‘Fulton’ Ruling Teaches Important Lesson to Catholic Educators

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A leading attorney for the defense of religious freedom says Catholic educators can learn an important lesson from the Supreme Court’s recent Fulton ruling, which allowed Catholic Social Services of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia to uphold its faithfully Catholic practices. The lesson: Have courage and stand firm in the Faith.

Like Catholic social and medical services, Catholic education faces growing threats from the Biden administration and many states and localities because of Catholic beliefs about the sanctity of life, the human person and marriage. While educators may be tempted to compromise on programs like women’s athletics or on policies like moral standards for teachers, doing so violates the very mission of Catholic education, and there is no escaping confrontation with gender ideology. The best legal protection is to be consistently and firmly committed to the Catholic faith.

“As Fulton shows, religious freedom is stronger when Catholic apostolates are standing in a long historical tradition and have the courage of their convictions,” says Eric Kniffin, legal adviser to The Cardinal Newman Society and attorney with Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie LLP. He also worked previously for the Becket Fund and the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

“On the contrary,” he warns, “if Catholic schools disregard their calling and lose their saltiness, they will have a much harder time convincing students, parents and judges that they need religious accommodations.”

The Court’s June 17 ruling in Fulton v. City of Philadelphia protects the right of Catholic Social Services to continue receiving City of Philadelphia funding, without yielding to the City’s demand that it place children for foster care with same-sex couples. The Court’s deference to Catholic Social Services’ mission and beliefs, says Kniffin, is heartening given the Biden administration’s efforts to impose broad accommodations for homosexuality and transgender behavior in schools and colleges by twisting the nondiscrimination provisions of the federal Title IX education law.

Last Wednesday, the Biden administration released a “Dear Educator” letter insisting that “Title IX’s protection against sex discrimination encompasses discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity,” despite the fact that Congress never intended the law to have such a meaning. On Monday, the Court declined to consider a Virginia school board’s appeal to preserve the privacy of boys’ and girls’ bathrooms, leaving educators vulnerable to the Administration’s gender ideology.

The Education Department’s letter last week indicated that it expects schools and colleges to allow students to choose athletic teams based on their stated “gender identity” and give them access to the bathrooms and locker rooms of their choice. Moreover, the Department indicated that it would mandate what educators can believe and teach about sex, warning against a scenario in which “the teacher tells the class that there are only boys and girls and anyone who thinks otherwise has something wrong with them.”

Good for education

But the Fulton decision offers some hope of protection for religious education, to the extent that the Supreme Court respected Catholics’ right to uphold fundamental truths about human nature and sexuality.

“One of the most important victories for the Catholic Church in Fulton is that the Supreme Court voted unanimously in favor of a religious entity that believes that ‘marriage is a sacred bond between a man and a woman,’” Kniffin says. “Some on the left have argued that such a statement is akin to racial bigotry. The Court’s unanimous decision is a strong repudiation of that analogy.”

Instead, the Court remained consistent with its Obergefell ruling in 2015, which said, “Many who deem same-sex marriage to be wrong reach that conclusion based on decent and honorable religious or philosophical premises, and neither they nor their beliefs are disparaged here.”

In his majority opinion in Fulton, Chief Justice John Roberts took notice of the Catholic Church’s long history of serving children as an extension of its religious exercise, not apart from it. Catholic education is no different. This was a point that Kniffin made in the amicus brief he authored last year for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference.

“This history was important in the Fulton case, because the City and its allies claimed that foster care has now become a ‘public service,’ which means that the contracts at issue here had no more religious significance than contracts for ‘road maintenance,’” Kniffin explains. His brief for the USCCB noted that the Court had already rejected this line of argument with respect to Catholic education in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor ruling, which affirmed the ministerial exception for certain Catholic school teachers. In that case, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission made the outrageous argument that the First Amendment does not apply to Catholic schools providing a “socially beneficial service … in compliance with State compulsory education laws.”

Just as Hosanna-Tabor helped the Archdiocese of Philadelphia make its case, the Fulton ruling gives Catholic education an even stronger argument for religious freedom, Kniffin says. “While caring for orphans falls under the corporal works of mercy, the work of Catholic schools falls under the spiritual works of mercy. When carried out as the Catholic Church intends … Catholic schools are carrying out a core religious exercise.”

