Our Vision

Vision of Catholic Education

True education has always rested on two presuppositions. The first is that truth is desirable for its own sake. It is good not for what it does, but for what it is. The second is that knowledge consists not in bending the truth to ourselves, but in conforming ourselves to truth. We can only conform ourselves to truth by freely embracing and loving it, and we can only love truth if we are enticed by its beauty. Love of beauty, therefore, has always been integral to the discovery of truth. True education has always sought to form the heart and mind, reason and will, desire and knowledge. In short, education forms the whole person in light of truth, beauty, and goodness.

Campion Hall seeks to educate children in the truest and fullest sense by giving them the necessary tools of learning, and by fostering wonder and love for all that is genuinely true, good, and beautiful. We seek to incorporate our students into the wisdom of two thousand years of Catholic thought, history, culture, and art so that they might understand themselves and their world in the light of the truth and acquire the character to live happy and integrated lives in the service of God and others. Education in this deep and comprehensive sense extends beyond the classroom and is more than just the acquisition of skills. It encompasses the whole of one’s life. For this reason, Campion Hall seeks to partner with families in the education of their children and their formation in the Catholic way of life.

VERITAS

1. Truth: The first commitment is to the truth in all its forms, beginning with theological truth. This commitment takes the shape of love and conformity.
2. Christ: The love of and conformity to the truth has a name, Jesus Christ. He is the Incarnate Word of the Father, from whom and to whom all truth flows. In him, all truth hangs together and finds coherence.
3. Conversion: Because truth is not only a body of knowledge but Christ himself, to apprehend him requires repentance and purity of heart. Education, then, entails formation in a way of life that curbs vice and nourishes virtue.
4. Worship: The substance of conversion is the refashioning of desire in the direction away from vanity toward eternal life. Worship is the form of desire proper to eternal life. The true worship of the true God is a participation in the glory of heaven, and it makes its participants worthy of eternity. True worship has a converting effect upon the soul.
5. The Church: True worship is an act performed only by the Catholic Church, the very beloved Bride of Christ. Through worship people take their place in the Church and allow her to guide and instruct them along the path of eternal life. Christ charges the Church to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
6. The parish: The normal, stable, and perpetual means by which this work is carried out is the parish. Education belongs to the parish as an intrinsic aspect of its divine mandate to evangelize. The stability of the parish necessitates its rootedness in a particular place and time. Its evangelizing education must be carried out in this context.
7. The family: Every parish is a collection of families which are the element unit of human existence. Each person is both unique and providentially born into a family. The mother and father are the first evangelists of their children, and therefore are rightly given the title of primary educators of their children. They receive this title through their participation in the divine plan for all to be conformed to Christ.

CULTUS

8. Confluence: Campion Hall is the confluence of the Church’s mandate through education in the particular parish that is Presentation with families’ responsibility to conform their children to Christ and his Church. This happens by providing a Catholic place for education while maintaining the integrity of family life.
9. Scale: The confluence of parish and family forges the proper scale for education. This means the right size parish, the right size classes, the right relationship within and between families, and the right time for learning and home life time.
10. Service: The confluence of parish and family aims to put each at the service of the other. Campion Hall seeks to provide education that truly serves the families in form, place, content, and style across education practices and stages of life. It also seeks to provide education that supports and builds up the life of the parish through forming those who can enrich the life of the parish through prayer, worship, a more devout Catholic life, and a greater pursuit of virtue. By rooting Campion Hall in service to the families and parish, it builds up a community that first receives and then produces a culture. By developing skills and gifts they are able to offer themselves as part of the entire course of pursuing the Lord in fellowship with one another. This helps establish more deeply the parish’s role as a cultural center from which families live their Catholic lives. It also helps families to provide the means to more effectively nurture their children’s gifts and offer them as a gift to their God and his church.

CARITAS

11. Discipline: No great work is ever accomplished without discipline, self-denial, and obedience. Campion Hall requires discipline from the parish to be alert to what truly serves the families, and to achieve their potential children require multiple voices of authority that have their own, their community’s, and their God’s best interest in view. Education as part of the parish’s evangelizing mission provides the ideal context for this formation.
12. Freedom to Love: Discipline is only a penultimate reality. It is preparation and the necessary pre-condition for freedom. Freedom is not the lack of barriers, instruction or direction, but the lack of chains or weights that prevent a person from achieving and becoming what they were meant to become. Discipline inculcates one set of habits and dispositions and mitigates another so that a person may become free to love God with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love his neighbor as himself. The ultimate goal of Campion Hall is for each child to more perfectly and virtuously love God, the Catholic Church, his family, and himself so that he can reach his full potential in this life and in the life to come.