Participants in the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education’s Catholic Educator Formation and Credential Program at the headquarters of the Archdiocese of Denver. / Courtesy photo.
Denver, Colo., Oct 13, 2021 / 15:00 pm (CNA).
Catholic schools’ unique goals and qualities are the focus of a new program that aims to provide teachers with the formation and credentials for the task, and the Catholic schools of the Archdiocese of Denver are collaborating with the program.
“The men and women who have responded to a vocation in Catholic education deserve to be fed spiritually and intellectually to help them fulfill their ministerial role: to form joyful disciples of Jesus Christ,” Elizabeth Sullivan, executive director of the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, told CNA Oct. 12.
The institute and the Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Schools on Oct. 7 announced the launch of the Catholic Educator Formation and Credential Program to help prepare “well-formed” Catholic school teachers.
Sullivan said the institute’s decades of teacher formation work have helped schools achieve renewal as “vibrant communities of faith and learning.”
“The credential program draws upon and expands this formation into an even deeper grounding in the riches of the Catholic intellectual tradition,” she said.
If new applicants for teaching positions in the Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Schools do not have a state teaching license, they can complete the formation and credential program instead.
The program consists of several requirements: five courses; two retreats or workshops; and supervised teaching over 18 months. Those who complete the program will receive the institute’s Catholic Educator Credential.
The pilot program launched in August with 28 participating teachers. The program aims to become nationally recognized, with its credentials recognized across dioceses. It draws on Church teaching on Catholic education, especially as presented in the book The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools, by Archbishop J. Michael Miller, C.S.B. of Vancouver.
The institute’s certification program aims to provide “a robust alternative to state teacher licensure that provides rich formation in the philosophy and practice of Catholic intellectual tradition, which is distinct from the secular approach,” Sullivan said.
“Many have not recognized that this pragmatic, utilitarian approach undermines the wonder and mystery at the heart of faith,” she told CNA. “In addition, contemporary education is failing to form students who can think well, speak well, and write well.”
Dr. Alyssan Barnes, the director of the institute’s credential program, said that the certification program teaches educators basics, including lesson planning, literacy instruction, and effective pedagogy. She said the program also goes beyond a utilitarian sense of “best practices” by “rooting these essentials in the human person made for holiness.”
“The Lord has called us to tend his sheep,” Barnes told CNA. “What we are doing in Catholic schools is exactly that: caring for the upcoming saints of the next generation. We believe these children need not only something more than what the public school is offering; they need a different paradigm to understand the world around them. We want to support their teachers so they can convey this gift.”
For Barnes, Catholic liberal education “puts the Christ as the Logos at the center” and all truths are “fragments of this Truth.”
“Our credential program seeks to recover the Catholic intellectual tradition of uniting faith and reason – a long tradition that has shaped our world for the better,” she said. “We grow educators in teaching skills, yes, but we also focus on something absolutely essential for the Catholic teacher: developing a sacramental imagination that sees truth as one, as accessible, as communicable.”
The formation program will help educators “fulfill their ministerial role and instill in their students the joyful hope that is the foundation for discipleship,” the joint statement from the Denver archdiocese’s schools and the institute said.
The Denver archdiocese has over 35 schools, about 800 teachers, and over 8,000 students.
The Institute for Catholic Liberal Education, based in Ventura, Calif., was founded in 1999 with the goal of renewing Catholic education. It aims to promote “the Church’s vision and practice of liberal learning, which puts Jesus Christ, the Logos, at the center of the content, pedagogy, and school culture.”
Its president and founder, Michael J. Van Hecke, served as headmaster of St. Augustine Academy in Ventura for 20 years. The institute’s board of directors includes Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron of Los Angeles; Father John Belmonte, S.J., Superintendent of Catholic Education for the Diocese of Venice in Florida; and Mary Pat Donoghue, executive director of the Secretariat of Catholic Education for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Its board of advisors includes Archbishop Miller; Cardinal Raymond Burke, prefect emeritus of the Apostolic Signatura; Bishop James Conley of Lincoln; and Sister Mary Anne Zuberbueler, O.P., principal of Mary Immaculate School in Dallas.
