AmericanCatholics10

TRUTH, FREEDOM, TRADITION, FRONTIERS: PRESENTATIONS ON AMERICAN CATHOLIC HISTORY: PART X

LIGHT SHINING ON IN THE DARKNESS

THE CHURCH IN AMERICA AT THE DAWN OF A NEW MILLINEUM

In the 1980s, 1990s and early 21st century, the Catholic Church in America faced challenges from dissent, people leaving the faith, the abuse crisis, and disputes over liturgies. But there were signs of renewal with improvements in Catholic schooling, new forms of Catholic media and evangelization, and both theological and liturgical renewal, leading to hope for the future.
1. With many people leaving the faith in one direction, but increased immigration in the other, the Catholic population remained simialr in proportion to the general American public.
  1. The number of Catholics in 1988 was about 53 million, or about 22 % of the population. According to the 2014 Directory, in that year there were about 70 million Catholics in this country out of a population of about 314 million, which is also about 22 percent. However, this stability reflects two forces in opposite direction: a large loss from Catholics leaving the faith, counterbalanced by gains form immigration.
  2. From 1980 to 2010, the number of Americans who are immigrants went from 14 million to 40 million, or from about 6.2% of the population to about 12.9% of the population. Of these immigrants about half of them were from Latin America or the Philippines, both heavily Catholic areas. As a result, the number of Hispanic Catholics in the United States increased from about 4.9 million in 1960 to about 13.3 million in 1987 and about 24 million in 2010. As a portion of the Catholic population, the increase is from about 10% in 1960 to about 20% in 1987 to about 34% in 2010. In addition, among American Catholics, 27 % are immigrants and another 15% are children of at least one immigrant. With the general public, 15% of the population is Hispanic, 15% are immigrants, and another 10% are children of at least one immigrant.
  3. There have been, however, many more Americans leaving the Catholic Church than entering it. According to a recent Pew survey, 31.7 % of adult Americans were raised Catholic, but 12.9% of adult Americans are former Catholics, indicating that four in ten people who are raised Catholics leave the faith as adults. By contrast, 2% of Americans joined the Church as adults.
  4. Protestant Churches also suffered large losses. According to the Gallup survey, the percent of Americans calling themselves Protestant of general Christian has gone from 61% in 1980 to 45% in 2018. The year 2013 marks the first time in American history that the majority of Americans did not call themselves Protestant or nondenominational Christian. The losses were particularly acute in the mainline Protestant Churches, such as the Episcopalian, United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the Church of Christ.
2. There has also been a decline in the number of priests and religious sisters.
  1. The number of priests in America also declined from its height of about 59,000 in 1965-1970 to 54,000 in 1988 and about 38,000 today. One reason was that about 10,000 priests left orders in the 1960s through the 1980s. In addition, seminaries were often torn by dissent and doctrinal disputes. With the Vatican II Council authorizing married permanent deacons in the Latin rite, the number of married Latin permanent deacons has gone from none in 1965 to about 15,000 today.
  2. The decline in religious sisters was even more dramatic. In 1965, there were about 180,000 religious sisters. By 1988, there were 107,000 and there are about 50,000 now.
    1. There was a crisis in religious life in America and throughout the West as many orders got rid of such things as community prayers, the habit, and adherence to a regular rule and also experienced a great deal of dissent for Church doctrine and authority.
    2. In 1992, approximately 120 communities more traditional orders, including some new ones such as the Sisters of Life, the Franciscan Sisters of the Eucharist, and the Dominican Sisters of Mary, the Mother of the Eucharist, broke off from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious to form the Council of Major Superiors of Women religious. They have about 6000 sisters now, with about 1000 of them in formation.
3. Amid the struggles, there have been signs of renewal in the Catholic Church in America.
  1. The struggles against decadence and the culture of death have brought about a greater unity with Protestant denominations and Orthodox churches. The opposition to the Catholic Church is now primarily secular, not Protestant. For example, the Right to Life March and prolife movement generally have brought together Christians from across the board. On the publishing front, the magazine First Things, established by then the Lutheran minister John Richard Neuhaus (who became a Catholic priest in 1991) is an example of ecumenical scholarly endeavors.
