Our Catholic Mission

Evangelizing Families Through Catholic School Admissions

Building and protecting a Catholic school’s community—which in itself is essential to the school’s task of forming young people for Christian communion with others and with God—should be a central concern in admissions decisions.

Handling the Tough Cases: Admissions Policies for Nontraditional Families

Dr. Dan Guernsey, education policy editor and senior fellow, explores why some families are not a good fit for Catholic schools, and others require special consideration. He provides guidance on how to treat individual family situations with compassion and courage, for the good of everyone involved.

Crafting Mission-Centered Parent-School Agreements

Strong parent-school agreements can help Catholic families and educators start off on the same page—committed to the integral formation of students for this life and the one to come—while ensuring that parents are well-informed of school policies.

A Pastor Saves His Flock by Catholic Education

“We need to do whatever we can to help parents get their kids out of these corrupt government-run schools,” Father John De Celles tells The Cardinal Newman Society.

Time for an Exodus from Public Schools?

Two expert scholars, Mary Rice Hasson, JD, and Theresa Farnan, PhD, argue that today is a “watershed” moment for Catholics to explore the state of public education. They urge Catholic educators to make available a wide variety of Catholic education options.

Facing Hard Truths About Secular Colleges

Patrick Reilly, president of The Cardinal Newman Society, reveals why the Ivy League institutions—and all secular colleges—aren’t what they’re made out to be. Since the founding of the Newman Society more than 28 years ago, Patrick has been alerting families and education leaders to the problems in secular (and secularized Catholic) higher education.

On Racism and Cancel Culture

Catholic educators can and should be teaching about race and human dignity, but Critical Race Theory is ideological and divisive and not appropriate to Catholic education.

Catholic Curriculum Standards: Faithful to the Core

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

Secular Resources Can Be Dangerous to Catholic Education

“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.”

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. In particular, the Biden administration seems determined to force Catholic schools and colleges to embrace gender ideology or close their doors.

Protecting Your Right to Educate

Undertaking a Mission Audit—and implementing strong Catholic standards like those provided by the Newman Society—will go a long way in helping Catholic schools strengthen their mission and defend against legal threats. Just as a general audit helps an organization understand its financial soundness, a Mission Audit will help a religious organization understand how its religious convictions affect its work and how these convictions may face conflict.

Implementing Policies to Strengthen Catholic Identity

The time is now for Catholic educators to ensure that all policies are in order and all practices consistently uphold a strong Catholic identity. Policies should clearly explain moral expectations for employees and students and show how they are rooted in Catholic teaching.

Getting it Right: Sexuality in Catholic Education

Increasingly, Catholic dioceses, schools and colleges are embroiled in controversy and conflict over sexual matters. To prevent such problems, these situations require pastoral sensitivity and the guidance of clear institutional policies that both uphold and explain the obligations of faithful Catholic education.

Working with Nontraditional Families

Disagreement in the Church regarding nontraditional families—the growing variety of home situations beyond a faithfully Catholic family with a married mother and father—may leave schools more vulnerable to discrimination lawsuits and to vilification by the media, politicians and social activists.

Moral Expectations for Teachers

Moral standards should apply to educators in every subject area, not just religion teachers or theology professors.

Gender in School and College Athletics

“Gender theory is a distortion of the full development of a person and attacks the integrity of the body… It works against a Catholic understanding of athletics and the good of the person and so has no claim on Catholic programing.”