education, as the Common Core has been described by one leading Catholic advocate.

The Cardinal Newman Society is concerned that adoption of the Common Core at this time is premature.  Worse, it may be a mistake that will be difficult or impossible to undo for years to come.  We do not doubt the good intentions of those who advocate the Common Core in Catholic schools, and we acknowledge their confidence that Catholic schools can maintain a strong Catholic identity even while measuring their quality according to secular standards.  But we do not share this confidence, in light of the sad experience in recent decades of many Catholic colleges, hospitals, and charities that believed they could infuse Catholic identity into the secular standards that they embraced.

We seek to help inform the dialogue about the Common Core with our new project and website, Catholic Is Our Core (www.CatholicIsOurCore.org), while expanding the conversation to include parents, educators and principals who have largely been absent from the debate.  The Cardinal Newman Society’s mission is to promote and defend faithful Catholic education.  We are working closely with key Catholic education experts and others to provide analysis of the Core and its potential impact on Catholic schools.  We seek to provide those concerned about faithful Catholic education with solid information, analysis and arguments to more fully understand the potential impact of the Common Core on Catholic education and to advise caution about the Common Core until it can be further studied and evaluated.