Is Chesterton Academy a Catholic School?

Chesterton Academy of Detroit uses the tagline “A Classical High School in the Catholic Tradition” while other schools in our network are billed as “A Joyfully Catholic, Classical High School.”  Which tagline a school uses depends on its status with its (arch)diocese, in accordance with canon law. 

There are two relevant provisions in canon law: 

Can. 803 §1. A Catholic school is understood as one which a competent ecclesiastical authority or a public ecclesiastical juridic person directs or which ecclesiastical authority recognizes as such through a written document.

§3. Even if it is, in fact, Catholic, no school is to bear the name Catholic school without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority.

In our case, that authority is Archbishop Vigneron.  In his wisdom, he and the Office of Catholic Schools have chosen to observe the development of Chesterton Academy for at least a couple of years before extending that recognition to our school.  The launch of our school has been done by keeping informed the Archdiocese of Detroit Office of Catholic Schools while maintaining independence through a lay-run Board of Directors, each of whom is a faithful Catholic member of a parish in the Archdiocese.  Because we seek to be obedient to our archbishop and canon law, we are not calling ourselves a “Catholic school” although most reasonable observers will conclude that Chesterton Academy operates fully in the Catholic intellectual tradition, given our daily mass requirement, faithful Catholic faculty, and thoroughly Catholic curriculum.

It is also worth noting that Chesterton Academy is also sponsored by the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton, a recognized Private Association of the Faithful.  This is the status of many confraternities, associations, or movements in the Church.

The content in this post was reviewed by the Office of Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit.