Non-millennials may recall that the Columbus holiday used to be always celebrated on October 12th, the day Columbus landed on San Salvador. They may not realize that genuine, long-standing and well-researched historical accounts show that Columbus was a deeply religious man, and part of his motivation for crossing the ocean was to bring the Gospel…
More than 700 Catholic educators from across the country and overseas will gather online next week to explore, celebrate, and strengthen the growing movement to save Catholic schools through the recovery of the Church’s proven tradition of education. The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education’s 8th National Conference was forced to shift to an online format…
In his weekly column, Archbishop José H. Gomez called for nationwide support to keep Catholic schools open as many Catholic schools throughout the nation face permanent closure because of the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on education funding by the end of this month. The Archbishop…
A renown resource for Catholic educators, The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, announces its conference and retreat line-up for Summer 2020. After sudden lockdowns and being forced to re-invent classroom teaching on a dime, Catholic educators nationwide are ready for a break. Why not take a break that truly reinvigorates your vocation as a teacher,…
CNA—Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield in Illinois issued a pastoral guide last month regarding diocesan policies on gender identity, expounding on existing policy that schools and other diocesan institutions will recognize students and adults by the biological sex with which they were born. In the guide, Paprocki noted the need to approach the issue with…
In the words of the American writer William Arthur Ward, ”The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The wise teacher inspires.” Kenneth Farr, M.A., the new principal at St. David Catholic School in Richmond, CA, as of July 1, inspires. To become principal at age 26, after just five years…
The Pontifical John Paul II Institute issued a statement Monday, defending recent changes at the school. But some students and faculty members say that explanations do not address the full picture of issues at the theological institute. “The academic project of the new Institute, approved by the Congregation for Catholic Education, is designed as a…
International Dateline—Oakcrest School announced its departure from the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference (PVAC) last week, becoming the second school to leave the conference because of the league’s inclusive policy regarding transgender athletes. Mary Ortiz, Oakcrest’s Head of School, wrote a letter to PVAC President Taisto Saloma on June 14 informing him of Oakcrest’s withdrawal from…
CNA—The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case addressing the question of whether states can deny tax credit programs to parents and children who choose religious private schools. “States cannot base laws on hostility to religion. Likewise, no provision of Montana’s constitution can enshrine hostility to religion into state law. We commend the…
Crisis—There have been plenty of examples of our secular culture’s antagonism toward Catholic education: from the Covington School-Nick Sandmann debacle, to activism against the admissions policies of Kansas City’s Catholic schools, and to numerous lawsuits by employees fired from Catholic schools for moral indiscretions. The greatest danger in these situations is not the secularist’s desire…
After nearly 20 years serving as a teacher and then vice principal at the mid-to-lower income, blue-collar school she had attended as a child, Mary Pat Donoghue entered St. Jerome’s door as its new principal in July 2009. The remarkable transformation that took place at St. Jerome’s in Hyattsville, a once-unremarkable school tucked away on…
South Euclid, Ohio, recently passed a new city ordinance that adds religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and gender expression as protected classes under the law. The Lyceum, a Catholic school in South Euclid, has spoken out against this measure from the beginning. Now that the city voted to pass this proposed ordinance, Alliance Defending Freedom…
Thirty-five years ago I admired the neo-Gothic buildings of a Catholic college in Westchester County. But I was surprised to find that the confessional in the beautiful chapel was being used as a broom closet. There had been some misunderstanding about aggiornamento, or bringing the practice of the Faith up to date. That was the College…
Renown Catholic baseball announcer Vin Scully is known as much for his faith and common sense approach to life as for his unique and passionate sports announcing. Now retired and age 91, Scully is best known for his 67 seasons calling games for Major League Baseball’s Los Angeles Dodgers, beginning in 1950 (when the franchise…
Crisis—Anyone who wonders why the Catholic Church is in its present crisis need only read Dr. Scott Bruce’s “Do We Still Need to Believe in Hell?” The Wall Street Journal article (9/15-16/18) recently appeared in its popular weekend review section. It was a rather typical yet brutal appraisal of the notion of Hell. The author…
Mary Pat Donoghue, Director of School Services at the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, has been named as the new Executive Director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). “We are enormously proud and excited that Mary Pat’s experience and commitment to the renewal of Catholic education…
October 2, 2017 It’s a commonplace in education that “a textbook is only as good as the teacher who teaches it.” But according to Michael Van Hecke (pictured above), founder of the Catholic Textbook Project, sometimes a textbook can transform a good teacher into a better teacher—or even into a great teacher. Founded in 2000, the Catholic Textbook…
Vatican City, Sep 19, 2017 — On Tuesday Pope Francis issued a new motu proprio changing the legal status of the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, making it a theological institute charged with studying marriage and the family from a scientific perspective. The motu proprio, titled “Summa Familiae Cura,” meaning “Highest Care…
August 23, 2010 No man was ever better qualified to write such a book as The Life of a University than Cardinal Newman was. And the subject has never been more pressing than it is today. In this classic, Newman poses a number of important questions: What is the purpose of education? What does it mean to be educated? What is the role of a university? What is the relationship between learning and the life of a society? And where does Catholicism fit in?
The issues Newman examined with incomparable insight continue to be relevant today, one hundred and fifty years after it was first published.
October 21, 2009 By Brian Lopez Poverty, Violence, Death; what is a kid to do? Have HOPE! Hope as a word is difficult to understand. It can be defined as many different things depending on the individual. But as a concept, hope can be the most dangerous possession a person can have. Dangerous, in that it can help…
