There is a crisis of Catholic identity in America. The torch of Catholic leadership is now in different hands than a generation ago. While America’s Catholics may be divided into rival political and factional tribes, what brings our cast of influentials together is a shared concern over Catholic values.
Nowhere is this more evident than in Catholic education. Indeed, to understand why we are launching our new US Catholic leaders special report – celebrating the top 250 Catholics helping to shape American society for the better – we can start with a visit made last November to the Rochester, NY, campus of the Aquinas Institute by its old alumnus, the financier Robert Agostinelli.
Through hard work and “God’s graces”, and guided by the Catholic values instilled in him as a student at Aquinas, Agostinelli, 69, has built the Rhône Group into a highly successful private equity company. He had been thinking of giving a significant gift to his old Catholic high school, where he served as an altar boy at local Masses celebrated by Bishop Fulton J Sheen, host of the award-winning television show Life is Worth Living. “Father Sheen” featured on the cover of Time in 1952 as one of America’s key post-war spiritual leaders.
The weekend invitation included the opportunity to return to the high-school football ground where Agostinelli had enjoyed success as a player back in the 1960s. But by the time the match was due to start, he and his wife had been disinvited by the trustees from attending the school match.
This was due to some student sensitivities being ruffled by a (well-received) speech about his successful journey in life and business. Agostinelli had said he was a living example of the American dream. Although aware of the “mission shift” of Catholic institutions, what he experienced was worse than he expected. He found the school’s once traditional Catholic identity subverted with progressive and secular values in which students were being forced to genuflect to political correctness and “endure a tyrannical command to follow woke sufferance in every form”.
“After I spoke out, I could have gone on a global lecture tour as I had so many speaker invitations,” Agostinelli told me over lunch. “It opened my eyes to the crisis of Catholic identity in America, especially in education. Leadership now has to come from outside Catholic institutions, and lies increasingly with lay leaders.”
Catholic leadership is today passing from the Church and Catholic institutions to the lay community, particularly led by active members of the Order of Malta, the Knights of Columbus and the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, along with US business and philanthropy leaders determined not to let Catholic values slide.
This is a view shared, with sadness and regret, by Father Gerald Murray, author and Herald writer who is parish priest at the Holy Family Church in Midtown Manhattan and a member of EWTN’s Papal Posse.
With the 60th anniversary ofthe Second Vatican Council thisOctober, Fr Murray says that one ofits most notable effects has been the emergence of the Catholic laity in “educating, inspiring and analysingthe faith” – a role in AmericanCatholic public life usually takenon by theologians and spiritualleaders such as Sheen, CardinalFrancis Spellman – the anti-communist confidante of Pope Pius XII who founded the Al Smith Dinner for New York Catholic charities – and Father Charles Coughlin, the anti-Prohibitionist so-called “Radio Priest” who amassed over 30 million listeners in the 1930s.
Today, alas, fewer priests are at the forefront of cultural and public debate. One London event that was cancelled because of the Queen’s death was an address by Bishop Robert Barron in the Palace of Westminster on the subject of “What Christianity brings to the public conversation”. Barron, the founder of the Word on Fire Ministries, operates largely online via his YouTube and social media channels.
In short, with some notable exceptions, such as the charismatic Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, equally at home in the Bronx as the Upper East Side, outspoken Los Angeles archbishop José Gómez and America’s newest Cardinal Robert W McElroy, priests are increasingly invisible on the public stage. The lay patron saint of this shift was William F Buckley, Catholic founder of the National Review. His TV debates with Gore Vidal were as celebrated as the BBC head-to-heads in 1948 between Jesuit priest Frederick Copleston and Bertrand Russell about the existence of God.
“As a cleric, I regret to say that most of the most brilliant thinkers in the Catholic world now are not amongst the clergy,” Fr Murray told me at his New York rectory. “The laity are providing the most incisive analysis. Having a magazine such as the Herald, where they can publish and have their views disseminated is wonderful. Sadly, many of the clergy either have no interest in intellectual life or don’t really want to defend the doctrine of the faith. But there are plenty of laity who are most willing to do that.”
