Administrator Results

i_1. The school’s commitment to the divine mission of Catholic education is evident in its mission statement, governing documents, policies, and publications.

Church Quote:

It is therefore as important to make no mistake in education, as it is to make no mistake in the pursuit of the last end, with which the whole work of education is intimately and necessarily connected. In fact, since education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created, it is clear that there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man’s last end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is “the way, the truth, and the life,” there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education.

From this we see the supreme importance of Christian education, not merely for each individual, but for families and for the whole of human society, whose perfection comes from the perfection of the elements that compose it. From these same principles, the excellence, we may well call it the unsurpassed excellence, of the work of Christian education becomes manifest and clear; for after all it aims at securing the Supreme Good, that is, God, for the souls of those who are being educated, and the maximum of well-being possible here below for human society. And this it does as efficaciously as man is capable of doing it, namely by cooperating with God in the perfecting of individuals and of society, in as much as education makes upon the soul the first, the most powerful and lasting impression for life according to the well-known saying of the Wise Man, “A young man according to his way, even when he is old, he will not depart from it.” With good reason therefore did St. John Chrysostom say, “What greater work is there than training the mind and forming the habits of the young?” Divini Illius Magistri, 1929, #7-8.

Additional Resources

See also the Cardinal Newman Society’s document:

Policy Standards on Mission, Philosophy, and Faith Statements;

Our Catholic Mission, Winter 2023

i_2. The school ensures employees and volunteers have the necessary knowledge, skills, dispositions and ongoing training to fulfill the school’s divine mission.

Church Quote:

Everyone has the obligation to recognize, respect and bear witness to the Catholic identity of the school, officially set out in the educational project. This applies to the teaching staff, the non-teaching personnel and the pupils and their families. At the time of enrolment, both the parents and the student must be made aware of the Catholic school’s educational project.The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue (2022) #39

Additional Resources

See also the Cardinal Newman Society webinar series:

Recent Key Court Rulings Impacting Catholic Education;

Current Threats to Religious Freedom and Opportunities for Religious Education;

Defending Against New Threats to Catholic Identity

 All Employees Matter in the Mission of Catholic Education (Issue Bulletin, 2020). 

i_3. The school evaluates programs and personnel to ensure institutional commitment to its divine mission.

Church Quote:

Catholic education is an expression of the mission entrusted by Jesus to the Church He founded. Through education, the Church seeks to prepare its members to proclaim the Good News and to translate this proclamation into action. Since the Christian vocation is a call to transform oneself and society with God’s help, the educational efforts of the Church must encompass the twin purposes of personal sanctification and the social reform in light of Christian values. To Teach as Jesus Did, 1972, #7.

Additional Resources

See also:

The Catholic School, 1977, #14;

The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, 2022, 26, 29, 78;

The Call to Teach: Expectations for the Catholic Educator in Magisterial Teaching;

The Call to Lead: Educational Leadership According to Church Documents.

i_4. The school ensures each member of the governing body is informed of and committed to the responsibility of respecting, promoting, strengthening, and defending the Catholic identity and Catholic mission of the school.

i_5. The school ensures each member of the governing body is a practicing Catholic.

i_6. The school ensures that the educational philosophy is in harmony with the Church’s teaching on the divine mission of Catholic education.

ii_1. The school ensures that employees and volunteers have the necessary knowledge skills, dispositions, and ongoing training to model and teach Christian communion.

Church Quote:

The preparation and ongoing formation of new administrators and teachers is vital if our schools are to remain truly Catholic in all aspects of school life. Catholic school personnel should be grounded in a faith-based Catholic culture, have strong bonds to Christ and the Church, and be witnesses to the faith in both their words and actions. The formation of personnel will allow the Gospel message and the living presence of Jesus to permeate the entire life of the school community and thus be faithful to the school’s evangelizing mission. Renewing Our Commitment to Catholic Elementary & Secondary Schools in the Third Millennium, 2005, excerpts.

Additional Resources

See also:

The Catholic School, 1977, #14;

The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, 2022, 26, 29, 78;

The Call to Teach: Expectations for the Catholic Educator in Magisterial Teaching.

ii_2. School leaders communicate with and support the needs of local Catholic pastors, priests, and religious.

ii_3. The school ensures that ALL operations are consistent with the Code of Canon Law, Catechism of the Catholic Church, and other magisterial teachings of the Church.

ii_4. The school supports and serves the local community.

