(LifeSiteNews) — A trusted resource for Catholic parents and high schoolers who want to choose a university faithful to Catholic teaching will now expand its assessment program to K-12 schools and homeschool resources.
The Newman Guide, an annual publication from the Cardinal Newman Society, is expanding its offerings to help parents identify quality K-12 schools, homeschool programs, and even graduate schools. A representative for the society spoke to LifeSiteNews about its new initiative.
“With Newman Guide recognition from The Cardinal Newman Society at all levels of Catholic education, we hope to provide families with a pathway to a seamless faithful Catholic education,” Kelly Salomon, vice president for Newman Guide Programs told LifeSiteNews via email.
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She said the group will rely on authoritative Catholic sources to determine how faithful a school is to the Catholic Church:
Newman Guide recognition requires adherence to The Cardinal Newman Society’s standards covering key aspects of Catholic education, from academics and admissions to athletics and faculty hiring. We derive our standards from the Church’s guidance on Catholic education. Sources include the Church councils, popes, Vatican congregations, the U.S. bishops conference, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and other Church documents.
We look for institutions that integrate true Catholic teaching across the entire curriculum and strive to form students in virtue and fidelity. A Newman Guide institution strives for the very best of faithful Catholic education and stands as an exemplar for other educators nationwide.
Salomon said the guide comes at a time when Catholic school enrollment is dropping and there is a “crisis of education.”
“There are serious problems in American Catholic education today, causing the loss of more than 5,0000 Catholic schools, mostly parochial, and 2.6 million students over the last 50 years,” Salomon told LifeSiteNews.
There is a lack of faith among professed Catholics, which Salomon says can be partially addressed through better education.
She told LifeSiteNews:
Today, the crisis of fidelity among baptized Catholics is rooted in a crisis of education. Too many Catholic schools and colleges mirror public education, and secular institutions are pushing falsehoods like gender ideology that are contrary to the faith. Among American millennials who attended non-Catholic schools, only five percent of them still attend weekly Mass. Among young adult Catholics, nearly 75 percent do not believe in the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. Less than half of American millennials call themselves Christian. This is a failure of proper formation and teaching.
Liberal bishops around the world continue promoting heterodox views on homosexuality, female priests, divorce, contraception, and more — advancing anti-Catholic positions that jeopardize the salvation of souls.
Such bishops often sideline, ignore and even persecute traditional Catholics who simply ask that the Faith be preserved and passed on to their children.
But traditional Catholics cannot be silenced any longer, which is why we are uniting in this international boycott of modernist bishops and dioceses until the deposit of Faith is upheld by the hierarchy again.
SIGN: We will not fund modernist bishops or priests who undermine the Catholic Faith, but rather direct our contributions towards faithful clergy and orders that work for the salvation of souls.
There are countless examples of bishops working against Christ's Church in calling for divine law to be ignored in favor of sexual, doctrinal and liturgical deviancy, even trying to clamp down on Catholics who practise the Faith.
Just last year, Cardinal Cupich banned traditional prayers after Mass, and more recently has curtailed the Traditional Latin Mass in his diocese.
Cardinal Cupich has banned the Hail Mary and St Michael Prayer after Mass
— Nick Donnelly (@ProtecttheFaith) August 27, 2021
Who but a devil would ban these prayers after Mass
The attack on the Faith is out in the open, with modernist bishops causing scandal in countless ways:
- Shutting down the Latin Mass in numerous parishes
- Rejecting the Church's teaching on sodomy
- Ignoring Vatican cover-ups of abuse by fellow bishops
- Celebrating LGBT Masses
- And so much more!
We have seen enough. Now is the time to show true Catholic unity against those who undermine the Faith - do not be bullied into submission by these men who would disfigure Christ's Church.
JOIN THE BOYCOTT & SHARE! Tell everyone you know to STOP giving money to bishops who attack the Catholic Faith.
"We therefore commit to a financial boycott of modernist bishops until the hierarchy resolves to uphold the entire deposit of Faith."
If the bishops refuse to uphold and protect the teaching of Christ's Bride, the Catholic Church, then we must refuse to support them until they repent.
Thank you
P.S. — Demanding that liberal bishops be held to account through financial boycott will help save the Church from doctrinal and pastoral ruin. This is the first step in restoring the Faith for future generations. Our time is now, so please join us by signing today!
Photos: Pope Francis. Flickr. Long Thiên; Cardinal Cupich. Flickr. Goat_Girl; Collection Plate: Lisa F. Young/Shutterstock
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However, she told LifeSiteNews of a “renewal” of “authentic Catholic education.”
“[M]any Catholic schools [are] strengthening their Catholic identity and curriculum, while new, lay-run Catholic schools are emerging,” she said. “The Newman Guide is needed today to help highlight schools that are doing Catholic education well and point families to these places. It’s also needed to encourage Catholic school superintendents, principals, and teachers to strengthen Catholic identity to meet Newman Guide standards.”
The Cardinal Newman executive said that authentic, faithful Catholic schools turn out better than nominally Catholic schools that adopt secular beliefs.
“Catholic families are seeing the Newman Guide difference and that it’s an education worth investing in,” she said. “Overall, we’ve seen clear evidence that the distinctive, faithful, and counter-cultural Newman Guide schools are in a much better position than secularized Catholic schools that try to compete with public education yet offer the same secular and woke nonsense.”
Grading K-12 schools is not an entirely new area for the Newman Society, which already provides substantial resources for Catholic schools that want to remain authentically Catholic. The group currently hosts a Catholic Education Honor Roll which “helps schools strengthen their Catholic identity by evaluating internal policies and practices and recognizing schools committed to the Principles of Catholic Identity in Education.” The group will phase out the honor roll and “all new recognition will be in The Newman Guide,” Salomon said.
Catholic grade schools and high schools can also take advantage of sample employment policies, human sexuality policies, and other best practices documents through the Cardinal Newman Society.
“When Catholic education is done well, it is a great blessing!” Salomon told LifeSiteNews. “The best gift that we can provide a Catholic child is a faithful Catholic education – whether in parochial Catholic schools, independent Catholic schools, or homeschooling – that helps them grow in wisdom and virtue, then continue that education at a faithful Catholic college or graduate program.”