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Finally, some common sense out of the Vatican. It is indeed time for a cease-fire and for peace.
Ukraine will undoubtedly have to give up the Donbass and Crimea, but that is the best and most organic solution in these circumstances. The peoples of those regions are already spiritually alienated from the Kiev regime–and rightly so.
May they now attain political/geographical independence from Ukraine and therefore from Ukraine’s overlords in the US.
Jews remember the Holocaust. Ukraine remembers the Holodomor. Zelensky, Ukraine’s Jewish president, remembers both. No sane and decent person would want to be subject to the perpetrators of ether horror. Stalin’s forced mass starvation that killed seven million Ukrainians was followed up by Russian colonization. Putin, who glorifies Stalin, now pretends that these colonists were always there and that he must conquer the rest of Ukraine to protect them. Pope Francis has been calling for cease fires and negotiations since the war began. I remember an interview with him where he was asked why he did not speak more forcefully against Putin. The pope replied that everyone knows who started this war but he wanted to let the Russians save face if they stopped it.
The holodomor was carried out by Stalin’s Jewish henchman Lazar Kaganovich. Many Russian Jews favored the Holodomor–seeing in it revenge against the goyim of Ukraine. Stalin was a philo-semite throughout the bulk of his career. His Russia even had laws punishing anti-semitism with death. The rape of Germany was encouraged by Jewish propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg.
Putin has not glorified Stalin–but, yes, he does honor the Russian army because it defended Russia, was essential to defeating Nazism, and liberated the eastern camps.
Putin is liberating Eastern and Southern Ukraine from malevolent thugs masquerading as Ukrainian patriots.
Sure. All of Russia’s numerous crimes against humanity are singularly traceable to Jews, none of it to atheistic “Christians”.
Your use of “overlords” suuggests you are not disinterested but clearly pro-Russian.
Nothing you said was remotely true. It seems to indicate you have simply swallowed the Russian propaganda line.
it SHOULD be a flag of surrender…Ukraine is outnumbered and should know when to quit.
Ukraine’s Holodomor was indeed perpetrated by a paranoid Stalin dealing with starvation and growing rebellion throughout the Soviet Union due to collectivization and consequent failure of Russia’s grain crops. Fear of losing Ukraine the politburo decided on extermination of the Ukrainian people [the Irish potato famine exacerbated by British arrogance and greed is a milder comparison]. When Nazi Germany invaded the USSR 1942 many Ukrainians turned to Germany, Hitler stupidly still considered them subhumans. Nevertheless many Ukrainians fought alongside the Germans. The wounds are so deep that it would take a miracle for reconciliation, Putin’s decision to invade and this current war makes that virtually impossible.
On the other hand Zelenskiy is a corrupt dictator. US funds have poured into Ukraine with little if any accountability. War in Ukraine and the continued support of a Ukrainian victory, whatever that is supposed to be, seems beyond any realistic assessment. Only continued suffering and enormous casualties. Negotiation and compromise are the apparent solution. On this I support Pope Francis. Chris Albrecht’s assessment for a negotiated settlement is probably the right one.
Justice defines a Christian perspective to war. Analyzing the interests of a beleaguered Ukraine, a concerned West, Russia, a settlement granting Ukraine universal sovereignty satisfies Western interests, achieves Ukraine independence, its freedom of association with the West, grants Russia its strategic interests in Crimea and the Donbas, limits its expansionist capacity.
Russia invaded Ukraine and has killed a huge number of innocent people including children and has also kidnapped innumerable children and has taken them to Russia for enslavement and brainwashing. And you and the Pope say, hey, just negotiate and compromise.
