Author Archive for: Patrick Reilly
Entries by Patrick Reilly
Putting an End to Catholic Commencement Controversies
Spring is here, with pomp and circumstance. It is also the season of controversies over the choice of commencement speakers and honorary degree recipients at America’s Catholic colleges. Will the annual conflicts ever end? Perhaps there is a way. And it would be none too soon. More than a decade […]
After Crazy 2020, Students Seek No-Nonsense Catholic Colleges
During uncertain and troubling times, what’s a Catholic high school senior to think about attending college? Christ promised, “I am with you always, until the end of the age.” For young people across America, the year 2020 was tumultuous and often difficult, including the COVID-19 pandemic, the election, racial tensions […]
The Biden Administration Poses New Threats to Catholic Education
In just the first months of the Biden administration, Catholic educators have been confronted by serious threats to their freedom to teach and witness to the Catholic faith. We knew the storm was coming. Over the last four years, schools and colleges enjoyed a brief respite before the anticipated return […]
Catholic Education Faces Serious Threats in 2021
Editor’s Note: The article below is included in the forthcoming spring 2021 edition of the Newman Society’s Our Catholic Mission magazine. A version of this piece was published at Crisis Magazine. In just the first months of the Biden administration, Catholic educators have been confronted by serious threats to their […]
New Threats to Religious Freedom Under Biden Administration
The Cardinal Newman Society hosted a webinar on February 17, 2021, for diocesan and Catholic education leaders, in which Eric Kniffen, legal counsel to the Newman Society and a former attorney for the Becket Fund and the U.S. Department of Justice, assessed early and proposed actions of the Biden administration […]
Pro-Life Colleges Won’t Be Silenced
What an inspiration! Several Catholic colleges, undeterred by their inability to attend this year’s physical March for Life in Washington, D.C., have found new and exciting ways of witnessing to the gift of all human life. Every year, huge numbers of students at faithful Catholic colleges make heroic efforts to […]
Father McTeigue Wants You to Learn Philosophy
Socrates had important answers to the big questions in life. But he was especially good at asking questions, helping his students use their own reason to discover answers that were available to them all along. I have had a similar experience whenever I am a guest on Jesuit Father Robert […]
College Students Organize Nationwide Marian Consecration
It only takes a spark to start a fire. That’s exactly what a passionate group of students at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida, are doing again this year. For the third time, students who are a part of the Mary and Mercy Center, which is adjacent to campus, […]
Catholic Colleges Should Fight Pornography
To combat pornography, Catholics should take the lead in the home and in our institutions. It should be a high priority for Catholic colleges. Recent controversy over the Netflix movie “Cuties,” now the target of a Texas indictment for “lewd visual material,” helped bring renewed attention to the devastating impact of pornography. […]