Patrick Reilly’s Register Column

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 […]

School of Athens

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 […]

Blessed Mother

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. […]

John Henry Newman

John Henry Newman, a Saint for Students

Here is an important saint for our times — and with a special love for students! Any student or parent seeking intercession would do well to pray to St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), who was canonized last year and is celebrated on his feast day, Oct. 9. Newman has had […]

us supreme court

Supreme Court Rulings Already Impacting Catholic Schools

This month, even before the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the Court’s importance to Catholics was made apparent — and Catholic educators especially should take notice. The Supreme Court’s summer rulings are now being tested in Indianapolis, where a teacher who was rightly dismissed from Cathedral […]

Colleges Keep It Catholic Amid the Epidemic

While avoidance of COVID-19 has forced many schools and colleges to shift to online classes this fall, a few faithful Catholic colleges are attempting in-person education — and they are making extraordinary efforts to preserve the spiritual life on campus. Impressively, the fast-growing Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas, doubled the […]

homeschool

Take a New Look at Catholic Education

After a summer of disappointment — closed camps, museums, movie theaters, even many pools, beaches and restaurants due to COVID concerns — the decision of many public and private schools to go entirely online is a crushing blow to parents. Now I see that some localities are doing everything possible […]

St. Peters Square

One Year Later, No Resolution on Brebeuf Scandal

Catholic schools across the nation are striving to keep their doors open, but Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis is not one of them… or is it? There’s no question whether Brebeuf will open; students are scheduled to start in-person classes on Aug. 13. What’s unresolved is whether the school […]

Supreme Court Defers to Canon Law in Catholic School Decision

There is an admirable concession to Catholic Church authority in the Supreme Court’s July 8 ruling on the “ministerial exception” for Catholic schools. Justice Samuel Alito, in his majority opinion for Our Lady of Guadalupe School v. Agnes Morrissey-Berru, defers to the authority of the Catechism and the Church’s canon law with regard to Catholic […]

Maria Schmidt

Extraordinary Teens Love the Eucharist, Catholic Education

Wow! Thank God for hopeful signs, even in the darkest hours. I just read the most extraordinary, heart-warming testimonies by teenage Catholics who are in love with Jesus in the Eucharist. They refuse to succumb to secularism, and they are unwilling to attend colleges that fail to embrace his Real […]

Pope Saint John Paul II

Theology of the Body for Schoolchildren

If ever there was a time to teach young people about human nature and our common human dignity, it’s now. They need to know that race, sex and their very lives are willed by God. They need to know that marriage and family are also willed by God, and that […]

doctor

These College Grads Are Saving Lives

Light shines bright in the darkness! One highlight among the COVID doldrums has been the heroism of so many Catholics and others in our nation’s hospitals and doctor’s offices. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). In particular, I often […]

For Catholic Schools, Now’s a Time to Shine

For students and educators, these are difficult times. But in hard times, Catholics shine — and that’s certainly true now for Catholic schools. Across America, most schools have adjusted to the COVID-19 shutdown by shifting to distance learning via webinars and emails. While this may suffice for teaching basic facts […]

Keeping the ‘Catholic’ in Distance Learning

Faithful Catholic schools are far better for Catholics than public schools. But how do they maintain their distinctive advantage when students are forced to stay home? In important ways, Catholic schools are doing just that with the help of students’ parents. And in this time of anxiety and isolation, the […]