  2. There has been a revival in Catholic publishing and culture generally with publishing houses such as Ignatius Press, Loyola Press Sophia Press and Ave Maria Press and the efforts of orders such as the Daughters of St. Paul and the Franciscans of the Eternal Word, who under Mother Angelica launched Eternal Word Television Network and now run the National Catholic Register and other news outlets. With many larger and smaller Catholic stores and internet sites, Catholic culture is more available that ever before.
  3. There have been several new faithful Catholic institutions, such as Christendom College, Ave Maria University and more recently Wyoming
    Catholic College. In addition, some institutions that once had troubles, such as Franciscan University at Stubenville, Belmont Abbey College, the University of Mary and Catholic University of America have dramatically increased their Catholic identity.
  4. The number of newly ordained priests started increasing in the early 2000s from about 450 a year to about 550 a year now. It is not nearly enough, but it is an improvement. And the doctrinal controversies in seminaries have declined dramatically.
  5. The “liturgy wars” that created great controversy over the translation of liturgical texts seems to have died down.
  6. College campus ministries seem to have improved, and groups such as the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, and the National Evangelization teams, have increased the Catholic presence in universities and for students generally.
Doctrinal issues were very dominant in the 1980s and 1990s as faithful and dissident Catholics clashed across America.
1. There were many theologians such as Fathers Charles Curren at Catholic University, Richard McBrian of Notre Dame, and the Jesuit Fr. Richard McCormick. The dissent was primarily over family ethics and such moral issues as artificial contraception and abortion. But the issues also dealt with such issues as the centrality of Jesus Christ and the Church.
  1. Two common dissident approaches were “proportionality” and “fundamental option” theory. The first of these views said that evil actions could be legitimate if they avoid a greater evil. The second of these views said that it is impossible to commit a mortal sin if one’s “fundamental option” is still for Jesus. Both of these views were expressly rejected in St. John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (The Splendor of Truth.)
  2. The dissidents also often tried to argue that, unless a teaching is expressly defined as infallible, it is not binding. Both the Vatican II Constitution on the Church Luman Gentium and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, published in 1995, expressly reject that view, saying that even non-infallible but authoritative teachings are still binding. In 1998, the Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith revised the oath of fidelity required of clergy and teachers of theology to made this point clear.
  3. This dissent led to much opposition against Catholic teachings by both laity and politicians.
2. On the other side were many theologians who strongly defended the faith, such as theologian William May of Catholic University, Father John Hardon of New York, and the Jesuit Father Avery Dulles, who was appointed a cardinal in 2001, a rare honor for a theologian who is not a bishop. There was a greater emphasis on both theological developments and on methods of explaining the faith and making it attractive to the general public.
3. New forms of catechesis arose to explain the faith to the modern world. For example, EWTN began its broadcasting empire, the United States bishops built upon the universal catechism to publish an American Catechism for Adults, and apologetic and chastity speakers began to abound. New publications and organizations, such as Crisis (started 1983) and Catholic Answers (started 1979) emphasized explaining the faith and Catholic news more. Publishing houses such as Ignatius Press (founded 1978) and Sophia Press (founded 1983) emphasized the publication of faithful Catholic books. In 1970, the National Catholic Register began recovering under new leadership from the Legionaries of Christ and then EWTN.
4. The more faithful elements of the Catholic Church in America received a boost from some actions by the Vatican.
  1. In 1985, the Vatican Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith ordered Fr. Curran to stop teaching theology at Catholic institutions, which led Catholic University of America to revoke his teaching faculties. Although that action was directly applicable only to him, it sent a message through academia, especially at Catholic University.
  2. St. John Paul II’s apostolic constitution Ex Corde Ecclesia called for Catholic universities to emphasize their Catholic identity. For example, it said that all teachers of theology at Catholic universities to receive a mandatum, or authorization to teach, from the local bishops. Catholic universities in America and elsewhere were varied in their response.
  3. The Vatican Congregation on the Doctrine of the Faith also disciplined other theologians for dissent, for example by forbidding the dissidents Father Robert Nugent and Sister Jeanne Gramick from continuing their New Way Ministry, which dissented from Church teachings on sexuality. Fr. Nugent abided by the order, while Sister Gramick did not.
5. American theology did advance and began to take on a greater role in the universal Church. For example, the elevation of Father Avery Dulles to the rank of Cardinal in
  2001 gave great prestige to his theology. Likewise, the theological insights of such lay theologians as Dietrich and Alice Hildbrand and Germain Grisez began to be taught around the world. The preaching of Archbishop Fulton Sheen likewise became well admired, particularly after Pope John Paul II gave him a very specific compliment during his 1979 visit to the United States. The Church in the United States also became central in the ecumenical and interfaith movements.
6. The prolife cause and abortion became a central point in these clashes. On the one hand, the Catholic Church in America led the prolife movement. On the other hand, many prominent Catholic politicians such as Senator Edward Kennedy and New York governor Maria Cuomo openly supported legalized and even government funded abortions.
Liturgically, there was a crisis, but also a revival of liturgical practices in the United States.
1. In the United States, as elsewhere, there were many liturgical innovations, some of which were approved (such as the use of additional Eucharistic Prayers for Reconciliation and for Children), some of which were not (such as the gathering of people around the altar for the Eucharistic Prayer.) Some innovations, such as communion on the hand and the use of altar girls, were approved but only after they were already being done without approval. Some other innovations, such as the use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, were allowed on a limited basis, but used much more extensively.
2. Over the course of the 1990s, more traditional liturgies, including the use of Latin, and even the pre-Vatican II Mass, came more into use. New church architecture also became more traditional. Overall, the new clergy tended to be more traditional than the older clergy.
3. The English speaking bishops began working on revised translations of the sacramental books. However, there were disputes over these translations.
  1. The International Committee on English in the Liturgy is in charge of translation liturgical texts into English in most English speaking countries. Their first attempts at retranslating the texts for the Mass and the Rite of Ordination for Priests were both rejected by the Congregation on Divine Worship and Sacraments in 1997. After revisions to the committee and methods of translations, these texts, along with new translations of other liturgical texts received approval much later.
  2. The Vatican took over the translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church into English in order to ensure accuracy.
  3. As the 2000s progressed, however, translation issues quieted down and translations of other liturgical books, such as those for marriages and baptisms, were approved more easily.
The abuse crisis took a huge toll on the Church starting in the 1980s. As the crisis exploded in the early 2000s, the Church in America took more decisive action. But the aftermaths are still shaking the Church here as elsewhere.
1. The issues had been around for some time, but they began getting coverage with lawsuits against the Dioceses of Chicago, Lafayette, and Dallas in the early to mid- 1980s. The prosecution of Lafayette priest Gilbert Gauthe in 1984 and 1985 brought more attention to the issue. In May of 1985, prominent canon lawyer Thomas Doyle and psychologist Michael Peterson prepared a report for the Vatican and United States bishops indicating the extent of the problem. For example, they pointed out that there were over $100 million in pending claims for clerical abuse. Newspapers covered the issue, but most of the time it was more simmering in the background than in the forefront.
2. Between 1989 and 1998, the United States Catholic Conference published nine reports on clerical abuse, although only one of them was approved by the entire conference. How to deal with the issue was to individual diocesan bishops, as is usually the case in the Church. In 1996, Catholic commentator Philip Jenkins published a book on the issue indicating that there was still a large problem and that many dioceses were in denial, treating abusers as merely suffering from a mental disturbance that can be treated.
3. In 2002, the issue came to national attention with the prosecution and civil lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Boston regarding especially Fathers John Geoghan and Paul Shanley, who had been transferred multiple times despite clear guilt. At that point, reporters started paying much more attention to the issue, reporting on the fact that there were thousands of cases across the country and that many dioceses had simply been either denying accusations or treating guilty clerics with counselling and then restoring them to ministry.