Church Quote:

By giving witness of communion, the Catholic educational community is able to educate for communion, which, as a gift that comes from above, animates the project of formation for living together in harmony and being welcoming. Not only does it cultivate in the students the cultural values that derive from the Christian vision of reality, but it also involves each one of them in the life of the community, where values are mediated by authentic interpersonal relationships among the various members that form it, and by the individual and community acceptance of them. In this way, the life of communion of the educational community assumes the value of an educational principle, of a paradigm that directs its formational action as a service for the achievement of a culture of communion. Educating Together in Catholic Schools: A Shared Mission Between Consecrated Persons and the Lay Faithful, 2007, #39.

Additional Resources

See also The Cardinal Newman Society’s Analysis of Secular Character Development Programs and Materials (Newman Society Review, 2020)

ii_5. The school assists Catholic and non-Catholic parents to integrate into the Catholic community and, if appropriate, formally transition into the Catholic Church.

ii_6. The school seeks to make Catholic education accessible to large or economically disadvantaged families.

ii_7. The school clearly communicates to all employees and volunteers the expectation to respect, promote, strengthen, and protect the Catholic identity of the school

ii_8. The school, in the rare instance when only a non-Catholic is available to fill a teaching position, ensures that the teacher is aware, supportive, and respectful of the school’s Catholic mission and identity.

ii_9. The school ensures that only Catholic faculty are assigned to teaching positions where formal catechesis occurs.

iii_1. The school ensures that members of the community (board, administration, faculty, staff, volunteers, students, and parents) are committed to providing opportunities for living encounters with the Father, Son and Spirit.

Church Quote:

Education is integral to the mission of the Church to proclaim the Good News. First and foremost every Catholic educational institution is a place to encounter the living God who in Jesus Christ reveals his transforming love and truth (cf. Spe Salvi, 4). This relationship elicits a desire to grow in the knowledge and understanding of Christ and his teaching. In this way those who meet him are drawn by the very power of the Gospel to lead a new life characterized by all that is beautiful, good, and true; a life of Christian witness nurtured and strengthened within the community of our Lord’s disciples, the Church. Pope Benedict, Meeting with Catholic Educators, Washington, DC, 2008.

iii_2. The school ensures that employees and volunteers have the necessary knowledge, skills, dispositions, and ongoing training to provide opportunities for living encounters with the Father, Son and Spirit.

Church Quote:

They [teachers] will, therefore, help students to discover the real value of the Sacraments: they accompany the believer on his or her journey through life. This journey takes place within the Church, and therefore becomes more comprehensible as students grow in an understanding of what it means to be a member of the Church. The essential point for students to understand is that Jesus Christ is always truly present in the Sacraments which he has instituted, and his presence makes them efficacious means of grace. The moment of closest encounter with the Lord Jesus occurs in the Eucharist, which is both Sacrifice and Sacrament. In the Eucharist, two supreme acts of love are united: Our Lord renews his sacrifice of salvation for us, and he truly gives himself to us. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #78.

iii_3. The school evaluates programs and personnel to ensure opportunities to encounter the living God in prayer, scripture, and the Sacraments.

Church Quote:

In addition, they will take great care to promote close and constant collaboration with the parents of these pupils. An integration of school and home is an essential condition for the birth and development of all of the potential which these children manifest in one or the other of these two situations – including their openness to religion with all that this implies. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #40.

iii_4. The faculty and staff reflect together on the experience of students in these encounters of prayer, scripture, and the sacrament to ensure that they are personal and meaningful.

iii_5. The school supports parents, students, faculty, and parishes in sacramental preparation for Baptism, First Reconciliation, first Holy Communion, and Confirmation.

iii_6. The school ensures ample opportunities for retreats that are spiritually serious and rich, and effective in deepening a relationship with God.

iii_7. The school encourages participation by faculty and staff in prayer, retreats, liturgies, and the sacraments.

iii_8. The school ensures employees and volunteers are witnesses to Gospel values. 1

iii_9. The school provides professional development for employees to aid in their spiritual formation. 1

Church Quote:

The life of faith is expressed in acts of religion. The teacher will assist students to open their hearts in confidence to Father, Son, and Holy Spirit through personal and liturgical prayer. The latter is not just another way of praying; it is the official prayer of the Church, which makes the mystery of Christ present in our lives—especially through the Eucharist, Sacrifice and Sacrament, and through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #83.

Additional Resources

At the personal level, the Lord waits for us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is not just a devotional practice, but rather a personal encounter with him, through the mediation of his minister. After this celebration we can resume our journey with renewed strength and joy. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #93

iii_10. The school provides opportunities for parents to encounter Christ through prayer, liturgies, sacramentals and the Sacraments.

