• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Neb., gives the homily at Mass in the Crypt Church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington July 13, 2022. The Mass was part of the 10th annual national conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education held July 11-14 at The Catholic University of America in Washington. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

Annual conference puts emphasis on values, ways to renew Catholic education

July 15, 2022
By Kurt Jensen
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Feature, News, Schools, World News

WASHINGTON (CNS) — Can an emphasis on values and what’s called a traditional “liberal” — meaning liberal arts — Catholic education rebuild the long-dwindling parochial education system?

Elisabeth Sullivan, executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, believes that it can, and that the effort begins with acknowledging that America’s political and social culture is broken.

“It is. It absolutely is,” she told Catholic News Service. “Renewal is about ordering our conscience, because truth is one in him.”

Noting that Catholic instruction used to be “the gold standard of education,” she added, “this is the culmination of what education should be. And it’s for unity, not division. We are living in a post-Christian culture.”

Nationally, enrollment in Catholic schools saw an uptick in the past year.

Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Neb., gives the homily at Mass in the Crypt Church at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington July 13, 2022. The Mass was part of the 10th annual national conference of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education held July 11-14 at The Catholic University of America in Washington. (CNS photo/Tyler Orsburn)

According to statistics compiled by the National Catholic Educational Association, enrollment increased by 3.8 percent for a total of nearly 1.7 million enrolled in both grade and high schools.

It was the largest increase NCEA had recorded in two decades and marked a significant improvement from the 6.4 percent decline 2019-2021 attributed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic. The enrollment peak in the early 1960s was more than 5 million.

About 350 attended the institute’s annual conference July 11-14 at The Catholic University of America in Washington. Participants represented 88 schools and organizations and 45 dioceses. Sullivan called the mood “incredibly hopeful and joyful.”

The conference drew superintendents, school leaders, teachers, bishops and other clergy and had as its theme, “For the Life of the World,” reflecting the U.S. bishops’ three-year National Eucharistic Revival that was launched June 19, the feast of Corpus Christi.

The institute, founded in 1999, assists Catholic schools “in rediscovering and restoring the intellectual tradition of liberal education that is our heritage,” said Mary Pat Donoghue, executive director of the USCCB’s Secretariat of Catholic Education.

“Once discovered, teachers and students alike enjoy the freedom that accompanies the joyful pursuit of faith, wisdom and virtue,” she said in statement.

Organizers said the conference was sold-out and livestream viewing of sessions drew even more participants. An evening keynote address by Bishop Thomas A. Daly of Spokane, Wash., opened the conference July 11.

The bishop, chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Catholic Education, urged attendees to make sure their work was always rooted in the importance of the Eucharist.

In an address July 14, Bishop James D. Conley of Lincoln, Neb., criticized secular education and culture.

“A huge amount of today’s educational orthodoxy is about acquiring more technique,” he said. But “real education is about meaning. In other words, words matter.”

“To the degree that a word accurately reflects reality — unborn child, man, woman, male, female — it tells the truth,” he said. “On the other hand, dishonest and misleading words do the opposite. They confuse and demean. And then do massive damage.”

Noting that “verbal engineering always precedes social engineering,” Bishop Conley added, “The deceit and confusion don’t stay at the level of our politics. They … inevitably trickle down into our public classrooms in the form of critical race theory, revisionist civics and disordered sexuality.”

“The ferocity of verbal abuse and physical abuse and irrational hatred unleashed by otherwise progressive people with the downfall of Roe is instructive for us, I think,” the bishop said.

Roe v. Wade — the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling legalizing abortion nationwide that the current court overturned June 24 — “was always a judicial coup — a badly reasoned decision that invented a right to abortion out of whole cloth, unrelated to the Constitution or democratic processes,” he said.

Bishop Conley also bemoaned the changing meaning of some words, without getting more specific. “There were words we used to use — beautiful words — we can’t use any more … because they mean something else.”

He concluded, “A liberal education reminds children why they’re human — and what that means.”

On July 13, David Dean, superintendent of Catholic schools for the Diocese of Tulsa, Okla., reminded the conference: “You bring beauty to these young souls who live in a mostly filthy culture. And they desperately need what you have to offer.”

Also on July 13, Michael Ortner, who is the founder of Capterra, an online marketplace for business software, and a member of the Catholic University board of visitors, reminded teachers to cultivate “a sense of wonder” in their students.

“This sense of wonder I don’t think can be understated,” he said. “It led me to the next important thing: knowledge for the sake of itself.”

“What we’re doing at these Catholic schools is very countercultural,” Ortner said. “It’s great to have some support network.”

Read More Schools News

Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine

Gregory Farno appointed new archdiocesan schools chancellor

St. Maria Goretti Regional Catholic High School confirms closure

Loyola Blakefield rolls past Calvert Hall, 40-28, in 103rd Turkey Bowl as Kendrick Worthington leads way

Lawsuits challenge constitutional status of nation’s first Catholic charter school

Calvert Hall students help seniors navigate new technology

Copyright © 2022 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Kurt Jensen

Our Sunday Visitor is a Catholic publisher serving millions of Catholics globally through its publishing and communication services. Kurt Jensen writes for OSV News from Washington.

View all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Quirk of calendar requires two obligations for Masses at Christmas time
  • Wearing a rosary can make a Latino a target for police, historian says
  • Powerful masterpiece: Beloved rendition of Handel’s Messiah coming to Baltimore Basilica
  • Univ. of Notre Dame names Father Robert Dowd its new president
  • Movie Review: ‘Renaissance: A Film by Beyoncé’

| Latest Local News |

Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine

Baltimore City approves inclusive housing bill

Quirk of calendar requires two obligations for Masses at Christmas time

| Latest World News |

Proposed referendum for Irish Constitution calls for widening the definition of family

Pope, Council of Cardinals discussed the role of women in the church

Archbishop exhorts Advent vigilance as national shrine’s Holy Door sealed

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Catholic High crowned again as Baltimore’s best girls private school by magazine
  • Proposed referendum for Irish Constitution calls for widening the definition of family
  • Pope, Council of Cardinals discussed the role of women in the church
  • Archbishop exhorts Advent vigilance as national shrine’s Holy Door sealed
  • Holy Spirit inspires creativity, simplicity in evangelization, pope says
  • Tuberville ends hold on hundreds of military promotions over Pentagon abortion policy
  • Can one Mass satisfy my Sunday and Christmas obligation in 2023?
  • Movie Review: ‘Silent Night’
  • Pray the news, pray the media, and imbue the culture with Christ

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED