20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know

This month marks the 200th birthday of Father Edward Sorin, C.S.C., the infamous founder of the University of Notre Dame, which was to become, in his words, “one of the most powerful forces for doing good in this country.”

On Nov. 26 ,1842, amidst a fierce winter (one to rival our current,) Father Sorin and his small band of six Brothers of St. Joseph (the group of consecrated religious within the Congregation of Holy Cross) first set foot on the ground that would become the site of the University. A series of similarly harsh winters, tremendous financial woes, and a devastating fire that destroyed the group’s initial progress tested their resolve and forced them to put all their faith in the Holy Mother to bring their mission to fruition despite the significant setbacks.

When the 1879 fire destroyed the Main Building upon which a statue of Our Lady had been erected, Father Sorin, with unrelenting hope, believed it was a sign from the patroness that he had simply not dreamed or built big enough. And he and his brothers regrouped and rebuilt, designing and erecting the famous Golden Dome we know today.

Though Father Sorin had always envisioned Notre Dame as developing into a preeminent university--not just a seminary or just a college--among its first few students and residents, Notre Dame also took on the education of the children in the area who had nowhere else to go. In it’s first few years, therefore, Notre Dame also operated as an orphanage.

The Sisters of Charity had run orphanages in the community for years prior to the arrival of the Holy Cross priests, but, similarly facing limited resources, could only house the children until the ages of 12 or 13. The Brothers of St. Joseph saw this need in the community, and took up the mission of housing and educating those children.

With his grand vision for an American university “founded on Catholic principles,” Father Sorin and his brothers knew that the continuation of their vision relied on the fortitudinous efforts of devoted and devout Catholic educators.

In 1860, Fr. Sorin made an appeal for such teachers: “How much the training of Catholic youth is suffering for want of good teachers is a well known fact. In spite of earnest efforts, only partial success has been achieved in removing this crying evil. Although besieged daily with requests, it is impossible for us to satisfy even the smallest part of the urgent appeal.” Father Sorin acutely felt the need for good teachers, and saw that the success of both Notre Dame and American Catholic education at large depended on their abundance and perpetuation.

The University of Notre Dame owes its success to its accomplished, dedicated faculty and relies on their perpetuation going forward to continue to be the “force for good in this country” Father Sorin envisioned.

The continued success of Catholic education in America similarly relies on an abundance of well-trained and dedicated faculty, and the Alliance for Catholic Education, housed in Father Sorin’s vision and mission, is dedicated to filling that need through its numerous programs designed to sustain, strengthen and transform Catholic schools in America and beyond.

Written by: Eric Prister

“Once you’re safe, you can do anything.”

In Chicago in 1986, many children were anything but safe. Crime rates were high, poverty rates were high, and Chicago was known for having some of the worst public schools in the country.

Then archbishop of the archdiocese of America’s third-largest city, Cardinal Joseph Bernardin saw this problem, but was unsure how to fix solve it. Demand for Catholic schools in Chicago was great, but parishes didn’t have the money to keep the schools running, and families didn’t have the money to send their kids there anyway.

Bernardin approached business leaders around Chicago for their support, and they rose to the occasion. They wanted to create an organization that supported Catholic schools in the Chicago area, but didn’t want it connected to the diocese—thus, the Big Shoulders Fund was born.

Big Shoulders’ original goal was to raise $1 million so that underprivileged Chicago children could attend Catholic schools. Today, twenty-six years after the program was founded, Big Shoulders has raised more than $250 million.

Big Shoulders works with ninety-three schools and 24,000 students in the Chicago area. They still provide scholarships, as the organization originally sought to do, but they also saw a need for improvement of education in other areas.

“It’s great to have kids in these schools,” Carolyn Gibbs Broughton, ACE graduate and Director of Academic Programs and Student Enrichment at Big Shoulders, said. “But we have to make sure they’re quality schools.

Broughton said that Big Shoulders now focuses on four areas of improvement: scholarships, operations, academic enhancement, and leadership development.

