The central concern of the Rev. James Heft in his new book is not only how “to preserve the continuity of the Catholic intellectual tradition, but also recognize how it might be adapted.”
Kolbe Academy in Bath, Pa., was the only Catholic recovery school in the United States. It is closing its doors because it could not find enough students like Pete, who said he had hit rock bottom and wanted to get sober.
The key question in this case is not whether a charter would help or harm local education, but whether explicitly religious instruction at charter schools is constitutional.
These trends should prompt an examen among Catholic educators. Do our schools lead people to drift from religion to money, from community engagement to private enrichment?
Even after decades of Ireland’s rapid societal secularization, clergy and laypeople have cause for optimism about the renewal of the Catholic faith first brought to the Emerald Isle by St. Patrick in 432.