4. In December 2002, the formerly prestigious Archbishop of Boston Cardinal Bernard Law resigned as diocesan bishop; and in the next summer Bishop Sean O’Malley, who had cleaned up scandals in Palm Beach, was appointed in his place. The Archdiocese of Boston alone settled lawsuits on the issue for $85 million.
5. The resulting outrage severely damaged the Church’s reputation. But it did lead to reforms. In particular, during its June 2002 meeting the United States Catholic Conference promulgated The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People (usually called the Dallas Charter reflecting the place of the conference,) calling for background checks, clear policies to prevent child abuse, and clear prosecution of allegations of such abuse by both clerics and laity. In December of that year, they adopted the Essential Norms, which was legislation enacting those reforms. Over the course of the next year, 325 priests were removed for allegations of child abuse.
6. The American Bishops authorized a study from the John Jay College of Criminal law of the extent and history of the problem. The resulting report (usually called the John Jay report) and its follow ups indicated that, since 1950, about 4% of the approximately 100,000 priests had committed abuse, reflecting similar percentages of other professionals who deal with children. There were about 6700 allegations, although probably many more cases. The abuse instances rose dramatically in the 1960s and 1970s and then declined in the 1980s and 1990s. Subsequent John Jay reports indicate that the Dallas charter has been effective, with about a dozen allegations a year since them for crimes after 2002.
7. The Vatican conducted a visitation of American seminaries in 2004 and 2005. The resulting report said that there had been substantial improvement over the course of the last 20 years in seminary formation, but recommended further reforms, especially in religious order seminaries. In particular, the report said that there should be more psychological screening, more emphasis on celibacy, and a willingness to deal with psychological and personal issues early on.
Five people who exemplified the best of the Catholic Church in this era were Mother Angelica, Father John Richard Neuhaus, Father Benedict Groeschel, and Ann and Warren Carrol.
1. Mother Anglica (1923 – 2016) demonstrated devotion, courage and an entrepreneurial spirit to build Eternal Word Television Network into the largest Catholic media organization in the world.
  1. Rita Rizzo was the only child of John and Mae Helen Rizzo, a working class Italian could in Canton, Ohio. Her father abandoned the family when Rita was 5, and Rita grew up in humble circumstances, but with a deep faith and great enthusiasm. She was vivacious and excelled as a drum majorette in high school.
  2. Starting at the age of 16, Rita had a severe stomach ailment. But after many prayers to St. Therese of Liseaux, she was cured at the age of 20 after praying a novena recommended by Rhoda Wise (described in the previous outline.) The event very much deepened her faith, and she would recount in later years that her complete dedication to the will of God started at that time.
  3. At the age of 21, she discerned a calling to enter into religious life and joined the Poor Clares in Cleveland and then in a new house in Canton. She made simple vows at the age of 22 and final vows at the age of 30, taking the name Sister Angelica. Her leadership talents were recognized by the Mother Superiors from an early time, and they allowed her to participate in the administration of the convents.
  4. In 1953, shortly after final vows, a workplace accident severely disabled Sister Anglica. In preparation for surgery, Sister Anglica promised God that if she could walk again, she would try to found a convent in the South. The surgery was successful enough so that she could walk, although she would still have physical disabilities for years to come.
  5. The Mother Superior agreed with the proposal to form a convent in the South, and the order was able to get the agreement of Archbishop Thomas Tooben of Mobile to establish a house in Birmingham that would emphasize ministry to blacks. The convent was founded in 1962, in the midst of a great deal of local opposition.
  6. To support the convent, Mother Angelica began giving talks and publishing pamphlets, which were very successful. A local CBS station then began broadcasting her talks. However, after a dispute over a film that disparaged Jesus, Mother Angelica broke off the deal with the television station. Soon, however, she began taping shows for local Christian stations. In 1980, the convent decided to begin projecting Mother Angelica’s talks and other programming through the new technology of satellites. With the assistance of a local lawyer Bill Steltemeier the convent was able to navigate numerous difficulties and got the station, called Eternal Word Television Network, off the ground.