Unfortunately you both have a lot of Putin-appeasing colleagues in the Republican Party, which is why I have abandoned it.
It is true that the Catholic Church has been persecuted by Russia even after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Priests and sisters arrested, many murdered. Similarly according to Catholic sources during the Ukraine war under Russian occupation. My comments are directed at a possible solution to the conflict, not appeasement. Limiting Russia to the Donbas and Crimea, and the withdrawal from all other territory is a reasonable compromise.
This is one of the hairy chestnut from the left. Do YOU have sons you want to sacrifice in a foreign war? Many of us with sons will opt out of that one. Republicans are NOT Putin appeasers, nor is Trump a Putin lover, which is yet another DEM slander accepted by credulous followers of the left. Republicans ARE however, concerned about ACCOUNTABILITY for where our aid money is being spent. WE are concerned that OUR soldiers not be killed in a war which at this moment in time should more rightfully be the responsibility of Europe. Maybe if western NATO countries spent fewer dollars on social freebies for it’s citizens and MORE on their military, they would be able to make their NATO payments and protect themselves instead of dragging us into their own continental altercations.What Republicans dont want is yet another endless war conducted on a timid social services basis. Thats good for our enemies and ALWAYS bad for us.
For example, we are now going to build a port for GAZA???? REALLY??? Brilliant!! (sarcasm).Suppose we actually return to the past war model and have a war where we pound our enemies into the ground?? Instead of slapping them with kid gloves, instead of rebuilding their infrastructure, which would never had been destroyed in the first place had they behaved like actual human beings. While I am at it, I observe some of our OWN infrastructure could afford to be rebuilt with that money, instead of funding wars which should be fought by others—the principals involved. “Republicans, they dont want to fight other people’s wars!!!” Whew!! That quite an accusation!! NOT.
LJ, you’re among the few who speak common sense.
I say we should return to a country based on our Constitution. Our Constitution states that only Congress can declare war. To fund a conflict anywhere in the world is to participate in an undeclared war. This madness needs to stop. Korea was a “police action” and not a war declared by our Congress. Viet Nam which killed 50,000 soldiers was not a war declared by Congress. If we as Americans believe an armed war is in our national interest, then let a president petition Congress to declare war. The madness needs to stop. If anyone here has not noticed, we now have a government that operates almost wholly by fiat and not accoding to our Constitution. That’s not a democracy; that’s anarchy and totalitarianism.
I’m amazed you can say this with a straight face while Putin’s armies tried to assassinate Archbishop Shevchuk, kidnap Catholic priests, burn and confiscate Catholic churches, rape Catholic women, and place Catholic children in reeducation centers to beat their language, culture and faith out of them. The Church was always free to operate in Zelenskyy’s Ukraine; it is practically an underground institution in Putin’s Russia.
Correction, Germany invaded the Soviet Union June of 1941.
Could anyone imagine Christ weighing in on issues pertaining to the Roman empire, or Herod’s administrative acts as an agent of the Romans, or what the governor of Judea was up to? Yet the Vicar of Christ seems to think that he’s just another Caesar. I think not. He should stick to the salvation of souls and the Faithful conforming their wills to God will.
Popes have intervened in the affairs of nations and empires throughout the church’s history. There are papal nuncios around the world. Saint Pius X tried to head off world war I and his successor Benedict XV tried to arrange peace talks. Saint John Paul II made things hot for the Soviet Union. Corruption? Zalenski lives in bunkers, Putin stays in palaces. Billion dollar yachts are for Russian oligarchs. Trying to expose Putin’s vast wealth has gotten a lot of people murdered. The overwhelming priority on spending for Ukraine right now is on artillery ammunition which is either bought from third parties or diverted from our own scanty production.
I am saying that Popes ought to stay out of politics. That the bailiwick of Catholic laymen. They can pontificate about Christian virtuous living but the specifics ought to be left to the laity. This Pope can hardly get his theology right but geopolitics is certainly not his area of expertise.