Big Shoulders’ operations efforts come in the form of a patrons program, which matches local business leaders with a school. The patron donates money to the school each year for operational needs—maintenance for the school building, for example— and academic enhancement in the form of music teachers, art supplies, etc. The patron takes an integral role in the school, not only with their contribution, but in the decision-making process on what to do with the funds.

Big Shoulders has also started seeking out potential school leaders and helping them earn their Masters degree. Big Shoulders will pay one-third of the tuition for a participant to earn his or her degree in educational administration as long as the participant agrees to give three years serving as a leader in a Big Shoulders school.

More than the training and the funding, Big Shoulders sought to, and succeeds in addressing the problem of safety in Chicago. A study done by law professors at the University of Notre Dame found a correlation between Catholic schools closing in a neighborhood and an increase in crime rate. Gibbs said that there is a need for Catholic schools in Chicago, a need for safe places for students to come and learn.

“These schools are safe havens. Everyone should have access to a safe and quality school,” she said. “There is a demand for Catholic schools in Chicago—we just need to find innovative ways to give them that chance.”

Throughout twenty-six years serving the people of Chicago, Big Shoulders has constantly sought and utilized innovative ways of helping students receive a quality education, and has provided them with a safe place to succeed.

 Read more from 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know

Written by: Eric Prister

Amazing people all over the country are changing the lives of students in Catholic schools every day. Teachers, administrators, parents, and supporters of Catholic schools work tirelessly to provide every child a quality education. While it’s not possible to tell every story, and give every person the recognition he or she deserves, the 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series will help tell some of the best, most heartwarming, most life-changing stories about simple people doing extraordinary things for the cause of Catholic education.

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At the end of the 90s, Milwaukee Catholic schools were struggling. Attendance was down, and schools were on the verge of closing. One of the schools, St. Anthony’s on the south side of Milwaukee, had an enrollment of fewer than 300 students and was in dire straights.

In an attempt to save the school, St. Anthony’s joined the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program—a program developed after the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing low-income families to use public funds at religious institutions—and began accepting students as part of the voucher program.

Enrollment at St. Anthony’s shot through the roof. Terry Brown, who started as a volunteer at the school, was named President in 2004 as the school enrollment continued to rise—two hundred voucher students in 1998; three hundred and fifty students in 2002; eight hundred in 2005. The school installed trailers on site to create enough space for the students, and then began buying property in the neighborhood for more buildings. (“Changes at St. Anthony’s makes it a school to watch,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinal).

Today, the school’s enrollment exceeds 1,600 students and serves students from three years old to high school. The largest Catholic school in the United States, St. Anthony’s houses students in five buildings in the Mitchell Street neighborhood in Milwaukee, led by President Zeus Rodriguez and principals Ramon Cruz and Julia D’Amato.

St. Anthony’s increased enrollment is remarkable in itself—increasing the enrollment fivefold when Catholic schools in the area were becoming endangered, if not on the verge of extinction—but becoming a quality school is an equally colossal task.

St. Anthony’s model is “One Team. One Family,” and this model has helped St. Anthony’s reach the level at which it stands today. The school returned to traditional teaching practices and emphasizes discipline, subscribing to the idea that if students remain focused, they can achieve academic excellence. Teachers at St. Anthony’s can command silence from their students, even in the large groups that are the norm at a school of more than 1,600 students, in nearly an instant, a sign of the discipline St. Anthony’s fosters.

The St. Anthony’s “team” and “family” isn’t only comprised of students and faculty—parents and community members are just as integral to the creation of a high quality Catholic school. The rise in enrollment was joined by a rise in Catholic families in the neighborhood; whole families entered the church as their children started attending St. Anthony’s school. The school made a conscious effort to engage the parents of its new students so that they could be intimately involved in the education, providing translators for non-English speaking parents for conferences and on-site translators to make communication as easy as possible.

