In Drawing New Maps of Hope, a recently released apostolic letter by Pope Leo XIV, the first American pontiff lays out an encouraging picture of resilience and renewal in the field of education in Catholic institutions. Rev. Robert Sirico has played an active role in that renaissance over the last few decades at the Acton Institute and Sacred Heart Academy, both in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Here, he speaks with Andrea Kirk Assaf on a new initiative to support and expand the many new classical schools and other educational projects that comprise the St. John Henry Newman Institute for Perennial Catholic Education. Just last year, Pope Leo XIV named St. John Henry Newman a patron saint of Catholic education, alongside St. Thomas Aquinas.
The following conversation has been lightly edited for clarity.
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Is there a renaissance occurring in Catholic education today? If so, what accounts for this?
Reverend Robert Sirico: Yes, most astoundingly one sees reports everywhere. The Newman Institute is overwhelmed with groups contacting us and wanting to move in that direction, and the news is acknowledging that. Why? A combo of several things. One is a crisis in the culture, much of which is precipitated by the new tech that has focused parents’ attention on the quality of the education of their kids—[parents] who were more trusting of public education in the past.
Tech has created an antipathy on the whole and provoked a rethinking of how to approach education. We have seen [at Sacred Heart Academy] in Grand Rapids something that I think has been seen in the U.S. in general and perhaps around the world, and that is the impact of Covid. When schools closed down, parents intuitively understood the negative impact this had upon their children’s formation, and, when schools re-opened, new enrollment shifted the numbers at Sacred Heart so that the school grew by a third in one year. And this has been replicated across the U.S. Simultaneously, there has been an acceleration of homeschooling, and much of the curriculum that parents have chosen has been classical.
“Tech has created an antipathy on the whole and provoked a rethinking of how to approach education.”
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Can you tell us a bit about the transformation that took place at Sacred Heart Academy that saved the school from closing?
Rev. Sirico: I confess that I came to Sacred Heart without any experience running a parish school. While I did have an appreciation for the Great Books and classical education, I had no work experience with it, and, really, if you sat me down and asked me then, I would be hard pressed to define it. I just wanted it to be an authentically Catholic school. You could see that Catholic authenticity was lacking in the demeanor of the students, in the art on the walls. And there was a lack of a sense of spirituality, with only one Mass a week, which was a “children’s Mass.”
When the bishop appointed me, he said I could close the school, but that would have been the last Catholic school in that area of Grand Rapids, and I thought that was precarious for the whole area in general and for the future of the parish. All those problems were actually blessings in disguise, because there was very little to fight over. It was either make a big change or close. So I sat down with people and began talking about it. A number of people stepped forward to help, not all with experience, but there was one who had run a classical school in Colorado, so I latched onto him and we began to make changes in December of 2012. By May of 2013, I decided that there would be a daily parish Mass, and the children would attend. The “Our Father” was chanted in Latin, and the children began to pick it up even before we started teaching Latin in school.
There were several other reforms and additions that took place. When I arrived, the school was obtaining rental payments for some rooms from public teachers working there, but, as it was state-funded, all Catholic symbols had to be removed, and we had no control over the curriculum that was being taught. We decided to stop accepting this subsidy and put the art back on the walls and brought the statue of Mary out of the closet. The hot-lunch program from the federal government was stopped, as well, which carried with it various regulations concerning food and bathrooms, and parents began providing the meals.
Another new development involving parents came from the longstanding Latin Mass community that had been a part of our parish since the 1990s, following the indult of St. John Paul II. Many of these parents were homeschooling, so I approached them and asked if they would consider sending their children to the parish school if they knew [their children] were really getting a solid, classical education. The end result of these conversations was the creation of a twice-a-week program for homeschoolers, which is now in its fourteenth year. They’ve made a valuable contribution to the culture of the school, as these parents are vitally involved.
Other changes included the introduction of uniforms, the hiring of teachers from Hillsdale College’s Graduate School of Classical Education, and the addition of a high school as the younger kids grew up and wanted to stay on. Professionals within the parish become teachers to give expert instruction in their fields—such as law and medicine—which increased our “competitive advantage” with the other, more established Catholic high schools in the city.
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Why was there a need to begin the St. John Henry Newman Institute?
