Jesus, You knew work in this world, and You understand its hardships and joys… Hear our prayer today.

Working is a human trait… Work is sacred… The beauty of the earth and the dignity of work were meant to be united… The earth becomes beautiful when man works… Lord, You see that we believe this with conviction, but we desire even more for it to become a reality among us.

We are saddened when people can’t find work and lack the dignity of bringing bread to their home. Give us the light of your Spirit, open our hearts, do not let indifference overcome us.

Help us recover the gift of universal brotherhood. We ask for a heart as big as Jesus’s so we can embrace the call to work to give dignity to people and families.

Amen.

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By Robert Moynihan, March 20, 2025

Despite the best interpretation put on the data by the National Catholic Education Association, our nation’s Catholic schools are emptying and closing.

Here below is a chart showing the general trend over the last 85 years, from the late 1930s until today. The number of students went up from 2.4 million in 1939 to 5.25 million in 1959, and since then, for 65 years, the number has steadily declined to just under 1.7 million:

A “Church crisis” becomes an “educational crisis”

In the decade of the 1960s, several phenomena began to occur at once, all of them affecting the nation’s Catholic children.
 
Nuns began to leave their convents. (According to some statistics, religious vocations have declined as much as 70% since 1965.)

This meant that there were simply too few nuns to teach in Catholic schools.

These schools, therefore, are now staffed predominantly, often exclusively, by paid lay people rather than unpaid religious.

And that translates into Catholic school tuitions that have skyrocketed in response.

But many families, especially low-income families, cannot afford these tuition costs.
 
Meanwhile, Catholic dioceses, which often help financially support their parochial schools to greater or lesser extents, have in many cases in recent decades been crippled by large payouts to clerical abuse victims, restricting the amount of funding they can devote to schools.
 
For these reasons, and others as well, Catholic Americans have become quite secularized, and Catholic education increasingly does not seem to many to be worth the often hefty financial sacrifice it requires. 
 
Especially vulnerable to financial pressures are broken families in which children’s households are headed by a single parent (usually the mother). In 2021, the median income for a married two-parent household was $101,000; for a household headed by a single mother, $32,000.
 
Further, the failure in religious formation since the 1960s has lessened the number of well-catechized, devout teachers and school administrators, whose primary goal should be to pass on the Faith and the Catholic intellectual heritage to the next generation.

Why Catholic education?

St. Thomas Aquinas states in his Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics that the pursuit of education is “ordered to a single thing, namely, to man’s perfection, which is happiness.”

If “happiness” and “man’s perfection” is the goal of education, how successful are educators in hitting the mark?
 
If drug use among the nation’s teenagers is any indication of levels of unhappiness, the picture does not look good.

Some 43% of America’s teens report marijuana use (almost 7% of 12th-graders on a daily basis), and that does not include many other drugs available to them.
 
Of course, not all childhood distress can be laid at the feet of education. The situation of the family is as desperate as that of the school. Nearly half of marriages, even Catholic ones, end in divorce. 
 
And the relationship between parental divorce and teen depression, drug use and legal trouble is well-documented. 
 
And social mores in general, particularly in the area of sexual morality — once presenting a set of “guardrails” that helped parents, and society, to enforce at least a modicum of familial and social stability — have been relaxed to the point of irrelevance.

How can the Church cope with this situation?

Certainly we must try to support authentic Catholic education wherever we can — education that includes the “struggle to arrive at truth” which Pope Benedict XVI spoke of in his 2012 address to Catholic Educators at the Catholic University of America (see excerpt here).

That struggle is meant to arrive at a recognition of the Logos — the creative reasoning of God — and consequently a love of Him and His goodness as evident in all creation.
 
But more and more Catholics are realizing that the institutions we have been relying upon to educate our children are not in fact succeeding.

The answer may be that we must take matters into our own hands.
 
Many have done this by leaving the parochial schools to begin homeschooling; others have started small schools in their own Catholic communities; a few have cobbled together a combination of the two, referred to as “hybrid schools.”
 
But there are also a few brave souls who have simply decided to go into a school and try to make a difference themselves, with their own time and talents.

One of them is a retired executive named Bill Schult.