These range from individuals helping to fund new “classical” Catholic private schools in Philadelphia, like the six Regina Academies, whose executive director Mark Bradford is profiled, to the actor Mark Wahlberg who, in a Herald interview, said he often gets up before 3am to pray. Across America, philanthropists, business leaders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, politicians, thought leaders, lawyers and justices are influencing society and helping to renew Catholic identity.
When we launched the Herald in the US in 2018, we wrote a waspish cover story called “Meet America’s Catholic Tribes”. While there remain bitter divisions between Team Francis and the Benedict XVI camp’s social conservatives, what our new survey shows is that you cannot stereotype America’s Catholic landscape into two camps: “trad” conservatives and progressive liberals.
Catholic America is a big tent of all political colours, factions and creeds. Many right-wing Catholics, for example, have no time for Latin Mass. “As for the Holy Father, some conservatives recoil at the mention of his name,” we noted. “Others are worried by his pontificate, but won’t tolerate personal criticism of the Successor of Peter.”
President Joe Biden has a photo of Pope Francis in the Oval Office. Although we have reservations about Biden’s brand of Catholic-lite faith, Catholic leaders today are making an impact in government and public space. Catholic social teaching now sets the moral tone of public discourse in America, helped by op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, whose columnist Bill McGurn is profiled. No less than six Supreme Court justices are Catholic. But not all Catholics – especially women – are overjoyed by the overturning of Roe v Wade.
As our entries testify, the University of Notre Dame continues to be the main formation ground for shaping future Catholic leaders (a Notre Dame intern helped with our research). In 2016, controversy followed when pro-choice Biden was awarded Notre Dame’s famed Laetare Medal, regarded as the highest Catholic honour in the US (John F Kennedy received it in 1961). Still, the recent news that Marcus Freeman, head coach of the Fighting Irish’s football team, has converted to the Catholic faith, suggests that the university’s Catholic leadership credentials are as strong as ever under president Father John Jenkins. Notre Dame has $18 billion of endowment, a large proportion being alumnae donations.
So, what are our criteria for inclusion? We have taken a broad church approach to reflect the reality of Catholic America today. Even if some of our entrants don’t openly identify as Catholics – and some would admit to being far from sainthood – their lives have often been shaped by their Catholic background (often Irish or Italian) and faith. They want to be a force for good and give back.
Our survey is launching at the same time as our non-profit Catholic Herald Institute, whose goal is to defend Catholic values in public life and uphold the pillars of Catholic faith: family, human dignity, and protecting life. We also believe in upholding a collective Western tradition of culture and faith. The aim is to use our think-tank as a funnel for ideas for our affiliate 134-year-old magazine and our website. While there are numerous Catholic institutes, not one has a platform like the Herald’s to influence public debate and the future of the Church.
For today’s Catholic leaders, donating to their local church and community is not enough – they want to make a difference politically. Sean Fieler, president of Equinox Partners, is proactively influencing public discourse and policy on issues such as strengthening the family, abortion and gender identity. Agostinelli has been chairman of the National Review Institute and instigated the William F Buckley prize for leadership in political thought. This year it was awarded to Larry Kudlow, the TV host, former Ronald Reagan treasury adviser and Catholic convert.
Ultimately, what drove Bishop Sheen – who was proposed for beatification by Pope Benedict XVI – was a desire to see Catholic identity and its moral purpose flourish in America. Today, that cause is now being taken up by a new generation of leaders from both the left and right. These include Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society, Stephen Brogan, Steve Hilton, Frank Hanna III, Tom Monaghan and Vincenzo La Ruffa.
There are just as many liberal activist philanthropists, like Melinda Gates, as there are socially conservative non-profits, such as the Chiaroscuro Foundation, named after a Renaissance painting style that uses contrast for effect. “Reflecting God’s light in a dark world” is the foundation’s mission statement. Which sounds like a good place to start our survey – whatever your politics.
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