On the other hand, the Fulton ruling is also a reminder of how fragile such rights can be in today’s secular society. Although the Supreme Court had the opportunity with this case to overturn its 1990 ruling in Employment Services v. Smith, it avoided the issue, thereby allowing states and cities like Philadelphia to attempt further discrimination against Catholic organizations as long as their laws and rules are generally applicable without exceptions. Catholic Social Services may soon have to return to court to protect its foster care services and force a review of Smith— or that review might occur because of a case involving Catholic education, which faces challenges with licensing, school choice funding, accreditation, participation in athletic conferences and other state and local attempts to impose gender ideology despite Catholic beliefs.

“The good news is that five justices in Fulton said that they believe that the Free Exercise Clause protects more religious liberty than the Smith decision might indicate,” Kniffin says. “Hopefully, this consensus will help dissuade government from even stronger efforts to force Catholic schools to abandon their convictions on matters of sexual morality and the human person. But if they do, the Court seems poised to protect the First Amendment right to free exercise.”

As for federal programs like college student loans and aid for textbooks and busing, Catholic education is protected by the religious exemption in Title IX — except that the Biden administration wants to maneuver around that exemption with the harmful Equality Act. Activists are also attempting to dismantle the Title IX exemption in court. To counter their arguments, the Cardinal Newman Society recently joined an amicus brief with the Christian Legal Society, several groups representing various religious beliefs, and Catholic schools and colleges that are recognized by the Newman Society for their faithful education.

By standing firm and refusing to yield our religious freedom, Catholic educators can hopefully continue to win in court. Moreover, the formation that Catholic education provides young people — if it remains consistently faithful to the teachings of the Church — can eventually renew society and restore respect for truth.

This article first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

Secular Resources Can Be Dangerous to Catholic Education

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There are many popular academic programs and resources available to Catholic educators, but most are secular, designed primarily for public schools.

Does “secular” mean that they are unsuitable for Catholics?

So long as the content does not oppose Catholic teaching, it may seem appropriate to use secular materials and programs. Catholics do not hide from the world. There is no conflict between the truths of our faith and the truths of science, math, history and other human studies. We are not afraid to explore every branch of knowledge, and we respect the methods appropriate to each academic discipline.

Still, there is more to consider when evaluating secular resources. Do they positively advance the mission of Catholic education? Does their use crowd out authentic Catholic formation and learning? Do they implicitly teach relativism and falsehood?

These are questions addressed in The Cardinal Newman Society’s reviews of secular resources including Advanced Placement courses, the Common Core State Standards, the International Baccalaureate program, the Habits of Mind program and secular character development programs.

Recently, we also published Policy Standards for Secular Materials and Programs in Catholic Education, an overview of Catholic principles and recommended standards for Catholic school policies.

“Catholic educators teach and do more,” write the Newman Society’s Dr. Denise Donohue and Dr. Dan Guernsey. “This means they must ask more of any material or program imported into the educational environment and be ready to heavily adapt it toward a greater end.” They also must recognize that “some resources will be woefully insufficient, and others may have elements that actually work against the Catholic mission.”

Three missing elements 

Secular education is never complete and can be dangerous, if not enlightened by our Catholic faith. It always lacks three things of the greatest importance:

1) Secular education refuses to admit the insights of Catholic teaching. An education that ignores God withholds understanding from its students.

The lack of catechesis is only part of the problem. Secular education restricts understanding in every course of study by eclipsing the light of the Church’s teachings, and it allows distortions and falsehoods to creep into every classroom. While subjects can be taught without reference to God, the approach is backward and narrow, deliberately limiting a student’s understanding of reality as fashioned by God according to His reason. Ignoring the truths of our faith implicitly denies the unity of knowledge, and it prevents a truly integrated education with God as the common thread.

Concerning the role of theology in education, St. John Henry Newman asked, “How can we investigate any part of any order of knowledge, and stop short of that which enters into every order? All true principles run over with it, all phenomena converge to it; it is truly the First and the Last.”

