How a Brilliant Catholic President is Answering the Call to Renew Catholic Education

"Mary, Model of Christian Love, we know that we cannot heal every ill or solve every problem, but with God's grace, we intend to do what we can. May we be true witnesses to the world that love for one another really matters. May our daily actions proclaim how fully our lives are modeled after yours, Mother of Perpetual Help." - Dom Elias Carr, Can. Reg. Novena on Human Dignity

"Catholic schools cannot stand still," David Bonagura, Professor of Classics at Saint Joseph Seminary in New York recently wrote in The Catholic Thing. "They have to up their game. Stronger academics and deeper religious formation are the two keys."

At the Schools of Saint Mary, Dom Elias Carr, Can. Reg. has been doing just that since joining the k-12 preparatory school in Manhasset, New York last fall as their new president. "God's ways are strange and wonderful," Father Elias tells me. "I came to Saint Mary as a pregnancy leave replacement as the school opened in fall 2021 with all the Covid restrictions and ended up becoming the new president. If the whole world felt upside down the last few years, it's good to know that Someone wants to put things right. We just need to embrace the task He puts before us wholeheartedly with joy and grit."

For the advancement of the mission he has made his own—to enhance the scholarly and the religious character of The Schools of Saint Mary—Father Elias is uniquely qualified.

"I grew up 13 miles away from Manhasset in Syosset, but in order for me to come here, I have had to go on a journey of 25 years," he says. "It began with a BA in History and a concentration in East Asian Studies at SUNY-Binghamton; then, on scholarship, an MA in Politics at Catholic University of America, where, unexpectedly, God began to call me to the priesthood. After a sojourn in Germany, I was sent to Philadelphia for pre-theology and to Rome for theology studies. On May 15, 1999, one of the happiest days of my life, I was ordained a priest."

And for Father Elias, everything in his life has followed from his joyous embrace of his priesthood, from his own priestly love of God and love of neighbor. "First I served at Holy Spirit in Annandale, VA. But God still had more in store for me. In 2002, I was clothed as one of the first American novices in the nearly 900-year history of Stift Klosterneuburg—the abbey of the Augustinian canons next to Vienna. It is hard to find a proper analogy to explain the abbey but imagine a large corporation that not only meets the pastoral needs of over 24 parishes and its community of canons but manages the patrimony of Saint Leopold's endowment consisting of real estate and vineyards. Each year in Austria and beyond, my community undertakes numerous charitable, cultural and artistic initiatives. For example, we have provided disaster relief, built housing, founded an insurance company, and continue to pursue environmental sustainability for the abbey and its enterprises. Multi-tasking is an unceasing requirement in my presidential role at Saint Mary's, and I have been well prepared for it."

Multi-tasking is an unceasing requirement in my presidential role at Saint Mary's, and I have been well prepared for it.

The inspiring thing about Father Elias is that he is at once highly qualified and yet completely down to earth. With him, profession and practice go hand in hand. "During my nine years in Europe, I worked in parishes in Austria, Bergen, and Norway, while earning an M.Phil. in Religious Education from NLA University College. After a solemn profession in 2006, I completed my Licentiate in Dogmatic Theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University, summa cum laude. While fulfilling my priestly duties in Austria, I began my doctoral studies, the dissertation for which I will defend soon at the Saint John Paul II Pontifical University in Krakow, Poland. In 2011, I was among the three Canons who established the abbey's new foundation in Glen Cove. I have also served as pastor at the Church of Saint Rocco for 6 years (2011–2017) as well as Headmaster of All Saints Regional Catholic School for 7 years (2012–2019). God has richly blessed me with a wealth of experience, and it benefits The Schools of Saint Mary daily."

These benefits are manifold. Working with the Pastor of the Church of Saint Mary, Father Robert Romeo, he has been instrumental in bringing on board the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, highly sought-after educators based in Ann Arbor famed for their academic rigor and Christ-centered pedagogy. He has refined the school's already strong theology department, which offers courses in Scripture, Church History, Moral Theology, and Apologetics. He has continued to strengthen the school's vibrant Sodality program, which equips students to practice the faith they learn in their theology classes in a way that is at once intentional and conscientious. And, perhaps most crucially, he has instituted a year-long program, Convivium, which reached its high point in the two-part Novena of Human Dignity, the first part of which was set out in a 9-day novena, touching on such pressing themes as respect for life, social justice, religious liberty, the Eucharist, forgiveness, and love of neighbor.

The first meditation of the Novena on Human Dignity is redolent of the Novena as a whole. Theologically rich, grounded in Scripture, and eminently practical, it constitutes a truly replicable model for all schools that wish to strengthen their overall appeal by deepening their Catholic character. Here is a sample:

Meditation: The God who created humanity in His image and likeness sent His Son to reveal not only Himself, but also what it means for a human being to live as the Image of God.