  7. It was a little unusual for a contemplative order to be running a radio station. And so, the convent and soon related ones became more focused on contemplative life, establishing themselves as a new branch of the Franciscan order, the Missionaries of the Eternal Word. And, starting in1993, Mother Angelica gradually turned over the running of the station to the new male branch of the Missionaries of the Eternal Word. In 1999, the sisters moved into a
    convent at the newly established Shrine of the Blessed Sacrament in Hanceville, Alabama.
  8. There were some disputes with bishops, including a famous clash with Cardinal Mahoney of Los Angeles over his letter on the Eucharist and with the local bishop David Foley over the celebration of Mass ad orientum. But the broadcasting effort flourished, and EWTN eventually established a radio station Radio Guadalupe and acquired the newspaper National Catholic Register.
  9. In 1998, Mother Angelica was suddenly cured of her back problems and flourished for a couple of years. However, knowing that she was aging, she turned over control of the network to a lay board to avoid having it controlled by the hierarchy. In 2001, she suffered a disabling stroke and could no longer engage in many efforts. Her last televised taping was done in 2003, involving the sisters praying the rosary.
  10. After years of living quietly, Mother Angelica died on Easter Sunday, 2016. When informed of her death, Pope Francis EWTN staff members in Rome, pointed upward and said, “She is in heaven.” There have been calls for the opening of her cause for canonization, but Church rules state that such a cause can generally only be opened five years after a person’s death.
2. Father Richard John Neuhaus (1936 – 2009) was a Lutheran convert to Catholicism whose efforts, including the establishment of First Things, reflects the scholarly and ecumenical focus of recent American Catholicism.
  1. Richard Neuhaus was one of eight children born to a Lutheran family in Ontario. His father was a pastor and tried to hand on the faith to his children. However, John was rather rebellious and left for Texas at the age of 15. But, while running a gas station in Texas, he rediscovered his faith and entered a Lutheran College and then a seminary, graduating with a B. A. and a Masters of Divinity in 1960. Even in seminary, he studied the works of Lutheran theologian Arthur Piepkorn, who argued that Lutheranism is a reform of Catholicism, not a break from it.
  2. After seminary, he asked for and received an assignment as a pastor in an inner city parish, being assigned to St. John the Baptist Church in Brooklyn. In a short time, the parish went from a few dozen parishioners to two thousand and was able to reopen its school. Despite being in a poor area, Rev. Neuhaus insisted that the people should hear scholarly sermons, which they appreciated.
  3. Rev. Neuhaus was very involved in anti-poverty and integration programs, and attended civil rights marches, including the Washington March that featured
    Martin Luther King’s famous 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech. Rev. Neuhaus was also very active in dialogue with the Catholic Church. Starting in 1967, Rev.
    Neuhaus became very active in the prolife effort, considering it to be a part of the civil rights movement.
  4. President Jimmy Carter took Rev. Neuhaus on as an advisor and he became a spokesman for morality in public life, sometimes arguing with Henry Kissinger.
  5. In 1981, he was involved in the founding The Institute of Religion and Democracy, which was launched by a Methodist evangelist Edmund Robb and AFL-CIO official David Jessup. The institute called for churches to cooperate together to oppose socialism and decadence and uphold traditional morals in public life.
  6. Starting in 1984, he also worked for the Rockford Institute, which also upheld traditional morals. In that context, he helped launch a new magazine, Chronicles and invite Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger to speak to the Institute. However, he was fired in 1989 because he criticized elements of the Institute on the grounds that they were taking on racist and anti-Semitic tones.
  7. At that point, he decided to launch an ecumenical journal that would promote public morality and a values based capitalism. The result was First Things, which continues to this day to be a leader in ecumenical and scholarly thought, publishing articles by authors from many branches of traditional Christianity and Judaism.
  8. In 1990, Rev. Neuhaus converted to Catholicism on the basis that the Catholic Church had made the reforms that Martin Luther had called for. In 1991, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York ordained him as a Catholic priest.
  9. Fr. Neuhaus became very prominent in public life, becoming a trusted unofficial advisor to President George W. Bush and a prominent Catholic reporter.
