Fr. Peter M. Stravinskas: Renewing Catholic Schools

If memory serves, it was the spring of 1988 when I approached Christendom College with the idea of offering a master’s degree in Catholic school administration. The reply was to float the notion by running a summer course along those lines; if a good response was forthcoming, my suggestion would gain traction. The course was a grand success, with about twenty lay folk and women Religious populating the class. (Among the students was Michael Van Hecke, who went on to found the Catholic Textbook Project.) For some unknown reason, a negative decision was made on the original idea, causing me to take up my own suggestion by founding the School of Catholic Education of Pontifex University many years later.

So, it was with no small degree of pleasure that I heard about the “Front Royal Statement” (FRS), which outlines the foundational pillars of Catholic school renewal and had its genesis through Christendom College. The document is a fine rehearsal of a truly Catholic philosophy of education, which I trust will be helpful to many elementary and secondary schools as they engage in the always-necessary process of fine-tuning their programs. …

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