Church Quote:

No Catholic school can adequately fulfill its educational role on its own. It must continually be fed and stimulated by its Source of life, the Saving Word of Christ as it is expressed in Sacred Scripture, in Tradition, especially liturgical and sacramental tradition, and in the lives of people, past and present, who bear witness to that Word. The Catholic School, 1977, #54.

Additional Resources

At the personal level, the Lord waits for us in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is not just a devotional practice, but rather a personal encounter with him, through the mediation of his minister. After this celebration we can resume our journey with renewed strength and joy. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #93

iii_11. The school informs families about the use of sacramentals to provide an understanding of their purpose in faith and devotion.

iii_12. The school makes its best effort to create a respectful and beautiful space for the celebration of the liturgy.

Church Quote:

An understanding of the sacramental journey has profound educational implications. Students become aware that being a member of the Church is something dynamic, responding to every person’s need to continue growing all through life. When we meet the Lord in the Sacraments, we are never left unchanged. Through the Spirit, he causes us to grow in the Church, offering us “grace upon grace”; the only thing he asks is our cooperation. The educational consequences of this touch on our relationship with God, our witness as a Christian, and our choice of a personal vocation. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #79.

iv_1. The school ensures that members of the community (board, administration faculty, staff, volunteers, students, and parents) are committed to the integral formation of students.

Church Quote:

The integral formation of the human person, which is the purpose of education, includes the development of all the human faculties of the students, together with preparation for professional life, formation of ethical and social awareness, becoming aware of the transcendental, and religious education. Every school, and every educator in the school, ought to be striving “to form strong and responsible individuals, who are capable of making free and correct choices”, thus preparing young people “to open themselves more and more to reality, and to form in themselves a clear idea of the meaning of life.” Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith, 1982, #17.

Additional Resources

See also The Cardinal Newman Society’s:

All Employees Matter in the Mission of Catholic Education;

Faith and Morals Language in Catholic School Teacher Employment Documents: Best Practices Brief;

Morality Language in Catholic School Teacher Employment Documents: Exemplar Statements, Language, and Contract Samples.

iv_2. The school ensures that employees and volunteers have the necessary knowledge, skills, dispositions and ongoing training for the integral formation of students.

Church Quote:

Recent Church teaching has added an essential note: “The basic principle which must guide us in our commitment to this sensitive area of pastoral activity is that religious instruction and catechesis are at the same time distinct and complementary. A school has as its purpose the students’ integral formation. Religious instruction, therefore, should be integrated into the objectives and criteria which characterize a modern school.” School directors should keep this directive of the Magisterium in mind, and they should respect the distinctive characteristics of religious instruction. It should have a place in the weekly order alongside the other classes, for example; it should have its own syllabus, approved by those in authority; it should seek appropriate interdisciplinary links with other course material so that there is a coordination between human learning and religious awareness. Like other course work, it should promote culture, and it should make use of the best educational methods available to schools today. In some countries, the results of examinations in religious knowledge are included within the overall measure of student progress. Finally, religious instruction in the school needs to be coordinated with the catechesis offered in parishes, in the family, and in youth associations. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #70.

Additional Resources

See also:

‘Male and Female He Created Them’: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education, 2019, 47-50;

The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, 2022, 23-26, 29, 32, 38-40, 45-51.

iv_3. The school forms in students the Christian obligation to live lives of love and service, seek justice, and minister to the poor, marginalized, and outcast.

iv_4. The school acknowledges and encourages virtuous behavior throughout the school community.

iv_5. The school is committed to the integration of the Catholic intellectual tradition throughout its academic program.

iv_6. The school’s educational, standards, and pedagogy embrace knowledge for its own sake and move beyond an accumulation of knowledge for utilitarian ends.

iv_7. The school provides for learning opportunities that develop wonder, reflection, critical thinking, and moral decision-making.

iv_8. The school assists students to integrate faith and life.

iv_9. The school provides for interdisciplinary instruction to expose underlying relationships between subject matters.

iv_10. The school promoted dialogue between faith and reason.

iv_11. The school fosters in students a love for truth and a desire for knowledge about God and His creation.