2) Secular education also lacks a sure moral and ethical foundation. An education that ignores God’s law withholds wisdom from its students.

While natural law and common sense allow people of very different religious faiths to come to some agreement on moral values, these are often skewed by personal biases and manipulated into ideologies. Today public education is dominated by moralistic claims that are often false or lack foundation in a true understanding of human dignity.

Again, according to Newman: secular education has the tendency of “throwing us back on ourselves, and making us our own center, and our minds the measure of all things.” The best scholar can “become hostile to Revealed Truth” and an “insidious and dangerous foe” of the Church. Therefore, while religion may not be essential to studying many subjects, nevertheless a true moral perspective rooted in Catholic teaching is necessary to preserve the “integrity” of education and the human person.

3) Secular education lacks the ecclesial mission of Catholic education, tied to the Church’s mission of evangelization and man’s purpose of seeking full communion with God. An education that ignores God withholds assistance toward sainthood.

Secular materials and programs in math, literature and even virtue development may appear suitable to Catholic education, because they include much of the same content. But mission drives Catholic education before content. Catholic education forms young people to use their unique human gifts of reason, free will and selfless charity toward the end for which they were created.

Whereas secular education helps students accumulate information and perhaps even develop skills of reasoning, Catholic education “ascends” above knowledge toward transcendental reality—another Newman insight—to better understand and appreciate God’s truth, goodness and beauty as found in creation and in the Church.

Ultimately, then, the gulf between secular and Catholic education is much wider than it may first seem, and secular resources are never as suitable as those designed with an authentic Catholic perspective. Only a faithful Catholic education can integrally form young people in both mind and soul, as God intends.

It is important that Catholic educators remain confident in the superior formation that a faithful Catholic education provides. Secular programs and materials should be examined cautiously, with a preference toward resources that are built upon a Catholic foundation.

Habits of Mind 

An example of the dangers of secular programs can be found in the Habits of Mind program, which is popular in public schools and is making inroads in Catholic schools. Developed by Arthur Costa and Bena Kallick, Habits of Mind teaches 16 intellectual behaviors to help students make productive choices, especially when faced with dichotomies, dilemmas or uncertainties.

Catholics will find much to like in the program. “Many of the Habits of Mind correlate to moral virtues, such as: taking responsible risks (prudence), finding humor (affability), thinking interdependently (circumspection), remaining open to continuous learning (docility), managing impulsivity (temperance) and persisting (fortitude),” explains Dr. Denise Donohue in the Newman Society’s review.

Nevertheless, we have serious reservations about the program. It attempts to brand a set of virtues that have been promoted since ancient times, and it can tend to overshadow other and even more important habits that should be central to Catholic education, such as the Beatitudes and other Christian dispositions such as humility, gentleness, patience, faithfulness, goodness, godliness, joyfulness, modesty and love.

With regard to intellectual virtues, the Habits of Mind have a limited focus on problem-solving. They are less helpful in developing the “philosophical habit of mind” that St. John Henry Newman proposes as the aim of education. A graduate of Catholic education should be able to “ascend” above knowledge to seek truths that are foundational to reality and larger than experience, as in contemplating the natural and eternal law. The Habits of Mind, designed primarily for public schools, are focused on observation and experience but not transcendental truths leading to God the Creator. They also neglect the development of sound reasoning in support of a thesis and respect for authoritative sources, including the Catholic Church.

A good Catholic education should have no need for a program like Habits of Mind. In a Catholic curriculum, virtues overlap and occur throughout all levels and types of student formation. More than problem solving, Catholic education teaches truth and forms students for a lifetime of inquiry that leads to Truth Himself.

We offer recommendations for adapting the Habits of Mind program to Catholic education, but it would be better to adopt to the Newman Society’s Catholic Curriculum Standards. Our review of Habits of Mind includes a “crosswalk” to show how each of the program’s virtues are already included in the Catholic Curriculum Standards—and so much more.

Common Core

The Common Core State Standards are another secular remedy intended to improve public education yet adopted by many Catholic schools. Their focus on college and career is inadequate to serve the evangelical mission of Catholic education.