Actually, St. Pope John Paul II didn’t “make things [literally] hot for the Soviet Union.” Instead, he counseled Poland on a different path, which in the precise circumstances (!) of the 1980s, enabled the dismantling of the Soviet Union with almost zero shots being fired (I think limited mostly to Estonia and maybe a dozen fatalities).
From the back bleachers, four points to ponder:
FIRST, said John Paul II:
“Instead, it [the world after the geographic concessions at Yalta] has been overcome by the non-violent commitment of people [Polish Solidarity] who, while always refusing to yield to the force of power, succeeded time after time in finding effective ways of bearing witness to the truth. This disarmed the adversary, since violence always needs to justify itself through deceit, and to appear, however falsely, to be defending a right or responding to a threat posed by others” (Centesimus Annus, CA, 1991, n. 23).
Are the “circumstances” today in Ukraine anywhere near equivalent to Poland and the world in the 1980s? Or, instead, more like the Sudetenland in 1938: Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” at Munich? Or, something else?
SECOND, about the Holy See engaging in temporal matters beyond its competence or direct commission and responsibility:
Yes, “[t]he Church has no models to present, models that are real and truly effective can only arise within the framework [circumstances] of different historical situations, through the efforts of all those who responsibly confront concrete problems in all their social, economic, political and cultural aspects, as these interact with one another.” (CA n. 43, citing Gaudium et Spes n. 36). And, yet, is moral witness adavailability doomed to be gagged in the back room?
THIRD, for the United States, is the precarious choice whether we have the chops to resist, both at the same time, Russian expansionism in Europe and Chinese expansionism in the Pacific? Lessons from recent European history might teach us something about a two-front war.
FOURTH, and then there’s the question whether mutually respected mediators, if there are any, still include a Vatican which signed “not the best possible deal [!]” for the Church itself in China, and which by studied ambiguity seems to many to have surrendered its grip on moral clarity.
Editorially harmonizing of “polarities” doesn’t really get at the presence of real evil in the world.
Concerning the expression “putting the heat on the Soviets” was meant to mean the communist leaders were in political hot water so I apologize for the confusion. Still the reference was to the political involvement of Saint John Paul II which in no way suggests any violent methods. There was plenty of potential for violence on the communist side both in Poland and the USSR. I will discuss Peter D Beaulieu’s list of possible historical comparisons tomorrow . He as usual is very through but still misses several very relevant periods and influences that relate very much to today. God bless.
Unfortunately, due to history beyond his control, the Pope wears two hats-head of State and head of Church and he must juggle both at same time! 😰James Connor
I hardly consider the Vatican as a State and the Pope as a Head of State – no more than Christ would be the Head of any State. When the leader of our Church insinuates himself into politics, it usually means that we have serious mission drift going on. I know one thing for certain: I am not a citizen of the Vatican and the Pope is not my temporal leader. The Pope is Christ’s Vicar and Christ was not, is not nor ever will be the head of any State.
More careless language from PF. I am under the impression that “white flag” is universally interpreted as surrender.
Vatican “damage control department” on call again.
It’s embarrassing/infuriating.
Cleo, you are under the wrong impression. The white flag signals a parley for various purposes. I could cite many examples from many conflicts. For example, in both world wars brief truces were arranged to tend each others wounded and evacuate them. This was possible if the opponent was sane and minimally civilized but otherwise no. With Germans this was possible if the foe were ordinary line units but definitely not so with SS fanatics.
It appears that his expertise is deficient not only in matters of meteorology but in international relations as well. Who can forget his embrace of Communist China?
Less interviews.
JJR – Oh. Thanks for the correction.
Obama did nothing when Russia invaded the Krim. Biden offered Zelenski asylum but he stayed in Kiev to fight for his nation’s freedom. It’s a miracle that he is still alive.
