The Narthex
A New Kind of Chaplain
A Massachusetts school wants a syncretist to run 'interfaith' programs
By John M. Grondelski | September 10th 2024 11:36 AMBentley is a private university in Waltham, just outside Boston, Massachusetts. It started life as a business school but a cursory look at its webpage suggests it has graduated to woke. It’s “more than business” because it creates “leaders for positive change” by “redefining success” (check with your employer whether…
READ FULL BLOG POSTBlasphemy in Paris?
The gulf between believers and unbelievers has yawned beyond imagining
By David Daintree | August 20th 2024 11:56 AMTwenty years ago, as rector of Sydney University's St. John's College, I interviewed a young woman for admission. In those days it was still acceptable for a Catholic educational body to expect in its students a certain sympathy, at least, for the Christian faith, so I asked her about her…
READ FULL BLOG POSTOn Reading Too Much
I strive mightily to avoid bad reading, and I urge you to do the same
By James Hanink | August 8th 2024 8:58 PMMy parish owes heartfelt thanks to visiting priests from Africa. Not long ago, my pastor visited two of them in their home diocese in Uganda. While he was there, a controversy flared up. From what I could tell by parsing the news report, a government official there was levying a…
READ FULL BLOG POSTA Great School Goes (Badly) Wrong
Thomas Aquinas College must do its part to foster Christian statesmanship
By James Hanink | July 27th 2024 5:48 PMLast week I had an epistolary exchange with Thomas Aquinas College. It was instructive. It was not, however, inspiring. First came a phone call. I chatted with Mary Block, the Executive Assistant to the Dean, John Goyette. I explained that Peter Sonski, the American Solidarity Party’s presidential candidate, would like…
READ FULL BLOG POSTWanna Buy a School Building?
A school board won’t sell an empty building to its Catholic competitor
By John M. Grondelski | July 5th 2024 7:45 PMMarinette, Wisconsin, is a small town and a county seat north of Green Bay. As reported by National Review (July 5; a link to the story is below), there’s a K-12 Catholic school in town that’s been around more than a century. Also, the local school board, with declining enrollments,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTClassical Education Grows
A return to teaching the foundational disciplines of communication & reasoning
By David Daintree | June 11th 2024 11:56 AMClassical Education is a fast-growing movement. Its emphasis has shifted from a close attention to linguistics to a broad focus on those subjects that particularly distinguish humanity from the beasts: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. The ancients called these the Trivium. The fact that our word trivial comes from that says…
READ FULL BLOG POSTSchool Choice Basics
Principles come to the forefront when we ask, 'To whom do children belong?'
By James Hanink | June 1st 2024 3:53 PMThe Blaine Amendment of 1875 sought to add the following language to the federal Constitution: “No money raised by taxation in any State for the support of public schools, or derived from any public fund therefor, nor any public lands devoted thereto, shall ever be under the control of any…
READ FULL BLOG POSTLarge-scale Child Abuse
Book publishers, school librarians, and teachers sue to corrupt children
By James Thunder | April 29th 2024 12:08 PMOn April 16, the Wall Street Journal reported that five large book publishers have joined the case filed by a sixth large publisher to prevent the State of Iowa from restricting the purchase or use of certain books for school libraries and classrooms (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, “Major Publishers Join Iowa…
READ FULL BLOG POSTWhether & When to Read a Book
It depends on how that book will affect the person I am
By James Hanink | March 13th 2024 12:57 PMIn his classic How to Read a Book, Mortimer Adler, citing Francis Bacon, tells us that “some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.” Yes, but which books and in what order? Of the making of books there is --…
READ FULL BLOG POSTThe Immorality of Plagiarism
Stealing another's work, week after week, month after month, is a premeditated wrong
By John M. Grondelski | February 21st 2024 1:00 PMHarvard’s president, Claudine Gay, became its ex-president through the confluence of two factors, neither one of which seemed sufficient to remove her from office but, together, generated sufficient public (and, apparently, internal private donor) criticism to render her continued incumbency untenable. As you may remember, Gay was criticized for her…
READ FULL BLOG POSTJudging Not by the Color of One's Skin
Ethically speaking, judging a person on racial terms is intrinsically evil
By John M. Grondelski | February 1st 2024 1:05 PMFebruary is observed as Black History Month. This year was also the 95th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Both events are relevant to renewing our commitment to a colorblind society, especially after last summer’s Supreme Court decisions on discrimination in college admissions. The man who spoke at the Lincoln…
READ FULL BLOG POSTCatholic Education Should Be the Model
Real education treats the whole person -- spiritually, academically, socially, culturally
By John M. Grondelski | January 29th 2024 3:03 PM“Celebrate Catholic Schools Week,” an initiative of the National Catholic Educational Association, is observed January 28-February 3. Parishes with schools traditionally have a special student Mass on Sunday and at least one open house during the week. In that sense, “Celebrate Catholic Schools Week” seems a kind of recruitment tool…
READ FULL BLOG POSTParental Rights Are Not Just about Which School
Health care and education activists wrongly claim to be parents’ partners
By John M. Grondelski | January 26th 2024 12:02 PMI recently argued that “National School Choice Week” should be renamed “National Parental Choice Week” (link below). I did so because I want to recast the educational debate. School choice is not primarily about schools but about students. Schools are secondary. They are the tools by which students are educated.…
READ FULL BLOG POSTNational School Choice Week? No, National Parental Choice Week!
Schools should act subordinate to and on behalf of parents
By John M. Grondelski | January 23rd 2024 12:41 PMWe are in the midst of “National School Choice Week.” It runs January 21-27. I unequivocally support the idea of school choice. But I would rename this observance to “National Parental Choice Week.” Why? Because I think it is imperative that we recast the debate to answer the question Who…
READ FULL BLOG POSTWhat Hath Notre Dame to Do with Harvard?
Universities must embrace truth, not 'freedom of inquiry' and 'diversity of opinion'
By John M. Grondelski | January 15th 2024 12:51 PMAn Indiana state judge dismissed Notre Dame sociology professor Tamara Kay’s defamation suit against a Notre Dame student newspaper for exposing her abortion advocacy, including her seeming facilitation of abortions by providing students information where they could obtain abortifacients. Kay wanted to exact punitive damages from the paper for exposing…
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