  10. Father Neuhaus also wrote several books including Death on a Friday Afternoon (with meditations on the Crucifixion) and As I Lay Dying (on the importance of knowing that we will die someday, and living accordingly.)
  11. In the midst of his active work in writing, speaking and commenting on society, Fr. Neuhaus also continued pastoral ministry, with an assignment at Immaculate Conception parish in Manhattan.
  12. When Fr. Neuhaus died in 2009, George Weigel wrote an article about him in Newsweek that said that Fr. Neuhaus “was arguably the most consequential public theologian since days of Reinhold Niebuhr and John Courtney Murray.”

Father Benedict Groeschel (1933 – 2014) was a simple Franciscan who became America’s leading Catholic preacher.
1. Robert Groeschel was the oldest of six children of a devout Catholic family from Jersey City, New Jersey. He attended Catholic schools and then entered the Capuchin Order at the age of 17. After completing the novitiate and making simple vows, he was given the religious name Benedict Joseph Labre. He made his final vows in 1954 and was ordained a priest in 1959. After ordination, he earned a masters in counselling from Iona College and a doctoral degree in education, with a specialty in psychology from Columbia University.
2. Fr. Groeschel’s first assignment as a priest was as the chaplain to Children’s Village, a facility for emotionally disturbed children. In 1967, he founded St. Francis House in 1967 for young men looking for a new start in life. And in 1985, he also founded Good Counsel Homes, which provides shelters for pregnant women and their children.
3. Fr. Groeschel also went onto an extensive teaching career, joining the faculties at St. Joseph’s Seminary and then both Fordham University and Iona College.
4. In 1974, Cardinal Terrance Cooke of New York asked Fr. Groeschel to establish Trinity Retreat House in Larchmont, New York. This assignment would be pivotal in launching Fr. Groeschel’s reputation as a leading spiritual guide. He was a frequent guest in the early days of ETWN and their partnership increased viewership and Fr. Groeschel’s reputation.
5. In 1987, he and seven other Capuchins founded the Franciscans of the Renewal, which would live a Franciscan life in a manner closer to the original rule. By the time of Fr. Groeschel’s death in 2014, the order had 115 brothers and 31 sisters in 13 friaries and two convents.
6. Fr. Groeschel was also an early supporter of the Arlington based Institute for Psychological Sciences (now a part of Divine Mercy University), which provides both training in psychology and psychological help from a Catholic standpoint to people in the Washington Area.
7. Father Groeschel became perhaps the most sought after speaker in the Catholic Church in the 1980s and 1990s. He was also the author of over 30 books, including Heaven in Our Hands, a reflection on the beatitudes and I Will be With You Always, a history of Christian spirituality. Fr. Groeschel was also very active in the prolife efforts and ecumenical and interfaith dialogue.
8. In 2004, Fr. Groeschel was nearly killed in an automobile accident in 2004. Despite the severe injuries, he soon resumed his full time work. He had a stroke in 2009 and soon had to reduce his speaking and writing substantially, ending his public role altogether in 2012. Fr. Groeschel died in 2014 on October 3, the vigil of the Memorial of St. Francis of Assisi.

D. Warren and Ann Carroll brought together the Catholic faith and the American virtue of being able to take a stand in the world that is honest, tradition, and free and the American emphasis on the value of education.

Warren Carroll (1932 – 2011) grew up with little faith, but a passion for learning and truth that would, with the help of his wife Ann, bring him to the Catholic Church.
1. Warren was raised in a small family in Maine, with modest means and little faith, but with a deep interest in education and the pursuit of truth. He was a brilliant student, graduating as the valedictorian from Bates College and then earning a doctorate in history from Columbia and a law degree from the University of Colorado.
2. Through these years, Warren was a general deist, but had a deep concern for truth. He criticized the university culture for its superficial thought and seeming lack of interest in what was true, rather than what was fashionable or useful. In 1963, he wrote an article for the ABA Journal, entitled “Law: A Quest for Certainty,” in which he argued that modern law is losing any connection to philosophy and is becoming thus open to tyranny.
