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Greetings!
This is a time of year when many of you are welcoming new families, prospective teachers, and neighbors who are curious about your schools. They may not yet have the language to describe what they are seeking, but they are searching for something real, something rooted, something that gives meaning and hope to their children’s lives.
It is tempting in these moments to speak about our schools as being “authentically Catholic.” But I think that phrase, while well-intended, can subtly place the weight on us, as though Catholic identity were something we manufacture or perfect through our own effort. In truth, none of us is capable of being “fully” Catholic on our own. There is no one single playbook. Our schools are Catholic because they belong to the life of the Church, entrusted to us by the Archbishop, and grounded in the mission of Christ.
Fr. Ron Nuzzi often describes a great Catholic school as “irresistibly Catholic.” That phrase points to a community so grounded in prayer, relationships, and joyful purpose that people feel drawn to it before they can fully explain why.
The Church herself understands her mission this way. Pope Leo reminded us last week in his opening remarks to the Consistory of Cardinals that when the Church is truly herself, she does not need to persuade; she attracts. It is the quiet, radiant power of Christ’s love, lived out in ordinary, faithful ways, that draws people closer.
Our job, then, is not to prove that we are Catholic, but to allow the Catholic life of the Church to be visible in our schools: in how we pray, how we treat one another, how we accompany struggling families, how we support teachers, and how we speak about hope even in uncertain times.
This is how our schools witness. Not by trying harder to persuade, but by loving one another well.
With gratitude,
NICHOLAS FORD | Superintendent
Office for Catholic Schools | Archdiocese of Seattle
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