In 2013, the Newman Society’s Dr. Dan Guernsey offered 10 Critically Important Adaptations to the Common Core for Catholic Schools—an important aid to schools attempting to work with the new standards. But Guernsey warned that such adaptations ultimately fail to address “the fundamental conflict” between the Common Core and the “integral formation of students.” Catholic education teaches truth, goodness and beauty across the entire curriculum. “And, since the object of every academic discipline is truth, the Catholic curriculum should be based on the conviction that all truths ultimately converge in their source—God.”

Other Newman Society analyses helped clarify concerns about the Common Core. Guernsey and Donohue found that the standards’ “close reading/new criticism” approach to literature is contrary to Catholic education’s emphasis on the “real, rich and wonderful world outside the text.” The standards suggest that “the value of literature is not so much what it teaches us about how to live well, but that it teaches us how to read well (e.g. Just tell me what’s in the report, Johnson!).”

Guernsey was lead author of the Pioneer Institute’s 2016 report, After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core, which celebrates “the tremendous insight the Catholic intellectual tradition has always offered into the wonder, value, and glory present in all of God’s creation. Authentic academic inquiry and a fuller understanding of the human experience are completely fulfilled in the Catholic educational experience.”

Today many dioceses are still using the Common Core, part of a tradition of adopting state standards. As states shift to new standards, it is a good time to consider an alternative like the Newman Society’s Catholic Curriculum Standards, which fully embrace the mission of Catholic education.

International Baccalaureate

Recently it seems the International Baccalaureate (IB) program has been making inroads into Catholic schools, if the IB ads in Catholic publications are any indication. But when the Newman Society published its review of the IB program last year, Catholic schools were only about 2 percent of the 1,800 American schools adopting the program.

The Geneva-based program says it “aims to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.” Specialties include its college-directed “diploma program” in the last two years of high school and the foundational Theory of Knowledge course.

According to the Newman Society’s reviewers Dr. Denise Donohue and Dr. Dan Guernsey, the IB “takes a relativistic approach to truth” and “insists upon the exclusive use of the constructivist learning approach to the exclusion of other proven instructional methodologies.” This can encourage a constructivist philosophy, suggesting “that man constructs his own knowledge—even of reality —and that nothing exists that is not constructed in one’s own mind.”

Like other secular programs, the IB can crowd out more fully Catholic education. For instance, it requires schools to adopt its learner profile: “All IB learners strive to be Inquirers, Knowledgeable, Thinkers, Communicators, Open-Minded, Caring, Risk-Takers, Balanced, Principled, and Reflective.” But Donohue and Guernsey warn that these can be limiting and fail to incorporate many Christian virtues that are essential to Catholic formation.

The Newman Society recommends that schools not adopt the IB program. But for those that already have done so, our review recommends many steps that can be taken to adapt the IB program to be more suitable to Catholic education. These changes to the program are extensive and may conflict with IB resources and teacher training.

catholic education

Catholic Curriculum Standards: Faithful to the Core

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When Jill Annable began her role as assistant superintendent in the Diocese of Grand Rapids, the staff was working on rewriting its curriculum standards for all subject areas and all grades, to try to integrate Catholic identity across all content areas.

Educators who have worked on school standards know that it’s no small task. Fortunately for Annable and the Diocese of Grand Rapids, timely help provided just what they needed.

“We were drafting and drafting,” Annable recalled in a recent podcast produced by the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA), where she now serves as the executive director of academic excellence. She remembers when her superintendent walked into her office and excitedly shared, “It was published, you can use it!” She meant the Catholic Curriculum Standards, which had just been released by The Cardinal Newman Society.

“When I opened it up, I realized that it was the missing piece,” Annable told Dr. Denise Donohue, the Newman Society’s deputy director of K-12 programs, who was also a guest on the podcast. “It was the language I needed to use without trying to invent it ourselves.”

The Diocese of Grand Rapids isn’t the only diocese to find our Catholic Curriculum Standards helpful.

“Since, in every school, the curriculum carries the mission, these Catholic Curriculum Standards are an invaluable contribution to Catholic schools everywhere,” says Father John Belmonte, S.J., superintendent of the Diocese of Venice.

