During yesterday afternoon’s faculty and staff meeting, Father Lewis announced that, with the Bishop’s approval, the Academy will be known officially as The Atonement Catholic Academy beginning January 1st, 2021. I would like to take a moment and reflect on this change.
On a basic level, this move accomplishes some institutional housekeeping. It highlights the fact that our Catholic identity is front and center in all that we do. Accolades such as membership in the Cardinal Newman Society’s “Catholic Schools Honor Role” specifically attest to this. Additionally, The Personal Ordinariate of St. Peter is still a relative newcomer in the grand sweep of Church history. Clarity about the fact that ours is a Catholic school faithful to the Magisterium heads off potential confusion.
Perhaps more significantly, our school has a mission to evangelize the culture, both directly and through the lives of our graduates. As schools across the nation, Catholic and otherwise, succumb to the allure of technology, teaching to the test, and an educational philosophy animated by “college and career readiness,” the Academy has held steady in its practice of the classical liberal arts as the best means of accomplishing truly human formation. Catholic families in our centrifugal times are seeking such stability of vision as they choose their children’s school.
I look forward to how God will use The Atonement Catholic Academy in the coming years. Our Lady of The Atonement—pray for us!