Bishop Conley on Catholic Schools Week: educating the whole person

Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska. / Credit: Diocese of Lincoln

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 31, 2025 / 12:50 pm (CNA).

Having spent the past week paying visits to Catholic schools across the Diocese of Lincoln, Nebraska, for Catholic Schools Week, Bishop James Conley has issued a reflection on the value of faith-based education for students and their families.

“In the secular world of education, we often hear words like ‘excellence’ and ‘success,’” Conley wrote. “These are great words, but what do they really mean? The ultimate measure of excellence and success in Catholic education is how well we educate the whole person, body, mind, and soul, by instilling virtue, knowledge, and wisdom.” 

“In other words,” he continued, “excellence and success in Catholic education is measured by how well we cultivate faith, goodness, and sanctity in our students.”

Conley is a prominent advocate for Catholic education and has written extensively on the topic. In September 2024, the bishop published a pastoral letter, “The Joy and Wonder of Catholic Education: Developing Authentically Catholic Schools,” describing Catholic education as “the formation of human hearts, minds, and wills for the glory of their Creator,” which received widespread accolades. 

Referencing another of his recently published pastoral letters, Conley highlighted five elements needed for a school to be authentically Catholic: “1) inspired by a supernatural vision, 2) founded on a Christian anthropology, 3) animated by communion and community, 4) imbued with a Catholic worldview throughout its curriculum, and 5) sustained by Gospel witness.”

The bishop shared that he had visited five of the diocese’s six high schools, as well as several of its elementary schools, offering Mass, leading Eucharistic processions, and spending time with students, faculty, and staff. 

“It’s an exhausting week of travel but I love every minute of it, because it provides me with an opportunity to see our schools in action, in all their beauty and splendor,” he stated. 

Conley also pointed out the special meaning behind the timing of the annual calendar celebration, writing: “It’s all about the saints!” 

Situated at the end of January, Catholic Schools Week kicked off on the feast of St. Angela Merici, foundress of the Ursuline order that started the first Catholic school for girls. Tuesday marked the feast of the Angelic Doctor and patron of learning, St. Thomas Aquinas, while Friday is the feast of St. John Bosco, “father and teacher of the youth.”

Conley paid special tribute, however, to St. John Henry Newman, whom he quoted at the end of his letter as saying: “We attain to heaven by using this world well, though it is to pass away; we perfect our nature, not by undoing it, but by adding to it what is more than nature, and directing it towards aims higher than its own.”