“Catholic schools have benefited from the standards-based reform movement in education with one notable exception: the absence of rigorous standards rooted and grounded in our Catholic tradition,” Fr. Belmonte continues. “Implementation of the Catholic Curriculum Standards will provide a renewed sense of mission for our Catholic schools operating within the increasingly secularized world of education today.”

Today, at least 28 diocesan school systems and many other Catholic schools across the United States—serving more than 270,000 students—use the Catholic Curriculum Standards to replace or supplement their existing diocesan standards.

Common Core concerns 

Over the last decade, many public and Catholic schools across the country have adopted the Common Core State Standards. But the Common Core is a secular program designed with utilitarian goals—to lift up under-achieving public school students for success in college and careers. Aside from disagreements about its embrace of controversial methods and educational theories, the Common Core was never intended for the fullness of human flourishing that the Church demands of Catholic education.

Giving voice to the concerns of many Catholic families, the Newman Society’s “Catholic Is Our Core” program has informed Catholic educators about shortcomings of the Common Core. It began with a campaign by mail, email, social media and web outreach to educate Catholic families, leaders and educators and to urge Catholic schools to reject or at least radically adapt the Common Core standards to the mission of Catholic education. Our analyses have been featured in national Catholic publications and on Catholic radio and television.

In 2013, consistent with many of the Newman Society’s concerns, a cadre of Catholic college professors (132 altogether) signed a joint letter stating they were “convinced that Common Core is so deeply flawed that it should not be adopted by Catholic schools” and that those who had adopted it “should seek an orderly withdrawal.” The following year, the education office of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement warning that the Common Core standards alone are insufficient for Catholic schools.

Today it is clear that the Common Core has failed to produce the promised improvements in both public and Catholic schools, and states and dioceses are pulling back from the misguided standards. What now should replace them? The Common Core experience, though messy, helped spark widespread interest among Catholic bishops, educators and families for something better. It is toward that goal that the Newman Society’s staff turned, striving for a uniquely Catholic set of standards.

Providing a solution 

In 2015, the Newman Society resolved to answer a question posed by several bishops and diocesan superintendents: “If Catholic education is distinct from secular education, then where are the standards for Catholic educators?”

Our response is the Catholic Curriculum Standards, rooted firmly in the Church’s teaching on Catholic education and her long tradition of liberal arts formation in truth, goodness and beauty.

“The first time I read them, I thought this isn’t the ‘Catholic Common Core.’ This is the why and the how, and gives the beauty to why we teach math, why we inquire in science. You wouldn’t just slap these standards on top of Common Core,” said Annable.

The standards specifically cover the core subjects of English, history, scientific topics and mathematics, but Annable says her diocese was able to apply the standards to elective courses as well, which she says was a “true gift.”

Developing the Catholic Curriculum Standards was a labor of love. The Newman Society staff spent two years analyzing Church documents to identify key elements the Church expects to find in all Catholic schools. Those were distilled into the Newman Society’s Principles of Catholic Identity in Education, which are similar to Archbishop Michael Miller’s “essential marks of Catholic schools,” but capturing more of the language and balance of Vatican documents.

For the standards project, the Newman Society’s Dr. Dan Guernsey and Dr. Denise Donohue studied these Principles, Church documents, scholarly works related to Catholic education and the Catholic intellectual tradition, and books articulating the nature of liberal arts and classical education. They also met with more than a dozen professors from faithful Catholic colleges to consider what knowledge and formation one should expect from a Catholic school graduate.

A Catholic foundation 

The Catholic Curriculum Standards include “dispositional” standards for each academic discipline, along with expected “content” or “intellectual” standards.

As Guernsey and Donohue were reviewing Church documents for curricular application, they noticed much discussion about the formation of dispositions within students. That topic was much more prominent than concerns about course content. For example:

The Catholic school aims at forming in the Christian those particular virtues which will enable him to live a new life in Christ and help him to play faithfully his part in building up the Kingdom of God. (The Catholic School, 1977, 36)

Creating the dispositional standards has proven beneficial for Catholic schools needing to address the National Standards and Benchmarks for Effective Catholic Elementary and Secondary Schools (NSBECS) for accreditation purposes. Schools using the Catholic Curriculum Standards, along with a solid virtue program, are able to address numerous benchmarks required for accreditation.