Miracles do happen, and St. Anthony’s is the perfect example of one of those miracles. St. Anthony’s success could not have been achieved without the help of the voucher programs in Wisconsin, but that success was solidified by a plan to make sure that those students received the best possible educational opportunities

St. Anthony’s mission statement claims to “prepare scholars for college and beyond through highly structured and rigorous academic programs as well as the continued formation of the Faith, igniting strong, successful, Catholic leaders.” Each and every day that they continue to strive toward that mission increases the greatness of the St. Anthony’s miracle.

Written by: Caroline Lang

Amazing people all over the country are changing the lives of students in Catholic schools every day. Teachers, administrators, parents, and supporters of Catholic schools work tirelessly to provide every child a quality education. While it’s not possible to tell every story, and give every person the recognition he or she deserves, the 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series will help tell some of the best, most heartwarming, most life-changing stories about simple people doing extraordinary things for the cause of Catholic education.

What better way to kick of the 20 Catholic School Stories You Should Know series than by telling the story of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, the founder of Catholic schools in America. Her story is truly the first Catholic school story, and the one without which none of the others would be possible.

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"The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.” Mt 13:31-32

Every great and mighty tree, like every great endeavor, begins as a single seed, requiring care and nurturing to reach its full potential.

Before 1634, the fields in which to plant the seeds of faith in the New World were largely fenced off to Catholics, and anti-Catholicism was official government policy in the English colonies. It wasn’t until Lord Baltimore founded Maryland as the first “non-denominational” colony that the seeds of Catholicism were able to take root in America.

Even after Lord Baltimore established a tolerant state, the Catholic seedlings weathered terrible treatment, constantly trampled by persecution and choked by legal restraint. This oppression lasted for more than a hundred years, until it was largely mollified by the French involvement in the American Revolution, and a respect for their culture and Catholic identity developed.

This new respect largely cleared the skies for Catholicism and turned over a new leaf for its potential to grow, given the proper attention and caretakers.

Elizabeth Ann Seton became one such caretaker, sowing new seeds and meticulously cultivating the great tree of American Catholicism.

A convert to Catholicism, Elizabeth was confirmed into the faith by the Right Reverend John Carroll, the first and only Catholic bishop in America at that time. Elizabeth then founded an academy for young women, but enrollment numbers dwindled as news of her conversion to Catholicism spread, as anti-Catholicism was still prevalent.

During this troubling time, Elizabeth sought the spiritual counsel of a visiting priest, the Abbé Louis Dubourg, a French émigré of the Society of Saint-Sulpice. The Sulpicians were in the process of establishing the first Catholic seminary in the United States, and Dubourg invited Elizabeth to join them in their mission in Emmitsburg, Md.

A year later in 1810, Elizabeth established the St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School dedicated to the education of young Catholic women and made possible by the financial support of Samuel Sutherland Cooper, a wealthy convert and seminarian at the newly established, nearby Mount Saint Mary's University.

Around this time, Elizabeth also founded the first congregation of religious sisters in the United States, the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph’s, which was dedicated to the care of the children of the poor.

Mother Seton, as she was henceforth known, dedicated the rest of her life to nurturing Catholic education in America, knowing that instilling the seeds of faith in the nation’s youth was the best way to cultivate the Church in America.

Pope Paul VI officially canonized Mother Seton on Sept. 14, 1975, making her the first native-born American saint.

The branches of Elizabeth Ann Seton’s legacy continue to grow and extend their reach over American Catholicism today. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton is honored as the patron saint of Catholic schools for the tremendous impact she had in the nascence of American Catholic education. Not only does Mother Seton School still exist in Emmitsburg as a direct descendant of St. Joseph’s Academy and Free School, but six separate religious congregations also trace their roots back to her Sisters of Charity.

Directly or indirectly, Catholic schools from Los Angeles to New York, Seattle to Miami owe their success largely to Mother Seton, who tended so tirelessly to the seeds of Catholicism—and the even smaller mustard seed of Catholic education. Her efforts allowed them to take root and grow into the beautiful, fruitful trees of faith we continue to cultivate today in our nation’s Catholic schools.