From the corporate boardroom to the inner city classroom

Bill Schult went to help inner city children as his Christian duty. He got more than he bargained for.

In an age in which humanity itself is in question – in which AI and algorithms and digital identities are rapidly taking the place of genuine human interaction – the notion of performing the corporal and spiritual works of mercy oneself, in person, is becoming almost quaint.

Yet Bill Schult, 63, did precisely that.

A successful Catholic corporate executive, now retired from the business world, Bill decided that rather than donating a sum of money to a diocesan outreach program or a large Catholic NGO, he would take matters into his own hands.

That’s how he wound up working in inner-city Cincinnati, a city where many of its citizens are considered to be living below the poverty line.

Located there is Corryville Catholic Elementary School, one of the city’s CISE (Catholic Inner-city School Education) institutions.

Bill was there to do something he’d never done before: perform an act of service among disadvantaged inner-city children in the name of Christ.

There are not many Catholic churches left in America’s inner cities.

Once built up by European immigrants, the religious heritage of many of these communities is predominantly Protestant.

So the Catholic Church has a smaller presence there.

Many students at the school come from homes which face significant financial hardships, separation or instability.

At the heart of the city, Corryville Catholic School remains a faithful presence that has endured, shedding light into a sometimes dark place.

With a strong sense of community and dedication to academic and moral excellence, the school, led by its principal, Mr. Jessie Back, strives to be a source of hope, guidance, and opportunity for every child it serves.

Bill Schult’s choice

“After completing my corporate career, I knew that I wanted to work in the Catholic world, ” Schult said.

“I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, but I knew that I have been given much and that therefore much was expected from me.

“So it was out of the question that I would simply retire.

“My license plate for many years has been John 15:5, which is ‘I am the vine and you are the branches. Whoever lives in me and I in him will bear much fruit because without me, you can do nothing.’ I have always loved this verse and I have tried to live it.

“So when I exited my last company in June 2021, I resolved to take a few months off before beginning a search for new employment in earnest, but instead became aware of an interim (4-month) opportunity as a teacher’s aide in an inner city Catholic elementary school. I interviewed for and was offered this position and accepted it.

“At the time,” he continues, “I figured I could do anything for four months.

“More than three years later, I am still there and see great value every day in what my colleagues and I do.”

This was not Bill Schult’s comfort zone.

“When I first arrived at the school in November 2021, I hated the work that I was assigned,” Schult said. “I thought that I would be tutoring children in various subjects, but it was much more mundane than that. I was responsible for greeting the children when they arrived, and then helping them with breakfast. This included opening cereal boxes, pouring milk, and cleaning up spills during and after breakfast.

“I had just concluded 38 years in Finance and Accounting, where I led teams of 200 people and had various levels of assistants to handle every type of task that might come my way.

“In 2018, I led, from a finance perspective, the sale of the company where I worked for an amount in excess of $2 billion.

“In 2021, I did the same thing at another company for an amount approaching $1.4 billion.

“I had been to dozens of countries in my career, and had interacted with prominent individuals in the worlds of business and to some extent even in politics.

“I had been to the best hotels and restaurants all over the world.

“I was largely responsible for strategy and high-level tactical execution, and suddenly I was cleaning up milk spills for a bunch of children.”

“Give us a child for seven years, and we will give you the man”

The teaching and guidance of children is not just a nice thing for the students; it is a bedrock of society and of human flourishing; and it can be an avenue to the building up of the Body of Christ.

As such, there is a long heritage of Catholic education: a saying associated with the Jesuits, and sometimes attributed originally to St. Ignatius Loyola, is “Give us a child for seven years, and we will give you the man.”

Early spiritual formation — or lack of it — they recognized, is profoundly etched upon the soul of the human being.

The Jesuits are just one religious order that recognized the tremendous value in the formation of young children; another is the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, founded in 1804 by St. Julie Biliart in Amiens, France.

Corryville Catholic is an elementary school founded by the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur in 1877. It serves children of all faith backgrounds, and none, and only a small percentage are Catholic. (If you want to read more about the school and its history and mission, please check out this link).