For the mathematics standards, the Catholic perspective is primarily dispositional. The Catholic Curriculum Standards expect students to identify truth and falsehood in relationships and to acquire the mental habits of “precise, determined, careful and accurate questioning, inquiry and reasoning.”

Examples of English literature standards include, “Explain how Christian and Western symbols and symbolism communicate the battle between good and evil and make reality visible” and “Demonstrate how literature is used to develop a religious, moral and social sense.” The English standards especially earned high praise from Sandra Stotsky, Ed.D., who is a national consultant in standards development and author of the highly regarded Massachusetts Academic Standards. She proved very helpful to the Newman Society’s work as well.

“The K-12 standards and suggested readings in Appendix C for the reading/literature curriculum in Catholic schools reflect more than the uniqueness of their intellectual tradition,” Stotsky said. “They also provide the academic rigor missing in most public-school English language arts curricula.”

Inspiring and crucial 

The impact of the Catholic Curriculum Standards over the past five years has been exciting.

“The Catholic Curriculum Standards are EXACTLY what I have been wanting—specific in the areas of faith formation and the pursuit of goodness, truth and beauty, but broad enough to give the teachers latitude in their instructional methods,” said Lynette Schmitz, the principal of St. John Paul II Preparatory School, a Catholic classical hybrid school in St. Louis, Mo.

Derek Tremblay, headmaster of Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, N.H, agrees. “I thoroughly love the Standards that The Cardinal Newman Society has put out and have yet to find anything comparable.”

Another Catholic school principal, Janice Martinez, principal of Holy Child Catholic School in Tijeras, N.M., said: “I find the standards of education you have recently publicized to be inspiring. I believe the work you do is crucial and support your mission.”

Despite the great success of the Catholic Curriculum Standards, there’s much more work to be done. Standards help establish a school’s priorities and promote the right outcomes of truly faithful Catholic education. But curriculum standards alone can never determine what happens in the classroom.

We hope that the Catholic Curriculum Standards will promote greater integration of the faith in every academic discipline, leading eventually to new and improved textbooks, lesson plans, teacher training and school evaluation.

The complete Catholic Curriculum Standards are available to educators at no cost on the Newman Society’s website, together with helpful appendices and resources to support implementing the standards. Feel free to reach out to The Cardinal Newman Society if you are interested in knowing more about the standards and how they might be used in your diocese, school or homeschool program.

On Racism and Cancel Culture

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Amid high racial, social and political tensions in America today, Catholic parents and educators are eager to teach students about race, gender, justice and human dignity. That’s a good thing.

But adopting divisive and ideologically driven innovations like “critical race theory,” “woke-ism,” “gender ideology” and the “cancel culture” is not the way of faithful Catholic education.

The Newman Society has studied these topics and published new guidance at our website to hep educators confront sins of racism, unjust discrimination and bullying while rejecting dangerous ideologies. Instead of adopting new and popular approaches to difficult topics, Catholic educators should rely on faithfully Catholic materials including the clear instruction in Vatican documents, U.S. bishops’ pastoral letters and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Critical race theory 

“Critical race theory (CRT) asserts that America’s legal framework is inherently racist and that race itself, instead of being biologically grounded and natural, is a socially constructed concept that is used by white people to further their economic and political interests at the expense of people of color,” explains Dr. Denise Donohue, the Newman Society’s vice president for educator resources, in her recent Catholic World Report article that summarizes a more substantial backgrounder on critical race theory published at the Newman Society website.

CRT rests on a view of society as oppressors and oppressed, with emphasis on imbalances of power instead of the inherent dignity of each individual and the complexities of a pluralistic society. Donohue’s backgrounder explains the development of CRT from “critical theory” and its foundation in Marxism, which the Church has rejected as a dangerous political ideology. CRT’s introduction in the classroom therefore manipulates education for political ends. The theory calls for dismantling and rebuilding American legal and social structures, and its critique of Western society sometimes charges the Church and Christian notions of God, marriage and gender as inherently racist.

