Those who care about Catholic education have noticed its changes over the years, especially recently. Vice President for Mission, Planning, and Operations Michael Caruso, SJ recently published his book discussing this topic, entitled The Survivability of Catholic Schools: Vigor, Anemia, and a Diffident Flock.

Caruso’s book is a three-part guide that details his experiences and expert opinions on the state of the Catholic education system. He has served in a variety of roles in schools across the country—Rockhurst University, Loyola Marymount University, St. Ignatius College Prep (as the president), and St. Louis University—before being hired at St. Louis U. High.

The first major theme of Caruso’s book is vigor in Catholic education. He was inspired by the highly energized movement and growth of the Catholic Church in the late 1800s as Catholics mobilized their educating services.

“As you get into that whole history of Catholic schools, you will find that the United States is remarkably different from any other nation, because there was a mandate by the bishops at the Third Council of Baltimore that said every parish, if possible, should have its own grammar school,” explained Caruso.

This mandate, which kickstarted the growth of Catholic education in the United States, suggests the energy that is still needed to sustain vigorous schools today.

“The Catholics in the United States, the recent immigrants, the pastors really thought (the mandate) was great, because there was a tremendous amount of Catholic prejudice at the time,” said Caruso. “The public schools were kind of basically Protestant schools, and so Catholics were very uneasy with them. So they threw themselves into the task and with these expanding parishes, every parish had a great school. They had a great workforce.”

The second section of Caruso’s book talks about anemia within Catholic schools. Decades after the mandate, families during the baby boom of the 1950s started to reevaluate the value of the children’s education, seeing a greater benefit in sending their kids to universities than Catholic schools. 

“There were very good public schools and people were saying, well, maybe we could save a lot of money here, maybe save money for college, so there wasn't as much emphasis on going to a Catholic school,” said Caruso.

In addition, many orders of priests and nuns began to decline as their numbers decreased.

“You just had this rise of secularism among the people, so the Catholic schools were not as important and people weren't as excited about them,” said Caruso.

The third and final theme of the book is the diffident flock, in which Caruso discusses the phenomenon in which families send their children to Catholic schools for reasons other than religious education. 

“The diffident flock is people who really don’t care, they don’t know they’ve drifted from the Church, their faith isn’t important to them,” said Caruso.

Even though there are those members of the diffident flock who value things above the Catholic education of their children, Caruso believes that there are still many who are modeling the examples of vigor that Catholics should strive for.

“There are great advocates out there and people like your families who really support this and want to share this with you and have you here and make sacrifices to have you at a great school like this,” said Caruso.

Caruso has only been at SLUH for a short time, but he does believe that he has seen the vigor that is needed here.

“I think there is vigor here, and I’m not just saying that because that’s what people might want to hear,” said Caruso. “I think there’s real commitment. I see it in the alumni that I’ve met, your parents and the students that I meet, I’ve been on two Kairos retreats, and I see that there really are some very good things here.”

The inspiration for Caruso to write his book came from his years of experience in Catholic education.

“In higher ed, you always have free writing and publishing,” said Caruso. “I started developing a theme of it and the idea, as writers, you always write about what you know, or interview and find out about it, so I did a lot of talking with people and I kept thinking about it. It wasn't going to be deeply researched, but it would be more what I knew and discovered in my time of leadership.”

To promote his book, Caruso was interviewed by one of his good friends, Monsignor Jim Vlaun, on the Catholic Faith Network, discussing all of the themes integrated in his novel.

“It really is kind of an enjoyable thing,” said Caruso. “It's somebody asking you about something you put a lot of work into, and we're both interested in it and we're familiar with it and just had a good conversation about it.”

Principal Ian Gibbons, SJ has read the book and gives it a positive review.

“I found many great insights in Survivability,” said Gibbons. “Fr. Caruso's reflections encapsulate the hope and challenges of Catholic education in post-pandemic America. Anyone interested in preserving the treasure of Catholic schools should read this book.”