Rev. Sirico: There has been a spontaneous movement in various areas toward a classical Catholic education, but there wasn’t a national meeting, or very few. An opportunity arose, with a benefactor of the parish, who wanted to consolidate his philanthropic giving if I would, in my retirement, help other schools replicate the success of Sacred Heart’s turnaround.
My contribution to the Church and the conservative movement is seeing the big picture and putting organizations together. So we put together a network of organizations involved in this world of liturgical and academic excellence. Twenty to twenty-five groups came together, thanks to the support of this organization, and had a meeting to just ask one another what they were doing well, what they wanted to do, and what were the gaps. We identified needs and opportunities and created task forces. We funded various initiatives in the movement as a whole. Since that initial meeting, we have expanded to teacher training and accreditation.
A classical school doesn’t fit the typical [John] Dewey model that dominates not only secular schools but also parochial schools. For example, “teaching [toward] the test” and predicating your curriculum on standardized tests because it looks towards [college-entrance] exams. The schools in our network instead have an integrated approach to educating the whole human person—the classical model.
Newman is assisting schools and parent groups to make this approach more accessible and to accelerate the process.
“The schools in our network have an integrated approach to educating the whole human person—the classical model.”
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Why did you choose St. John Henry Newman as the namesake of the initiative?
Rev. Sirico: It was the easiest choice in the world. In my teens and early twenties, I was away from the Church, and when I began to come back my spiritual director advised me to read Newman’s On the Development of Christian Doctrine and The Idea of a University. At the time, I was in England and was able to go by Newman’s own impact, which helped his ideas take even deeper root with me. I realized that The Idea of a University is all about the incarnation of Christ, the integration of education, not just independent topics. It was the antithesis of Dewey.
For anyone interested in classical education The Idea of a University is the one to read. Everything else in this field, like John Senior, is a commentary on Newman. Newman does need to be translated a bit into the modern parlance because of his Victorian way of speaking. I’ve never had such a literary experience as when I read his work. I felt like the author was with me. His motto, “Cor ad cor loquitur,” has become the motto of Sacred Heart School.
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Could you summarize Newman’s approach?
Rev. Sirico: Newman believed that education is the formation of the heart. We learn things through our environment, through nature, beauty, music, liturgy, art. Education is wisdom, not only facts. It’s our ability to ask and answer the “why” questions. Modern education has failed as an anthropological model because it doesn’t take into account who the human person is. He’s not only biological; there is something transcendent about man.
Andrea Kirk Assaf: Why did you add on “Perennial Catholic Education”?
Rev. Sirico: One of the in-house debates in Catholic education concerns what to call this approach. Classical education actually predates the Catholic Church because it originated in ancient Greece and Rome. But it is not only classical; it has gone through a theological process. In all these phases, there is a constant that continues through all the changes. Perennial encompasses the classical, Catholic, and even the modern phases. It helps us understand the meaning of human beings on this planet, not just in one particular epoch. This is what challenges multiculturalism, which segments and fractures the human experience. Rather, this approach is universal, looking for beauty wherever it has been found.
One of the raps that classical education has is that “all we are doing is studying dead white men,” but this isn’t actually true. It teaches us how to think, so we can study content that comes from anywhere, and we can read it through a grammar of intelligibility. It helps us to logically grapple with ideas. The problem with the other approach, multiculturalism, is that it fragments education.
Andrea Kirk Assaf: What are the current activities and programs open to educators who are interested in this approach?
Rev. Sirico: Currently, we have something called the “School Accelerator Program,” which will be held at the Augustine Institute in St. Louis, Missouri, in July. We also organize the “School Leaders Summit,” provided during the annual Acton University gathering at the end of June in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Held simultaneously with the Acton event, in the same building, is the classical education track, an ecumenical event for educators pursuing the good, the true, and the beautiful in their own schools and co-ops. Our third type of event is called an “Awakening Summit.” Our team travels to meet a community interested in learning more about the Catholic intellectual tradition and to facilitate conversations with local leadership and institutions who are seeking an educational renewal.
[Editor’s note: All events can be found here.]
Andrea Kirk Assaf is a homeschool teacher, writer, and professor of the art and architecture of Rome with Roots in Rome, a pilgrimage and study-abroad company based near the Vatican, created by her and her husband, Tony, in 2014. Reverend Robert Sirico is the founder and president of the St. John Henry Newman Institute for Perennial Catholic Education, the co-founder and president emeritus of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, and the pastor emeritus of Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish and Academy, all in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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