Church Quote:

The special character of the Catholic school, the underlying reason for it, the reason why Catholic parents should prefer it, is precisely the quality of the religious instruction integrated into the education of the pupils. While Catholic establishments should respect freedom of conscience, that is to say, avoid burdening consciences from without by exerting physical or moral pressure, especially in the case of the religious activity of adolescents, they still have a grave duty to offer a religious training suited to the often widely varying religious situations of the pupils. They also have a duty to make them understand that, although God’s call to serve Him in spirit and truth, in accordance with the Commandments of God and the precepts of the Church, does not apply constraint, it is nevertheless binding in conscience. Catechesi Tradendae, 1979, #69.

Additional Resources

Use parts of the Directory for Catechesis, 2020 and the National Directory for Catechesis, 2005. See also Analysis of Secular Character Development Programs and Materials.

iv_12 . The school introduces students to the transcendentals of truth, beauty, and goodness.

iv_13. The school teaches students to confront materialism and relativism.

iv_14. The school carefully vets and approves only clubs, co-curricular, and extracurricular activities that are faithful to the Church’s teaching and allow for the intellectual, physical, and spiritual formation of students.

iv_15. The school’s athletic program contributes to the spiritual development of students and allows them to grow in Christian virtue.

iv_16. The visual and performing arts foster the integral formation of students and aid in the development of Christian virtue.

Church Quote:

From the nature of the Catholic school also stems one of the most significant elements of its educational project: the synthesis between culture and faith. Indeed, knowledge set in the context of faith becomes wisdom and life vision. The endeavor to interweave reason and faith, which has become the heart of individual subjects, makes for unity, articulation, and coordination, bringing forth within what is learnt in school a Christian vision of the world, of life, of culture, and of history. In the Catholic school’s educational project there is no separation between time for learning and time for formation, between acquiring notions and growing in wisdom. The various school subjects do not present only knowledge to be attained, but also values to be acquired and truths to be discovered. All of which demands an atmosphere characterized by the search for truth, in which competent, convinced and coherent educators, teachers of learning and of life, may be a reflection, albeit imperfect but still vivid, of the one Teacher. In this perspective, in the Christian educational project all subjects collaborate, each with its own specific content, to the formation of mature personalities. The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third Millennium, 1997, #14.

Additional Resources

See also The Cardinal Newman Society’s:

Catholic Curriculum Standards;

Educating to Truth, Beauty and Goodness;

Webinar on implementing the Catholic Curriculum Standards;

Webinar on how truth, beauty and goodness are incorporated in Catholic Curriculum Standards;

Disconnect between common core’s literary approach and Catholic education’s pursuit of truth.

iv_17. The school creates opportunities for outreach to the poor, marginalized, and outcast.

iv_18. All field trips enhance the intellectual, spiritual, or physical formation of students.

iv_19. School dances and music selections foster the integral formation of students and aid in the development of Christian virtue and chastity.1

v_1. The school ensures that employees and volunteers have the necessary knowledge, skills, dispositions, and ongoing training to impart a Christian understanding of the world.

Church Quote:

Some of the conditions for creating a positive and supportive climate are the following: that everyone agree with the educational goals and cooperate in achieving them; that interpersonal relationships be based on love and Christian freedom; that each individual, in daily life, be a witness to Gospel values; that every student be challenged to strive for the highest possible level of formation, both human and Christian. In addition, the climate must be one in which families are welcomed, the local Church is an active participant, and civil society—local, national, and international—is included. If all share a common faith, this can be an added advantage. The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 1988, #103.

Additional Resources

See Dan Guernsey’s article in Homiletic & Pastoral Review titled, “Serving LGBT Students in Catholic Schools.”

v_2. The school evaluates programs and personnel to ensure they impart a Christian understanding of the world.

Church Quote:

Recruit teachers who are practicing Catholics, who can understand and accept the teachings of the Catholic Church and the moral demands of the gospel, and who can contribute to the achievement of the school’s Catholic identity and apostolic goals…As a catechetical leader in the Catholic school, the principal is called to provide opportunities for ongoing catechesis for faculty members…The distinctive Catholic identity and mission of the Catholic school also depend on the efforts and example of the whole faculty. National Directory for Catechesis, 2006, 231, 233.

Additional Resources

See The Cardinal Newman Society’s:

Key Points on Supreme Court’s Espinoza Ruling on Public Benefits for Catholic Education;

Key Points on Supreme Court’s Our Lady of Guadalupe Ruling on Ministerial Exception;

Key Points on Supreme Court’s Bostock Ruling on Sex Discrimination;

New Threats to Religious Freedom Under Biden Administration, February 19, 2021;

Protecting your Right to Educate: How Catholic Education Can Defend Against Emerging Legal Threats;

Our Catholic Mission, Spring, 2021.