By Most Rev. Salvatore J. Cordileone
Address to Catholic School Administrators and Pastors
Good morning, and welcome. It is a joy to begin another school year with each of you to whom the Church has entrusted the leadership of our schools. You join in this shared mission of formation alongside principals, pastors, parents and teachers, exercising your baptismal call in leadership to share in the three-fold ministry of the Church: to teach, to sanctify, and to govern.
I would like to offer a particular welcome to our new school leaders. I hope that you all had a chance for a well-deserved rest over these summer months. The beginning of a new school year is always a time of renewal, a chance to return to fundamentals and begin again with excitement and anticipation.
What Are Our Schools For?
While every year invites renewal and a return to first principles, the Church is especially called in this present moment to offer the light of the Gospel to the question of authentic human formation. What are our schools actually for? Not simply what do they do, but what is the end toward which all of it is ordered?
The Second Vatican Council answered that question in its Declaration on Christian Education:
“True education is directed toward the formation of the human person in view of his final end and of the good of the societies of which he is a member.”
Catholic education is directed toward the formation of the whole person. Not merely information. Not simply credentials. Rather, formation toward man’s final end, which is communion with God. Everything else we do in a Catholic school serves that purpose.
To educate the whole person means forming students intellectually, morally, spiritually, and relationally. It means forming them in virtue, integrating faith and reason, and ultimately forming them for holiness. If holiness is not the goal, the mission becomes unclear, and the surrounding culture will inevitably fill the void.
Education in Virtue
Pope Leo has described Catholic education as an “apprenticeship in virtue.” This year, every elementary school in the Archdiocese will adopt the Education in Virtue framework, not as an additional subject but as a way of life intended to elevate everything a school already does.
Virtue formation extends across every aspect of school life. Whether a student perseveres through a difficult assignment, dedicates time to prayer, or competes faithfully on an athletic field, virtue is being practiced. Our task is to intentionally cultivate these virtues and build school cultures where they are named, encouraged, and celebrated.
Renewal rarely arrives through dramatic reform. More often it takes shape through small, intentional decisions made consistently over time. This is how virtue forms, both within schools and within individual souls.
Human Formation in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Among the questions that challenge Catholic education today is the importance of human formation in the age of artificial intelligence. AI is already changing how students research, write, solve problems, and communicate. These developments bring both opportunities and dangers.
The Church has addressed this issue directly. Pope Leo XIV has spoken of artificial intelligence as presenting new challenges for the defense of human dignity. The Holy See’s document Antiqua et Nova makes an important distinction between machine intelligence and human intelligence:
“AI should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence, but as a product of it.”
Human intelligence is not merely about performing tasks. It is about understanding and engaging with reality through lived experience, relationships, conscience, and embodied existence. No machine possesses a body, a face, a heart, or a conscience.
One of the greatest gifts a Catholic school can offer today is something increasingly rare: silence. Authentic formation includes cultivating the ability to listen—to teachers, peers, and ultimately to God. Silence is the space in which truth can be encountered.
Technology can be valuable when used prudently and within authentic teacher-student relationships. The danger lies in allowing something that merely performs to replace someone who forms. Before adopting new technologies, we should ask: does this bring a student closer to truth and human encounter, or does it substitute for them?
Heart Speaks to Heart
Pope Leo XIV recently named St. John Henry Newman a Doctor of the Church and co-patron of education alongside St. Thomas Aquinas. Newman’s episcopal motto, Cor ad cor loquitur (“heart speaks to heart”), offers an important insight into authentic renewal.
Education is fundamentally personal. It unfolds in relationships between teachers and students, schools and families. True education cannot be automated or reduced to utility. It is embodied in relationships, encounter, and accompaniment.
Our schools evangelize not only through curriculum and lesson plans but through cultures where young people know they are seen, loved, and taken seriously. Persons influence minds and hearts in ways no algorithm ever can.
A Vision of Renewal
Recently, bishops, educators, and scholars gathered at Christendom College to articulate a shared vision for Catholic educational renewal known as the Front Royal Statement. The statement outlines seven principles that form the heart of Catholic education, including:
- The supernatural end of education
- The dignity of the human person
- The responsibilities of parents and the state
- The role of bishops and priests
- The formation of teachers and leaders
- The integrity of the curriculum
- The transmission of a living Catholic culture
Renewal requires both innovation and recovery. Schools must thoughtfully address emerging technologies while also reclaiming the rich inheritance of Scripture, Church history, literature, philosophy, art, music, and the broader Western intellectual tradition.
Students need exposure to what is true, good, and beautiful. A soul formed by these realities is better equipped for creativity, wisdom, and ultimately holiness than one shaped only by information and technology.
Catholic Culture and Courage
We are living through a moment of renewed interest in the Catholic faith, especially among young people. Catholic culture is transmitted through the liturgical year, prayer, the sacraments, sacred music and art, works of mercy, hospitality, and above all through adults who live the faith joyfully and courageously.
For this reason, renewal requires courage. It demands honest evaluation of how our schools foster authentically Catholic cultures amid powerful social and technological pressures. It requires the courage to maintain holiness as the explicit goal of Catholic education.
Conclusion
We are not simply maintaining institutions. We are shaping souls.
If education is only the delivery of information or the acquisition of marketable skills, machines may eventually perform those tasks better than human beings. That should not alarm us. Rather, it should clarify the true purpose of Catholic education.
Our task is not to form students who merely excel at using technology. Our task is to form persons who know the truth, love the good, delight in beauty, practice mercy, worship God, and become fully alive in Christ.
This mission belongs to teachers, coaches, pastors, principals, and every educator entrusted with the care of young people. It remains as essential today as ever.
Thank you for accepting that mission with courage and fidelity. Be assured of my continued prayers and gratitude as we begin another year dedicated to forming young people to know, love, and serve Jesus Christ, who is the way, the truth, and the life.
St. John Henry Newman, pray for us.
St. Francis of Assisi, pray for us.