Corrupt means nothing anymore in politics. If Russia wins Ukraine, Putin will invade more European nations and we have Eastern European countries under Russian dictatorship again or war against Europe including Nato members or WWIII. Putin needs to be defeated now. Zelenski is a freedom fighter against communist Russia and the freedom of the world. May God bless Ukraine and President Zelenski.
Russia is not a communist nation. Russia believes in private property and is friendly to Christianity. Their military even has a Cathedral in honor of the Resurrected Christ.
https://www.bing.com/videos/riverview/relatedvideo?q=russia%27s+military+cathedral&mid=25F7952CF66DECF7820C25F7952CF66DECF7820C&FORM=VIRE
By contrast, Zelensky represents the trashy Judeo-Western culture of globo-homo (in all senses of that word), transgenderism (see for instance, the Ukie army “spokesperson”), pornography, sexual “freedom”, hedonism, atheism/agnosticism, child trafficking, wokeism, liberal “democracy”, usury, graft, and all manner of corruption–and (lousy) Starbucks coffee.
When the war is over, this clown will no doubt flee to one of his villas and live the high life.
I wish we did not have THAT cathedral. Speaking as an iconographer, it is truly dreadful – I mean the concept and its execution.
It is the war or a natural evil (Putin etc.) and unnatural evil (Biden etc). I give those names as mere representations of different kinds of evil. The first does not destroy the primary building blocks of humanity: the notions of man and woman as such. The second seeks to destroy those blocks. Dugin, an ideologist of Putin, ecstatically speaks of “the fairy nuclear Apocalypse” as “an ultimate purification” while gender ideologists work on creating bloodless chaos.
Hence, we have two possibilities, or an ancient chaos of a total straightforward destruction and the new, more sophisticated way of destruction, where there is nothing certain, even “gender”.
Personally, I prefer a natural evil to an in natural evil but both are Antichrist so we (Christians) cannot join either.
Even if one believes in (which I emphatically do not) the justice of Ukraine’s cause, Catholic ethical doctrine does not believe in fighting to the last man (or, nowadays, non-binary entity?). At a certain point, it is clear that one side has the upper hand and that a nation must ask for peace terms, for the sake of their own citizenry.
Russia is winning. They captured Bakhmut, crushed the Ukie counteroffensive, and now they have captured Avdiivka. They have neutralized every western supplied “game-changer”–from HIMARS to the Abrams tank.
Yes, they take their time in war as they do in chess. But they are not interested in the propaganda war–only in the facts on the ground and the eventual result, which will come very soon when the reserve army of 300, 000 is unleashed!
That is what a tough, persistent, martial nation does.
Drink the bitter waters of defeat, O ye forces of Antichrist!
“against communist Russia”
This is funny.
if you would have lived in the Eastern nations of Europe under the Russion oppression for 40 years and East Germany behind the wall under Putin the top agent of the KGB communist rule you would not think it is funny at all. A dangerous thing that young people do not know history.
I was born in the USSR )).
You give Putin too much significance (at that time in Germany).
Speaking of history, I found it funny that you call the current Russia “communist” while the USSR fell apart in 1991.
Putin wants to restore the evil power of the USSR. He has anyone in his way who is opposing him killed. We have the testimony of those who escaped in tunnels under the wall that they built. I was born in Germany.
The Pontiff Francis, who has committed himself to thwarting justice when his friends are exposed as sex abusers (such as “Rev.” Julio Grassi from his earlier days in Argentina, and “Rev.” Rupnik, to bring us up to date), has publicly appealed for “a just and lasting peace.”
That is, he appeals to tyrants for what he refuses to the victims of his friends.
For the sake of insurance, he ought not be standing outside under cloud-cover, lest lightning strike.
As King of a tiny utopia, snuggled inside the EU and NATO, complete with a clown army and countless treasures, take my advice…
Long live dialogue. Human beings are privileged to be journeying through life in an era of dialogue and more dialogue.