A crisis in education, a crisis in society

The situation confronting Bill Schult upon his arrival at Corryville Catholic was similar to the one present in virtually every American inner city.Though he found the children to be delightful — as all children are, in their native innocence and beauty of soul — the home situations of some of the children were difficult.

“Some come from broken families,” says Schult. “Some have experienced instability and even neglect.

“It is terribly sad.

“Many of them do not know or have never been told that they are children of God.

“I’ve learned in my dealings with these students and other young people that many are starving for that truth.

“When I started, on top of the difficult home lives that many of the children have, they had only recently returned to school after the Covid lockdowns, and were still wearing masks.

“I have since heard from the more experienced teachers that the Covid response’s impact has been devastating.

“Some of the students today are not able to do on their own what students the same age could do on their own four years ago and previous to that,” Schult says.

“I have hope that over time that prospects for these children will improve as they ‘catch up’ from the Covid disaster and as we continue to emphasize God and faith. The latter is very important to the new principal, who took over at the beginning of the school year. But the biggest factor continues to be a safe and loving environment at home,” he adds.

“To be honest, at first I was embarrassed…”

“To be honest, at first I was embarrassed to be seen by my former colleagues doing the work of a teacher’s aide, and I prayed that no one I knew would ever see me in that setting.

“When I interacted with visitors to the school, I always made sure to tell them that I was ‘only there on an interim basis’ and that I would be ‘leaving shortly.’

“And of course, I just had to mention my previous responsibilities in business, lest they look down on me.

“At one point, the principal asked me to head up a business club that they were starting, since this was my area of expertise. I thanked her for the opportunity, but I told her that I would be leaving the moment that my four months were up, as I did not like the work at all.

“And so I set out to complete my commitment and get the heck out of that school as soon as possible.

“But then something strange began to happen.

“I began to see my work as a form of service.

“If Jesus could wash the feet of His disciples, why couldn’t I do all of the things that are part of an aide’s job, including all of the menial tasks?”

“I began to form relationships with the students”

“I began to form relationships with the students and recognized that they looked up to me and even came to me with curious and insightful questions that I had not previously considered.

“I began to realize that God had put me in the lives of these children, and had put them in my life for a specific purpose.

“As a well-read and well-educated Catholic, I could answer questions from a Catholic perspective that they might not get from someone else, and over time, I really began to see the work I was doing as a form of service.

“What had initially seemed to be below me, was something that I was being called to do.

“Rather than being embarrassed by the type of work I was doing, I was happy to talk about it to others when asked, and also where it made sense to do so in order to raise awareness and sometimes even raise money for the school.

“I began to love these children and made it my aim to treat them as well as I treat my own grandchildren in every interaction and exchange.

“I do consider Jesus to be the vine and I am His branch, and I want that branch to grow and extend to everything I touch.

“People often tell me that the students are lucky to have someone as experienced as me teaching in their school.

“That may be true, but I’m lucky to have the privilege of interacting with these children of God.

“At the end of the last school year, one student told me that she would be spending time during the summer, trying to learn more about her faith. This presented me with the perfect opportunity to give her a booklet on the Catholic Church.”

“I love you, Mr. Bill”

“I work with children from ages 4 through 10. Many of the younger ones have told me ‘I love you, Mr. Bill,’ as I think they value the stability and consistency I provide (which are both often missing from their lives) and because they recognize that I take an interest in them.

“One third grade girl even confided to me that she hoped she might find ‘a husband just like you’ when she grows up.

“I also have received many thanks directly from parents along the lines of ‘thank you for taking an interest in my child; he/she talks about you all the time.’

“I have worked in all grades from pre-school to 4th grade. I am an aide, so my job with the older kids is to tutor them where they need help. So one day I might work with 3 kids in math. The next day I might work with 2 kids on reading.

“The school is in a somewhat dangerous neighborhood and the parking is not ideal, yet teachers and staff have chosen to work there.

“Teachers in Catholic schools do not earn as much as their peers in public schools, but nevertheless teach in these schools as a labor of love.”

Toward a renewal of Catholic education

I asked Bill Schult what he wished to do about the crisis in Catholic education.

“There is little we can do regarding many of the most difficult issues,” he said. “At school, we have to continue to let these kids know that God loves them and also what He has in store for them. That is the most important thing we can do.

