By Christina Gray
Archdiocesan high schools form students to become faithful, practicing Catholics. Some of their non-Catholic students are following suit.
Catholic high schools have been enrolling students from all faith traditions (or none) in increasing numbers for a while now. Catholic book publisher St. Mary’s Press reported in 2023 that an average of 39% of the students in Catholic high schools in the U.S. do not identify as Catholic. What’s more, even students who do consider themselves Catholic enter Catholic high schools with varying levels of knowledge and practice of their faith, as well as sacramental completion.
How do the Catholic high schools of the Archdiocese of San Francisco maintain their Catholic identity while serving such a diverse student body? Catholic San Francisco spoke with campus ministry leaders, chaplains and theology teachers in the Archdiocese of San Francisco about how they form all students through a combination of theology coursework, campus ministry activities, service projects and sacramental formation.
The four archdiocesan Catholic high schools are Marin Catholic High School in Kentfield, Archbishop Riordan and Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory high schools in San Francisco and St. Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo.
Chaplain Father Andrew Ginter at Marin Catholic said roughly half of the students there are Catholic. That’s a very different ratio than when he grew up in Marin County decades ago, but changing demographics doesn’t change the mission of the school, he said.
“The main goal of Catholic education is to lead students to the truth and to enable them to practice their faith,” Father Ginter said.
The broad appeal of Catholic high schools
Non-Catholic families have become increasingly drawn to Catholic high schools. The longstanding reputation for rigorous academic programs, moral character development and competitive athletics certainly has wide appeal.
Increasingly, what some non-Catholic students find within a Catholic high school community can change them.
Ponette Chen, a senior at Archbishop Riordan High School, will graduate as a Catholic this spring, something she wasn’t when she enrolled four years ago.
Chen had no formal faith background outside of the ancestral devotions and practices in what she called her traditional Chinese family home. She became interested in Christianity during her freshman year in part because of what she saw reflected in her classmates.
“I could tell the girls at Riordan were women of God,” she said. They were kind and welcoming and faithful. Receiving the sacraments of initiation in April at St. Dominic Church, Chen fully entered the Church.
Andrew Heneghan started Junipero Serra High School for more or less practical reasons. “We lived five minutes away and I wanted to play on the football and lacrosse teams,” said Heneghan, now in his first year at St. Lawrence University in New York state. His parents didn’t raise him in the Catholic faith of their childhoods. At Serra, he took the required theology classes and signed up for the campus ministry leadership program, mostly because “my friends said it would look good on a resume.”
Things changed for him during a seniors-only Kairos retreat with no phones allowed. With a Bible as his only reading material, he read the parable of the Pharisee and tax collector (Lk 18:9-14), a lesson on humility and repentance over self-interest.
“It’s not like I had a vision or anything, but I knew I wanted more of that,” he said. Heneghan received the sacraments of initiation at St. Matthew Parish in 2025.
Meeting students where they are
Catholic high schools maintain their strong Catholic identity and mission by both “meeting students where they are” and “sharing the truths of the Catholic faith,” said Danielle Jow, religious studies department chair at Archbishop Riordan High School. Jow said the Marianist school has a student body that is about 60% Catholic, 40% non-Catholic.
“I would say that within those numbers, those that come in as practicing Catholics are fewer,” she said.
Believers, seekers and sacramental formation
Jow said she revisited the theology curriculum over the past three years to provide a catechetical baseline for all students. The four years of required coursework leads to a senior elective that is “basically an OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) course,” according to Jow. Some Catholic students may be confirmed in a parish at its conclusion, while some non-Catholic students may receive the three sacraments of initiation — Baptism, the Eucharist and Confirmation – fully entering into the Church. Sacramental formation connects what the school is teaching in the classroom to the heart of being Catholic, she said.
“Our mission is to lead students to Christ,” said Jow.
At Marin Catholic, Father Ginter leads a special sacramental preparation program approved by the archbishop that also has the blessing of the local pastor at St. Sebastian Church next door. It is a program of preparation and completion for Catholic students in need of sacraments or non-Catholic students who desire to become Catholic. Students go to Mass with Father Ginter once each week as part of the program and spend an additional 90 minutes of weekly preparation with him in addition to their regular studies.
“Generally speaking,” he said, “the Church prefers that high school students go through parish faith formation programs.” He acknowledged, however, that many of the students in his sacraments program “would not have been reached at all if not for the high school.” The school serves as a bridge to finding Catholic community during their time in high school and after students go off to college.
“We put a lot of effort into helping graduating seniors get connected to college Newman Centers,” he said. Newman Centers are Catholic faith communities for students attending secular universities.
Fostering Catholic community
Ryan Mayer, director of the archdiocese’s Office of Catholic Identity Formation and Assessment, said that “one of the goals of Catholic high school formation, including sacramental prep programs that have arisen, is to direct young people to be active members of the faith and sacramental life of a parish.”
Helping students embrace the gifts of Catholic parish life is an essential part of formation and of the sacramental formation program at Riordan, Jow said. The high school partnered with St. Dominic Parish, where Jow is a parishioner, for the first time this year.
“One of the first things I teach my students about the Catholic Church is that it is a family,” she said. A parish provides some of that structure. “We make sure that for this class specifically, all Riordan students are going to have a home,” she said. “Even if they are not a baptized Catholic, their home for six months, or hopefully longer, will be St. Dominic.”
Jow said there are confirmation candidates, of course, who do have a family parish. Most are essentially electing to go through sacramental preparation with their classmates.
“Every year it’s a little bit different to meet the preparation needs of the students who come to us,” she said.
Billy Byrnes, director of campus ministry at St. Junipero Serra High School, said it is fair to say that for some students who have never been part of a faith community, the school can become like one. When it comes to the sacraments, Serra steers students to a local parish, he said.
“Parishes and people thrive when they participate together in parish life,” he said.
Opening doors
Byrnes said that at Serra, retreats, service and the student leadership program are especially influential to “opening students up to the joy of being a person of faith,” he said. “Given space and comfort with their peers, students feel safe delving into questions they have.” They often talk about the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35), a story that shows how to find Jesus “even when He seems hidden.”
Stan Cordero, director of campus ministry at Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory High School, said he has taken to heart the words of St. John Paul II: “Open wide the doors of Christ.”
Cordero used the word “phenomenon” to describe an uptick in the number of students “articulating their desire to receive the sacraments.” The school is “navigating a balance,” he said, between pointing students and their families to local parishes or to nearby Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption for the sacraments of initiation.
“What we are doing for students is opening a lot of doors,” he said. The more experiences the school can put in front of students, he believes, the greater the likelihood they will “find their place” and be open to deepening their participation with the Catholic faith and the sacramental life of the Church.
“In the last few years in particular, more students are stepping forward as the result of the formative experiences they are having in the classroom and campus ministry, and asking themselves, ‘Who am I going to be as a person of faith?’” he said.
Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco.
