Two years gone, Catholic Church finally returns to right educational path
Just maybe, we have an old White Sox fan — Leo XIV — to thank for it
Here’s what I want to believe.
I want to believe all it took to get this whole Catholic education thing in Oklahoma right was the new pope, Leo XIV, aka Robert Prevost, who back in 2005 attended Game 1 of the World Series in a White Sox jersey because as a non-Cub-fan from Chicago of course he did.
It was a 4-4 Supreme Court tie, Amy Coney Barrett recusing herself, arriving May 22, that upheld the Oklahoma supreme court’s ruling proclaiming St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual School to be in violation of our state constitution exactly two weeks following Prevost’s papal election.
Yet, Leo was not yet in place when the Oklahoma City Archdiocese and Tulsa Diocese began their end-run-around-the-constitution, tax-dollar-bonanza, money grab, aided by a bunch of anti-public education Republicans, the governor and state superintendent included.
He was, though, in place when the scheme fell apart, and he is now, too, one day after the two Oklahoma Catholic bodies rolled out a new plan to create a new virtual school capable of serving the state, but with one great difference.
The new school, St. Carlo Acutis Classical Academy, will be a private enterprise, not a public one funded by the state.
Not only do I want to believe Leo told his Oklahoma flock to shut down its public charter dream, I want to believe he did it rightly realizing a school like that would do the church no favors, putting it on the hook for shattering separation of church and state in our country and, not just that, but that he believes in that separation, too.
I have no idea any of that’s the case, nor is the church asking for absolution from me. Yet, barring a later plan to bring St. Isidore back through a back door, it’s earned it anyway, because this is how it’s supposed to be.
Even the proposed name indicates a new direction for Oklahoma’s Catholic powers that be.
Carlo Acutis, born in England, raised in Italy, never reached his 16th birthday, dying of leukemia in 2006.
During his short life, he documented what he believed to be eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions, actions by which many Catholic conversions have been attributed.
Just Sunday, Acutis was canonized in a ceremony performed by Leo himself, thus making him the church’s first millennial saint.
St. Isidore, on the other hand, lived into his 70s, dying almost 1,400 years ago in 636.
“We are thrilled to announce the opening of St. Carlo Acutis Classical Academy,” said Misty Smith, already named the academy’s head of school, reported The Oklahoman. “Our mission is to bring the richness of the Catholic intellectual tradition into homes through an online format embracing classical curriculum resources that combine both synchronous and asynchronous learning.”
I don’t know what that is exactly, but I presume it similar to the philosophy directing how I was taught at Bishop McGuinness from ’82 to ’86.
While there, despite being non-Catholic and non-everything else — a status I remain — I surely became a better thinker, even in theology classes, where I received a heavy dose of St. Thomas Aquinas, who attempted to answer every question, God’s existence included, through thought, reason, logic and practicality and not so much St. Augustine, who didn’t.
If so, it will serve its students well.
Perhaps not at an insane price, either.
Though Google AI isn’t foolproof, I took a look at tuition across the church’s five Catholic high schools in the state.
McGuinness is about $12,000 per Catholic student and another $4,000-plus for non-Catholics, though need-based tuition assistance is available. Mount St. Mary, also in Oklahoma City, is very similar.
In Tulsa, Cascia Hall’s price tag is almost $19,000 and Bishop Kelley’s almost $14,000.
Cristo Del Ray, which opened in Oklahoma City in 2018, is different, appearing to cost between $50/month and $250/month based upon a sliding scale taking both family income and household size into account.
It is a unique “corporate work program” that allows tuition to be so low.
The new academy plans to be online, literally, serving K-8 students by the fall of 2026, adding an additional grade each academic year until it becomes a K-12 enterprise.
Though tuition is not known, a virtual academy also named for Carlo Acutis, operating out of the Madison (Wis.) Diocese, opening in 2023 — pre-sainthood — costs not quite $6,000 annually.
Oklahoma could be less expensive than Wisconsin.
According to reporting from Oklahoma Voice, original enrollment for the academy, spanning nine grades, will be “up to 300 students statewide.”
If interest is the barometer, I can only presume that number to grow and grow and grow, which is fine with me because Catholicism does education well, the point being to create critical thinkers, or the exact opposite of everything Ryan Walters has attempted to do with our public schools since winning election.
Thankfully, the faith appears to have exited its blowing-up-the-Constitution-path that’s had me so angry with it the past couple of years.