“I would like to be in touch with others who would like to work to get this message across to children. Together we may be able to do something that will bring about the renewal of Catholic elementary education.”

The post One Man’s Response to the Crisis in Catholic Education appeared first on The Papal Foundation.

Lord, Good Father, as I look at the world and see men and women working in it and beautifying it, a great “Thank You!” springs from my heart. The action of Your Spirit among us encourages us to grow in the progress of science and technology in the service of human dignity for integral and inclusive human development.

Because we know You desire the good of all, from the heart of Your Church, Your Son calls us to ensure that technology does not replace “person-to-person” contact, that the virtual does not replace the real, and that social networks do not replace social settings.

Help us develop the ability to live wisely, to think deeply, to love generously, without losing heart, promoting scientific and technological growth that increasingly aligns with human development in responsibility, values, and awareness.

Amen.

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Good Father, You want all of us to contribute to building a better world, creating bridges instead of walls.

Today, we especially pray for migrants, refugees, and those affected by wars, whose rights to education are often threatened, that they may be respected and protected.

Following the example of the Heart of Your Son, Jesus, help us to cultivate welcoming societies, promoting and integrating those who have had to leave their support networks out of necessity.

Give us Your Spirit of boldness, so that our words and actions responsibly strengthen the safety of those we are called to embrace because of their inherent dignity.

Amen.

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Good Father,

You want all of us to contribute to building a better world, creating bridges instead of walls.

Today, we especially pray for migrants, refugees, and those affected by wars, whose rights to education are often threatened, that they may be respected and protected.

Following the example of the Heart of Your Son, Jesus, help us to cultivate welcoming societies, promoting and integrating those who have had to leave their support networks out of necessity.

Give us Your Spirit of boldness, so that our words and actions responsibly strengthen the safety of those we are called to embrace because of their inherent dignity. Amen.

The post For the Right to An Education appeared first on The Papal Foundation.

What a joy to feel called to be pilgrims of hope! Joyful pilgrims, renewing our search of the Risen Christ in the midst of life. Father, we want to live this time making our way with your Son Jesus, embracing the cross of self-giving and service. We want to give reason for our faith! Proclaiming to the world that our faith is not in vain. Our hope is not an illusion nor our pains are dead ends! Our life is a journey, a pilgrimage, following one person, Christ, source of Life! We celebrate the fact that we are children of a living God who acts and blesses us, for whom we are all beloved children. Christ is our destiny and our way! Amen.

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In 2024, $9,921,000 will be distributed to grant recipients identified by the Vatican, supporting 118 projects in more than 60 countries including: providing for basic needs such as access to clean water; constructing schools and renovating classrooms; translating Church teachings for evangelization; restoring Churches, convents, and seminaries in desperate need of repairs; providing students in remote areas with transportation to further their education; and building healthcare facilities.  

“These investments are a core part of our mission to care for the poor and those most in need in developing nations around the world,” said Eustace Mita, President of The Papal Foundation Board of Trustees. “Our Grants Committee prayerfully evaluated all requests from the Vatican, and our Board of Trustees approved a list of 118 grants that will help care for so many in need including our most vulnerable brothers and sisters – the disabled, orphaned children, expectant mothers, and the elderly.” 

In addition to grant-making, The Papal Foundation will provide $819,000 in scholarships that will enable more than 100 priests, women religious, and seminarians to study in Rome through the Saint John Paul II Scholarship Program. The Papal Foundation also provides humanitarian aid through its Mission Fund, allocating $4,000,000 in emergency funds for times of crisis to feed the hungry, tend to the sick, and shelter the homeless.

Cardinal Sean O’Malley, Chairman of The Papal Foundation Board of Trustees reminds us, “As we read in the Gospel of Luke, ‘To whom much is given, much shall be required.’ In a society where the divide between rich and poor continues to grow, Stewards of St. Peter of The Papal Foundationrecognize their responsibility to put the needs of the poor and vulnerable first,” he said.  

Since its inception, The Papal Foundation and its Stewards of Saint Peter have allocated more than $225 million in grants and scholarships around the world to more than 2400 projects selected by Popes Francis and Benedict, and Saint John Paul II.

