By CatholicVote | Created at 2024-11-06 22:06:25 | Updated at 2024-11-07 00:32:23
2 hours ago
CV NEWS FEED // Catholic education in the U.S. has entered a “second spring” as more colleges begin to embrace truly Catholic ideals, according to the founder of the Cardinal Newman Society.
To illustrate his hope in the future of Catholic colleges, founder Patrick Reilly quoted St. John Henry Newman’s 1852 homily, in which the saint had expressed his joy at seeing the Catholic Church reborn in England. According to then-Father Newman, the return of the faith to England was a miracle that he termed a “second spring.”
Reilly said that the U.S. is similarly “witnessing a ‘Newman’ moment” as Catholic colleges and universities listed in the Newman Guide — a catalog of faithfully Catholic schools — undergo a spiritual renewal. He added that the schools experienced a “reversal against the strongest tide of secularism and hostility to Christianity this nation has ever seen.”
“Catholic education was headed rapidly toward oblivion in the United States, only decades after its glorious rise in cities and missions from the Atlantic to the Pacific, forming millions of Catholics in knowledge, moral virtue, prayer, and sacrament,” he wrote. “Now, in faithful Newman Guide education, the light of Catholic education shines ever more brightly in a broken society that yearns for truth and hope.”
As CatholicVote previously reported, enrollment in Newman Guide schools has steadily increased in the past decade, even as overall college enrollment across the country drops.
Reilly noted that the renewal of Catholic education is truly a miracle, an event that “couldn’t come about simply by human effort.”
“Once-stagnant schools and colleges are being reformed and renewed. New, vibrantly faithful schools and colleges are opening,” he said. “Faithful Catholic homeschooling and hybrid options are booming. And Catholic families around the country are once again embracing Catholic formation,” he wrote. And how is all of this coming about? Like a ‘second spring,’ by the clear hand of God.”
Citing Cardinal Newman’s “second spring” homily delivered to English bishops, Reilly highlighted that springtime brings storms as well as flowers. To carry on the mission even in the face of storms, Reilly urged Catholics to trust in God and the intercession of the saints, especially St. John Henry Newman.
“God will bring about His miracle, if He wills it. We can place great hope in the blooming of Newman’s vision today, more than a century after his death,” Reilly wrote. “And we can unite for both spiritual and material support, strengthening each other and fortifying Newman Guide education against the storms that blow.”