“Students taught with critical race theory materials can become racists in the literal sense of the word: they may treat others (the perceived oppressor race) unfairly because of skin color or background,” Donohue warns. “Division into categories of good and bad based on skin color is a reversal of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and antithetical to a Catholic understanding of human dignity and equality.”

Cancel culture

Another concern is the “cancel culture,” which hastily labels even the most rational and sympathetic commentary on topics like gender and race as either “bigoted” or “leftist,” often with severe social consequences. In an increasingly secular society, Catholics are especially at risk of unfair judgment—even among fellow Catholics.

Catholic education must not fall into this trap.

“Authentic Catholic education does not cancel culture; it elevates, redeems and transmits culture,” writes senior fellow Dr. Dan Guernsey at The Catholic Thing. “It seeks out and celebrates truth, beauty and goodness, wherever they are found—and if they are missing, Catholic education points that out as well.”

Guernsey’s helpful list of things that Catholic educators can do to counter ideology and division (see the full list at TheCatholicThing.org) include:

  • Relate discussions to a Catholic understanding of the human person through a clear and convincing Christian anthropology, which affirms our creation by God as male or female and the union of our bodies and spirits, as well as our common humanity and destiny.
  • Teach students to analyze the morality of human acts (including separating the sin and the sinner), properly attribute degrees of culpability based on individual awareness and freedom, ascribe sin (in the proper sense) to individuals not groups, and affirm the possibility of repentance and forgiveness.
  • Help students discover the religious dimension in human history and compare the actions of peoples according to Catholic morality and virtues, but also according to the level of development of a person or culture and the impact of surrounding conditions, knowledge, and understanding of the time.

Bottom line: Catholic educators already teach authentic Catholic moral and social doctrine and Christian charity. By confidently teaching and witnessing to the Gospel, Catholic educators provide an outstanding education and formation for their students under every circumstance.

Reviving the Lost Art of Reading in Catholic Homes

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My family has always had an assortment of books around the house for our children, and now for our grandchildren as well. Fond memories recur when I hear the grandchildren squeal with delight, as they explore the vast new worlds opening before them.

Inspired by his fourth-grade cousin, the rising first-grader reads anything within reach, especially “chapter books” and stories of saints. His parents patiently clarify the words that are not yet within his vocabulary.

His younger sister is exuberant when she realizes she can form letters into words, and words into sentences. Curious George is one of her bedtime favorites.

The vast new world, contained between the covers of a book, stimulates the imagination of these young readers as they are drawn more deeply to seek the truth, beauty, and goodness of the world in which they live.

Unfortunately, this joy of reading is absent from many homes today. Jean Twenge, an academic psychologist who studies the iPhone generation (iGens), recently told the Wall Street Journal that, “The percentage of high-school students who read books or other long-form content every day has dropped from 60 percent to 15 percent since the 1980s.” This is attributed to “short attention spans,” given today’s emphasis on social media and general internet surfing.

Continue reading at The Catholic World Report…

U.S. Capitol

60 Pro-Abortion Congressmen Flunk Catholicism 101

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When 60 members of the House of Representatives — all of them baptized Catholics — issued their ultimatum last week demanding access to the Eucharist despite their pro-abortion politics, it became apparent how little they know about the Catholic faith and Christ’s invitation to communion with him.

The signers clearly hope to turn the bishops’ appeal for “Eucharistic coherency” into a partisan issue, even though it impacts Catholics of every political stripe. But regardless of which party these politicians belong to, what most concerns me is the fact that prominent Catholics displayed such ignorance of the Church’s fundamental teaching and practice concerning the Eucharist. Which made me wonder: how many attended Catholic schools and colleges?

In the past, I have lamented the number of pro-abortion members of Congress who graduated from Catholic colleges, mostly Jesuit institutions. Often they are celebrated as successful alumni, despite their flagrant opposition to the Church’s reverence for the sanctity of all human life.

The bewildering fact is that half of the 60 who signed last week’s letter received a Catholic education. Of those 30 representatives, at least 15 attended Catholic high schools and 22 attended Catholic colleges, 16 of them Jesuit institutions.