“These grants, scholarships, and aid to support charitable works are this organization’s gift to the Catholic Church,” concluded David Savage, Executive Director. “It is a blessing to support this mission of cooperation and collaboration, bringing together laity, clergy, and Church hierarchy to address priorities identified by the Holy Father and care for his flock around the globe.”

The Papal Foundation’s Stewards of St. Peter will hold its annual pilgrimage to Rome April 9-13 and will have an audience with Pope Francis during which Cardinal O’Malley will provide an update on the work of The Papal Foundation. More than 60 Stewards of St. Peter and their families will make the pilgrimage. 

The post The Papal Foundation Announces $14.7 Million in Grants, Scholarships, and Humanitarian Aid to Serve the Holy Father and Catholic Church Around the World appeared first on The Papal Foundation.

Mary, you who are Mother of all, welcome into your heart those who are going through the pain of the loss of a child. You know the pain of loss, on Good Friday, and the feeling of absence and silence in the waiting for the Sabbath. There are no words to fill the void, it is a goodbye that will always await the resurrection of the Sunday of glory. We believe in that day, as Mary did, and we await the definitive reunion. But while that is still to come, for those who suffer this pain, we ask for the Spirit of consolation, capable of giving life where there is death, and to set on the way those who have fallen. Give us the grace to be communities that shelter and support parents who have lost a child and who are living proclamation of the definitive life that will reach them. Amen.

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Good Father, the cry of the earth strikes in the Heart of your Son Jesus, and cries out to us “I want mercy and not sacrifices”. Our Common Home implores us a bold and radical change in our way of life. We need courage, and a holy indignation to commit ourselves to a cultural change that welcomes the cry of the earth and the poor. We need the fire of your Holy Spirit to burn in our hearts, to contemplate and give thanks, to welcome and to care, so that we may all feel as one in you. May our gestures of love and care for everyone and everything, rise up to You as a universal prayer of adoration, Of thanksgiving and forgiveness. May our daily living reflect a temperate, and modest lifestyle that moderates how excessively greedy we tend to be with the world and each other. May we embrace this cry for help transforming it with our decisions into a loving and consoling melody. Amen.

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The Papal Foundation – the only charitable organization in the United States that is exclusively dedicated to fulfilling the requests of the Holy Father for the needs of the Catholic Church in developing nations around the world – is pleased to announce Patrick Dolan and Cesar Salas have joined the organization as Vice Presidents of Steward Development. 

Both will work closely with Foundation Trustees, current donors, and staff to invite Catholic philanthropists across the country to become Stewards of Saint Peter, a select group committed to supporting projects and initiatives prioritized by the Holy Father around the globe, including the building of churches, schools, and hospitals, as well as comforting those experiencing hunger, abuse, hopelessness, and trafficking.

“We are thrilled to welcome Patrick and Cesar as we grow the Stewards of Saint Peter and support the Holy Father’s priorities to serve the poor in developing nations,” said Eustace Mita, President of The Papal Foundation. 

Dolan brings nearly 20 years of experience with Catholic organizations such as The Carmelite Sisters, Saint Joseph’s Academy, and Saint Louis University. “Development is all about relationships, and I look forward to introducing potential Stewards to The Papal Foundation’s global mission,” Dolan said.

With more than a decade of fundraising experience, Salas joins The Papal Foundation from the University of Texas at Tyler Health Science Center. In previous development roles, he served the (Arch)dioceses of Chicago, IL, Tyler, TX, Lafayette, LA and Mobile, AL. “My mission is to grow this ministry by highlighting the global needs of the Church,” Salas said. “I look forward to working closely with our Stewards and the team at The Papal Foundation to serve the Holy Father and to make an impact around the world.

The Papal Foundation is dedicated to addressing the philanthropic priorities of the Holy Father in developing nations around the world, such as building churches, hospitals, and schools. Since its inception in 1988, The Papal Foundation has allocated more than $230 million to more than 2600 projects selected by Popes Francis, Benedict, and Saint John Paul II, as well as scholarships that enable lay and religious leaders to study in Rome.

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