3. He worked for the Army and then the CIA during the 1950s and 1960s, and then for oilman H.L. Hunt and Congressman John Schmitz. Warren Carrol’s early working life was bound up in public life and a desire to serve his country.
In 1967, Warren married Anne Westhoff and then converted to Catholicism a year later.
- Even in the early 1960s, Warren was reading the works of C.S. Lewis and that gradually raised the question of whether in fact the claims of Christianity were true. That was the central question to Warren Carroll, rather than the issue of whether Christianity was modern or popular or the like.
Anne Westoff Carroll was born in 1942 and raised in a humble, but devout Catholic family and developed a lifelong interest in education. .
1. Born in 1942, she was the eldest of eight children born to Vernon and Marie Westhoff, a devout Catholic farming couple from Colorado.
2. After graduating from college with a major in English she taught high school in Denver.
3. She moved to New York in the 1960s and earned a Master’s Degree in English from New York University, and taught at Holy Rosary Academy, an all-girls school in New York and then at the newly established Queen of Apostles Junior College.
In the early 1970s, Warren and Ann Carrol were involved in the Catholic magazine Triumph and its parent organization called The Society for a Christian Commonwealth.
Encouraged by efforts of The Society for a Christian Commonwealth, Ann Carrol founded what would become Seton School in Manassas. That school in turn inspired what would become the Seton Home School program.
1. Members of the Christian Commonwealth Institute expressed interest in forming a new Catholic school that would be founded upon classical learning and be loyal to the Catholic faith at a time when dissent abounded. And so in 1973, Anne Carroll became the headmistress of Christian Commonwealth School in Warrenton with 8 students. In 1975, after St. Elizabeth Ann Seton’s canonization, the school moved to its current location in Manassas and became known as Seton School. At that time, the school had 16 students.
2. Seton School continues to be a solidly Catholic and reasonably priced Catholic school, which is run largely by parents. It is now thriving with 350 students and 29 teachers.
3. In 1980, Anne Carroll opened a division of the Seton School that focused on selling books for parents to educate their own children. It soon became an independent organization called the Seton Home School program. This organization now serves over 10,000 students and helps parents who are interested in the expanding home schooling effort.
In 1977, Warren Carrol made another bold move and founded Christendom College, with the mission of providing a classics based education faithful to the Catholic Church.
1. At the time, there were other educators who were trying to preserve authentically Catholic education. Thus, for example, the faithfully
  Catholic Thomas Aquinas College was founded in California in 1971; and Magdelene College was founded in New Hampshire in 1973.
2. As a part of The Commonwealth Christian Institute’s educational efforts, in 1975, Thomas McFadden and Ann Carroll led the organization of a week-long Family Institute program on property belonging to the AFL-CIO in Front Royal. The Family Institute gathered for a second time in 1976. And on that occasion, Warren Carrol announced the effort to launch a new faithful classics based college in Virginia that would be known as Christendom College.
3. With the support of five donors, the college began in 1977 with 26 students and five faculty meeting in an eight room building on the property of St. Francis of Assisi parish in Triangle, Virginia. The college later moved to property in Front Royal sold to them at a discount by the president of the AFL-CIO George Meamey.

From the beginning, Christendom College stood out as a leader in Catholic education, adhering strongly to Catholic principles. Christendom College has also been successful in promoting vocations across the board, to priesthood, religious life, and marriage. By 2011, there were 2640 graduates of Christendom College. Among them were 63 priests and 43 religious brothers and sisters, along with about 300 married couples who both graduated from the College.
After turning over the presidency of the College, Warren Carroll began work on his monumental series six volume series The History of Christendom, which is probably the most well researched English language history of the Catholic Church.
Dr. Carroll died in 2011; on his gravestone is the simple phrase that he prized greatly, “Truth exists; the incarnation happened.” Anne Carroll continues to be the headmistress of Seton School in Manassas. Over the years, she has written several history and religion books for high schoolers, such as Christ the King, Lord of History, Christ in the Americas, Catholic World Culture and Following Christ in the World, a high school senior guide to defending the faith.