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Matt DeBoer, RLP 12, was the fifth principal St. Teresa Catholic School had seen in six years. Teachers, parents, and students alike were tired of “all the chaos,” DeBoer said. One day at the beginning of the school year, DeBoer commenced a staff meeting with a prayer of examen. Even though he had no experience as a principal, he felt the trust of his colleagues as he led them in prayer.

Rev. Joseph Corpora, C.S.C., director of university-school partnerships for the University of Notre Dame’s Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE), has received a mandate from Pope Francis to be a Missionary of Mercy.

The Missionaries are some 800 priests worldwide selected by the pope to be special confessors and “living signs” of God’s forgiveness during the Holy Year of Mercy officially proclaimed in his letter, Misericordiae Vultus (The Face of Mercy), last year. Father Corpora will be among those traveling to Rome to meet with Pope Francis and to be commissioned on Ash Wednesday (Feb. 10) in a celebration at St. Peter’s Basilica.

Read more about Fr. Joe's appointment at news.nd.edu.

St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School is the only Catholic school in Port Arthur, Texas in the Diocese of Beaumont. Almost 70 percent of the students are from underserved minority groups, with the majority of the students living in economically disadvantaged homes. The Hispanic population is rapidly increasing in Southeast Texas, and today there are an estimated 84,000 Hispanics living within the diocesan borders.

In 2014 St. Catherine School, with the help of its dynamic principal Haidee Todora, turned to the Latino Enrollment Institute for support in enrolling this growing demographic. Catholic Extension subsidized Haidee’s participation in the LEI at the University of Notre Dame. This program identifies and assists Catholic schools with a substantial unmet capacity and motivates principals by teaching them and select faculty leaders how to transform their schools to attract and serve Latino students more effectively.

Read more about St. Catherine of Siena School's story at catholicextension.org.

Every calendar year, the Church moves promptly in its liturgical schedule to celebrate saints who inspire and support teachers and educational leaders. ACE traditionally calls our community’s attention to the feast days on January 4, 5, and 6—honoring St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, St. John Neumann, and St. André Bessette, respectively, who all served Catholic education and people at the periphery of life, but in different ways.

Jan. 4: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton

The feast of Mother Seton on January 4 invites us to ponder this saint’s life (1774-1821) of dual commitments to education and caring for society’s at-risk children. In a podcast conversation produced last year, ACE’s Sarah Perkins talked with Coordinator of Policy and co-author of Lost Classroom, Lost Community, Nicole Stelle Garnett, about the winding road Mother Seton followed in discerning and exercising her complex vocation. It wasn’t easy, but she remained open to Providence and founded America’s first parish school. This launch of Catholic schools in the United States has blessed countless families from all backgrounds.

Jan. 5: St. John Neumann

St. John Neumann, C.Ss.R., was a native of the present-day Czech Republic. He traveled to America, was ordained a priest, and became Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. He oversaw the construction of numerous parishes and schools for immigrants, founding the first Catholic diocesan school system in the United States. ACE senior director John Schoenig discussed Neumann’s life as shepherd and school-builder in this podcast conversation with ACE’s Bill Schmitt, pointing out the mission to form saints among ACE Teachers, as well as among the children we serve. The Church’s January 5 feast is an opportunity to reflect upon the teaching vocation as a journey shared with others.

Jan. 6: St. André  Bessette

On January 6, St. André Bessette (1845-1937), a religious brother in the Congregation of Holy Cross, is celebrated for his unique ministry to the sick and marginalized, which grew miraculously even as he humbly served a Catholic school in Montreal—as a porter, not a teacher. In a third podcast conversation prepared for the 2015 feasts, ACE’s Emily Lazor talked with director of spiritual life Rev. Lou DelFra, C.S.C., about Brother André’s ability to transcend apparent dead ends for himself and others, plus a humility that allowed many lights to shine.

The message of overcoming life’s obstacles and pursuing big dreams through the blessings of Catholic schools echoes from all three saints and applies to both educators and students. The lives of numerous other education-related saints honored throughout the liturgical year (here’s one source’s listing) keep the message resounding.

Pope Francis affirmed the message recently at the Vatican’s international congress on Catholic schooling, “Education Today and Tomorrow: A Passion that is Renewed,” convened in Rome in November. He championed educators’ sustained passion to encourage at-risk students by rising above the merely material and immediate.

“We are closed to transcendence,” the Pope said of many classrooms, cautioning that this is the greatest crisis in Christian education. “It is necessary to prepare hearts for the Lord to manifest Himself--but totally, namely, in the totality of humanity, which also has this dimension of transcendence.” He urged teachers “to educate humanly but with open horizons.”

Our three early-January saints start off the year with a big “amen” to Pope Francis; they transcended the commonplace for the sake of their students, exhibiting a passion today’s teachers can renew year-round—with ongoing human and heavenly intercession.    

To meet the needs of parents today, Rev. John Belmonte, S.J., has established a new evangelization non-profit named APP-OSTOLIC, and developed a mobile app called We Parent More. The tool aims to help the Church stay connected to parents between the time they bring their infant to be baptized and the time, a few years later, when they might introduce their three-year-old to pre-K connected to their parish school.

“We’re losing this generation,” warned Fr. Belmonte, superintendent of schools in the Diocese of Joliet. And part of the solution, he said, is the app’s array of customizable, updatable information resources.

“Our app attempts to meet young Catholic parents where they are most often found today—in the digital marketplace,” Fr. Belmonte said in an online interview. “Meeting them there, we hope to build a bridge to invite them into their parish and school. The We Parent More app is that bridge from the baptism of their children into the parish and Catholic school. It is the voice of the Church on their cell phones: 'Guess who’s calling?'”

With or without new technologies, best practices for Catholic school recruiting efforts rely on building relationships with families from the moment they enter the parish or express interest. A sense of community helps to create the trust and confidence that can lead parents to enroll their children in the parish school, said Cristina Espino, advancement coordinator for Notre Dame ACE Academies.

Especially in Latino communities, families want to feel welcomed into a meaningful relationship, to know that close friends and relatives have had a good experience, and to see that a parish community offers companionship in life’s daily journey, she said. It’s unclear if smartphone apps fill that need for schools with limited resources.

“It depends on who your target audience is,” Espino said, explaining that every parish must decide what demographic groups are most relevant to its service and outreach and how important different tools for outreach—such as apps or hard-copy bulletins—are to those groups. "Technology to keep people informed can be a very valuable tool, and families who stay informed, online or in hard copy, are already more likely to enroll their children."

Besides We Parent More, for example, the Our Sunday Visitor publishing company offers free set-up of “Faith in Action” websites and parish apps. An ecumenical company called Bluebridge provides various products, including what it calls “a digital bulletin.”

Technology will, no doubt, continue to evolve, but Espino said that people need to remain the focal point of recruiting efforts. The personal encounters that build and sustain communities need not be high-tech and can’t lose the human dimension.

“Apps can inform, but they won’t necessarily welcome.”