To Found a School

I’m joyfully anticipating Bl. John Henry Newman’s canonization on October 13th, a momentous day for the Church and for Catholic education in particular. Newman wrote the most comprehensive and in depth work on the nature of Catholic education in his Idea of a University. The book arose from a series of addresses he gave to the faculty of the university he founded in Dublin, the Catholic University of Ireland. I will be visiting his University Church on September 15th as part of my Beauty of Faith pilgrimage to Ireland.

Newman’s writings inspired my late mentor, Don Briel, to found the world’s first Catholic Studies program at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He oversaw my undergraduate research on the historian Christopher Dawson and my master’s thesis on faith in Newman. Briel didn’t found a university, but a vibrant program within one, which embraced Newman’s vision of the unity of knowledge as well as the need for strong personal formation to accompany instruction (which occurred through the collegiate tutor for Newman). Catholic Studies offered interdisciplinary classes to help students to enter into the Catholic tradition in a living way, along with serious community, leadership formation, and a transformative study abroad program in Rome. Cluny Media will release a collection of Don’s essays, The University and the Church, on August 22nd that describes how he drew upon Newman’s vision to address the challenges faced by higher education. His essays call us to found new programs and institutions to serve as creative minorities in the Church.

The new high school I helped to found, the Chesterton Academy of Our Lady of Victory, draws upon this integrated and robust vision as set forth by Newman and Briel. It just celebrated its opening Mass and introduced its faculty. Like Newman with his faculty, we took time to think through the goals of Catholic education and how they flow from the Incarnate Word of God and shape the way we engage in classical education. In light of this inauguration of our new high school, I want to reflect briefly on why and how we started this new Catholic, classical school.

The new school began following years of discussion among parents about the need for a robustly Catholic and classical high school in the south Denver metro area. We have been so blessed by the K-8 education at Our Lady of Lourdes classical school in Denver and didn’t see any option where our kids could continue not only with classical ed but also formation in a strong Catholic culture. We wanted a holistic formation that embraced the spiritual life, fine arts, outdoor adventure, service, and serious academics from a Catholic worldview. If it was going to happen, we knew we were going to have to do it!

My wife, Anne, and I began talking to other parents at Lourdes and then joined up with some others from St. Mary’s parish in Littleton who had started a group called the First Educators to promote solid educational principles. Working with them, we invited people to a discussion to gauge interest, with 50 people attending. The next week we held a follow up meeting with 30 parents seriously interested in sending their incoming high schoolers to a new school.

We had clearly touched upon a pressing need, but we had to decide if it was realistic to start a new high school in just 6 months. Of course it wasn’t it, but sensing God’s will guiding the initial group and also the profound desire of families, we took a leap of faith and rallied a great group of committed people to launch the school. It was truly a talented group that assembled, with backgrounds in education, law, technology, marketing, accounting, and fundraising. Many of our founding board members did not even have children coming into the school (or even grades close to high school). The Archdiocese of Denver, surrounding parishes and religious groups, and many others supported our efforts at key moments. We also partnered with the Chesterton Schools Network so that we could adopt their curriculum and formation which matched our goals exactly. We fought through many logistical problems with the help of God’s grace and Our Lady’s intercession! We chose the right patroness in Our Lady of Victory (also known as Our Lady of the Rosary), who has helped us overcome all the obstacles we faced to form students who can joyful engage the culture.

In six months, we have 20 students, space in a beautiful school building, and six wonderful teachers. It was a leap of faith, but we knew the school was needed and that God would bless our efforts to found a school for His glory and the good of our students and families. We believed in the model of education, saw the desire for it from committed families, and assembled a talented group who dedicated a great deal of time and effort to make the vision a reality.

Newman and Briel articulated a deep and powerful vision of higher education. I sought to bring those same principles to the high school level, working with a great community and the help of the Chesterton Network. If we are to experience a renewal of Catholic education, it will require many more lay people to step forward and to take a similar leap of faith to found other desperately needed schools.