"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.' So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." (Gn. 1:26-27)

In this novena of human dignity, we ponder the mystery of God's love for the human race, seeking to appreciate more profoundly the great nobility to which we are called and the conduct that necessarily issues forth from coming to believe this truth.

"You have been told, O mortal, what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do justice and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God." (Micah 6:8)

Practice: Think of a specific way in which we see God's love for us, and offer a prayer of Thanksgiving. If we count our blessings—try finding ten blessings from today—we immediately notice that God's goodness surrounds us. It is only the matter of our blindness or unwillingness that prevents us from recognizing that every good thing comes from God.

To pray such a prayer alone is powerful enough. It is a call to renewed faith, a call to renewed charity and love, a call to discipleship. But to pray it in a high school where all of the students and faculty, all of the administrators and parents are praying it as well is to witness the blossoming of a true Catholic ethos, and Father Elias has been tireless in seeing to it that the ethos of The Schools of Saint Mary is not only Catholic but vibrantly Catholic.

On this crucial aspect of any successful sustainability for the Catholic school, Father Elias is eloquent: "Catholics in the 21st Century have to be really good anthropologists. We need to ground ourselves in the amazing intellectual inheritance of the Church and then fearlessly engage the questions that weigh on us about the meaning and purpose of life. Our Catholic faith has the satisfying and life-giving answers that every human heart craves. Our education seeks to open our student's eyes to the marvels and terrors that surround us, while at the same time, giving them the ballast and confidence to embrace life fully in preparation for the abundant life that Christ has promised to those who follow Him."

We need to ground ourselves in the amazing intellectual inheritance of the Church and then fearlessly engage the questions that weigh on us about the meaning and purpose of life.

The second part of the Convivium was given over to a wonderful presentation by negotiators of the Holy See's Mission to the United Nations, from the United States, Austria and Italy, who shared with both the lower and the upper school how they work to encourage the UN to implement their commitment to human dignity. Whether on issues pertaining to the protection of the unborn or those pertaining to the protection of the poor, the Negotiators were eloquent in sharing with the students of Saint Mary's how it is pre-eminently our Catholic faith's commitment to human dignity that informs the UN's founding charter. Catholic disciples, in other words, whether at the UN or at The Schools of Mary, have a role to play in seeing to it that our Catholic love of neighbor is not simply a profession but a reality that we work together to see flourish. "A true test of a civilization," Samuel Johnson once said, "is a decent provision for the poor." A true test of any genuine Catholic ethos is not only a decent but a loving provision for the poor—a recognition of the obligations of human dignity.

Father Elias elaborates: "In our Convivium, I wanted to show our students that the Catholic Faith has answers to the fears and wounds of our times. We are Catholics. We don't choose this or that. We want it all. Human dignity is for everyone. We want a good and just society that reflects the never to be obtained full perfection of the New Creation. We want our graduates to be confident partners in the deliberations about the future of our great nation, acknowledging its failures but honoring its triumphs and recognizing its noble possibilities. We Catholics have the awesome task of reconciling what sin and ideology tears apart."

Since I began with a prayer, I will end with a few lines from the beautiful "Daily Novena Prayer," which ended each of the nine meditations of the Novena on Human Dignity.

Come, Holy Spirit, remove from us all that disfigures our likeness to God, restore us to your friendship, and grant us the wisdom and the courage to promote human dignity, especially when it is threatened by violence, discrimination, despair and discouragement.

Come, Holy Spirit, set our hearts ablaze with Divine Charity, so that carrying out the corporal and spiritual works of mercy will be our joy and our pleasure.

Come, Holy Spirit, renew the face of the earth.

These are prayerful imperatives that define our Catholic character at Saint Mary's: these are the prayerful convictions that animate all we do. This is how we are renewing our Catholic school, a renewal which we accomplish with the perpetual help of our patroness, Mary. As readers will have seen from the video setting our Saint Mary's commitment to our Catholic character, we take out motto very seriously: Omnia ad Jesum per Mariam, Everything for Jesus through Mary, no better gloss for which could be found than the one Saint John Paul the Great offers in his encyclical Redemptoris Mater:

The Virgin of Nazareth became the first "witness" of the saving love of the Father, and she also wishes to remain its humble handmaid always and everywhere. For every Christian, for every human being, Mary is the one who first "believed," and precisely with her faith as Spouse and Mother she wishes to act upon all those who entrust themselves to her as her children. And it is well known that the more her children persevere and progress in this attitude, the nearer Mary leads them to the "unsearchable riches of Christ." (Eph. 3:8) And to the same degree they recognize more and more clearly the dignity of man in all its fullness and the definitive meaning of his vocation, for "Christ … fully reveals man to man himself."

Here is the true human dignity that Father Elias extols daily at The Schools of Saint Mary and blessed is its fruit.