Classical Catholic Education or Bust

In a heartrending trend we have seen play out all too often in recent years in Catholic schools and parishes across the country, 55 Catholic schools closed in the 2023-24 school year, 71 in 2021-22, and over 200 in 2020-21. This led the Cardinal Newman society to ask, “Can We Be Frank About the Catholic School Crisis?” This is not a new story. Archbishop J. Michael Miller, former secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, traces the numbers in his indispensable little book The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools. They are indeed discouraging.  

In 1930, the population of the United States was 123 million, 20.2 million of whom were Catholic. At that time, there were 2.4 million students in 7,225 Catholic schools. The high tide came in 1965 when, with a national population of around 190 million, there were 5.5 million Catholics enrolled in Catholic schools. It was all downhill from there. By 2024, there was a national population of over 340 million, a Catholic population of 62 million, and only 1.69 million Catholics in 5,905 Catholic schools. The point bears repeating: the national population was approximately 150 million larger in 2024 than in 1965, the Catholic population larger, but the number of Catholic schools and students in Catholic schools vastly smaller.  The point bears repeating: the national population was approximately 150 million larger in 2024 than in 1965, the Catholic population larger, but the number of Catholic schools and students in Catholic schools vastly smaller. Tweet This

These numbers give lie to the standard excuse used when Catholic schools (or parishes for that matter) close: demographics. Demographics. Repeated often in a helpless tone of voice with a feeble shrug of the shoulders: demographics. The unanswerable excuse and the utter justification. “Don’t blame us,” the school, parish, or diocesan official says and thinks; it’s demographics.  

And at every round of closings, the story is the same: a school with declining enrollment, under growing financial pressure, shrinking for years until finally (mercifully?) the decision is made to put it out of its misery. The few remaining children and families scatter, as likely to go to the local public school as to any Catholic school. And every few years, the story is repeated over again.

Have we become Sears? Once the Amazon of its day, the famous Sears catalogue seemed to offer anything and everything a person could imagine or dream of to order (including a house!) with nationwide delivery. The first Sears retail store opened in 1925, leading to steady growth until the 1970s when the first signs of trouble appeared. At its peak, Sears operated almost 3,500 stores. Then the model grew stale and it began to shrink. Profits declined, the company felt growing financial pressures, a new round of store closings seemed to happen every few years. Then bankruptcy and more closings until today when Sears operates only eight stores in the entire United States. Does the story sound familiar?

Has Catholic education become Sears, an old, stale, outdated model with nothing to offer a modern world in search of sports, electives, iPads, and STEM? The modern atheist says so, but why must we act like we believe them? Why must we seem to accept the inevitable shrink, a new round of closings every few years with no plan or vision to do anything differently? Very simply, we have lost sight of the mission of Catholic education. 

An old and splendid hymn, “The Splendid Cause,” speaks of the zeal and drive of the missionary, the man who has a mission and knows it. Written by the Irish Columban priest Patrick J. O’Connor, and popular among the Irish missionaries of the early 20th century, it speaks of the dream of the missionary, “the chivalry of God.”

For this is the dream the old men dreamt,
The vision the young men see,
To march in the glory of Pentecost
To bear to the nations the sweet, white host, 
And the truth to make them free.
Then let not the knightly slogan die
Nor the knightly weapons fall, 
Til every land is His holy land
Where His lamp is lit and His altars stand, 
And His cross is over all. 

The hymn reflects the zeal and joy of the missionary at his task, his mission: the moral conversion of the entire world. The attitude is much out of date in a world and Church that seems too often to have grown lukewarm and stale. Every year, more schools close, more people drift away from the Faith, and we seem, too often, to lack the plan, courage, or zeal to do anything different. We have become afraid to do anything except to make excuses and manage a decline. For what is “demographics,” save the unanswerable excuse? 

We have lost the zeal, fire, and courage of our ancestors who believed in the Splendid Cause. We have lost their sense of mission. We are, in the language of Tolkien, lesser sons of greater fathers, sitting like children in our sandcastles while the tide is flowing. Do we imagine that God will be impressed with our excuses?

Nowhere is this clearer than in the situation with our Catholic schools today. The school closings are not a reflection of demographic problems, insufficient sports offerings, electives, or iPads. Rather, they reflect a failure of mission.  

If this be doubted, compare the mission statement of your local Catholic school to Archbishop J. Michael Miller’s description of the true mission of the Catholic school:

The specific purpose of a Catholic education is the formation of boys and girls who will be good citizens of this world, loving God and neighbor and enriching society with the leaven of the gospel, and who will also be citizens of the world to come, thus fulfilling their destiny to become saints [emphasis mine].

But even if Catholic schools seem sometimes to have lost sight of their real mission, we are still not to despair. For amid the wrack and ruin, some schools today are not closing but are growing. St. Benedict Classical Academy in Natick, Massachusetts, opened in 2013 with only two dozen students attending classes in rented office space. This past fall, they opened a new building costing $20 million and enrolled over 300 students. The model story is St. Jerome Academy in Hyattsville, Maryland. Facing declining enrollment and financial pressures, the school was just another parish school on track to closure. Then they adopted a classical liberal arts curriculum, and they currently enroll 500 students. In 2019, they opened a high school.  

The story could be multiplied. Across the country, large and small Catholic schools are bucking the demographic trends and opening and growing. St. John Bosco in Rochester, Chesterton Academies, Holy Family, Our Lady of Lourdes in Denver. These schools operate in the same demographic climate. They face the same financial challenges; yet where many other schools are shrinking and closing, they are growing.  

What these schools have had in common was their decision to put the mission first. Seek first the kingdom of God and these other things will be given you besides. St. Jerome, for instance, says in their education plan that “no aspect of a school’s life is truly ‘extra-curricular’…because every aspect of its life—from the way the school prays, to the dress code of students and staff, the arrangement of furniture in the classroom, the paint and posters on the wall…reflects the school’s judgments and priorities about the meaning of its educational mission.” Nothing is extracurricular; everything is a part of the mission: to make saints.  

In mission lies the greatest difference between the traditional liberal arts (or classical Catholic education) and the modern public education that has been adopted in too many Catholic schools across the country. Where modern public education asks what students should know, a classical education asks the more important question: What kind of person should this student be? St. Benedict Classical Academy gives a compelling portrait of a graduate and sums it up this way: “In a word, classical (or “liberal”) education helps students become free to pursue the truth and so become the persons God intends them to be.”

Certainly, there are obstacles. One thinks of Fr. McTeigue’s axiom in his recent article: “Most institutions would rather die than admit to having made a mistake.” The switch from the modern, public model of education will prove difficult for many schools today. Many, one suspects, would rather close. It would require a significant shift in model, goal, and means. It would require the involvement of many people who have opted out or find it easier to do the best they can under the current, flawed system.  

But some schools and even dioceses have made the switch; it can be done, if only bishops, priests, school officials, parents (perhaps fathers in particular) will leave the sidelines and do it. There is a great deal of help available. I have talked to many people who run these classical Catholic schools; despite being extremely busy, they are happy to take the time to share their stories, advice, and resources with anyone in need. They don’t see other schools as competition but, rather, as fellow men under the same mission—that is, as fellow missionaries. There is no future in what many of the current Catholic schools are doing now. If there is to be a future of Catholic education, it may be in Classical Catholic education, or nothing.