What does this say about Catholic education in recent decades? Perhaps these politicians received a good education and later turned away from the Faith — that certainly is possible. But given the abundance of evidence of the poor catechesis of Catholics, widespread dissent on abortion and contraception, and weak Catholic identity in many schools and colleges over the last five decades, the Church likely bears some responsibility for failing to properly form these men and women as saints instead of obstinate sinners.

On the other hand, the fact that 31 never had a Catholic high school or college education (I was unable to find much information about their elementary schools) also raises serious questions about the lack of adequate formation for most baptized Catholics. The consequences are clear: too many people claim to be Catholic but lack respect for the Eucharist and are unashamed of their support for abortion, same-sex marriage and other obvious moral evils. They should be ashamed — and so should we — for not doing everything possible to ensure a faithful Catholic education for every Catholic child.

We must do better. And if we do, the impact on society and the Church will be something wonderful to behold.

 

A version of this article by Patrick Reilly, president and founder of The Cardinal Newman Society, first appeared at the National Catholic Register.

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

CNS Joins Amicus Brief Upholding Title IX Religious Exemption – Maxon v Fuller Theological Seminary, 9th Circuit

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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.

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 education

Procedure and Checklist for the Evaluation and Use of Secular Materials and Programs in Catholic Education

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Click here for PDF

Instruction in Catholic education should not be driven by any particular text or program, but rather by rich and comprehensive standards that are informed by Catholic priorities. Resources such as the Catholic Curriculum Standards and Standards for Christian Anthropology can assist in this effort.

With proper standards in place, the first goal should be to seek out excellent Catholic programs and materials to aid in instruction. Should these not exist, or if available Catholic programs and materials are found insufficient, secular programs might be considered but should be carefully evaluated for their congruence with the mission of Catholic education. The following checklist, derived from The Cardinal Newman Society’s Policy Standards on Secular Academic Materials and Programs in Catholic Education, may be helpful.

Keep in mind that all secular programs, no matter how effective, will need to be supplemented with materials that present a Catholic worldview and understanding of the subject at hand.

Procedure for Considering the Use of Secular Materials and Programs

  1. Identify and validate (especially in terms of mission impact) the motivation behind the change.
  2. Research best practices in Catholic education and available means to address program needs.
  3. Seek out faithfully Catholic programs and materials for initial review, and only if they are insufficient or non-existent, explore other types of programs.

Checklist for Evaluating the Use of Secular Materials and Programs

Determine whether the program or material:
 
Yes / No
advances positions contrary to Church teaching, causes scandal, or could be a source of confusion about Catholic teaching.
Yes / No      
promotes or encourages atheism, agnosticism, scientific materialism, or a false ideology about the human person.
Yes / No
promotes or encourages relativism or denies the existence of transcendent truth, which is knowable by reason and revelation.
Yes / No
obstructs the goal of uniting faith and reason, synthesizing faith with life and culture, and developing a Catholic worldview or a Catholic understanding of the human person.
Yes / No
is promoted or written by a person or group who might bring scandal to the Catholic institution through formal or material cooperation.
Yes / No
places excessive demands on testing, teacher formation, or another process that crowds out priorities of Catholic education (such as daily theology classes) and a strong Catholic culture.
Yes / No
encourages political and social activism that is not supported by Catholic principles or social teaching, such as subsidiarity or the universal destination of humanity in God, or suggests the permissibility to do evil or commit an injustice so that a perceived good may result.
Yes / No
suggests that man is capable of solving all his problems or attaining heaven through natural virtues and effort, without God’s grace, mercy, and salvation.
 
For any Yes response:
  • If the materials explicitly and positively raise challenges in this area, reject the program.
  • If the materials only tangentially or in a minor way raise challenges in this area, heavily supplement with Catholic instruction and provide teacher training.
  • If the materials subtly and in a minor way raise challenges to a Catholic understanding, either through omission or unevaluated assumptions, supplement with Catholic instruction or eliminate the particular area of concern.
If all responses are “No,” the program is a possibly valid resource. Regardless, it still should be supplemented with instruction to provide for a Catholic understanding of the subject at hand.