Chesterton Academy has a growing network of over 70 campuses worldwide. Matt Gerlach, the headmaster of the Hopkins campus, which just had its 18th graduating class, shared that Chesterton’s mission is to focus on the call to holiness and help parents spiritually form and raise their children to respond to this call.
Gerlach explained on the “Practicing Catholic” radio program set to debut at 9 p.m. Aug. 8 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM, “(Chesterton) resulted (from) a group of families getting together with a common vision around the call to holiness and an integrated curriculum whose roots are deep in the Catholic liberal arts tradition and really focuses on the whole formation of the person.”
Gerlach said that Chesterton has a three-pillar model of formation. The number one pillar is spiritual development, and then alongside and integrated into this pillar is the intellectual formation of students. The third pillar is the moral development of students.
“There’s some unique subjects at our school that most high schools don’t usually include at the high school level, like philosophy,” Gerlach said. He said sophomores, juniors and seniors are required to participate in a play through the drama program to learn “how to act and just appreciate what goes into that artistic work of drama.
“And also, they have four years of art,” he said.
In each class, Chesterton incorporates grammar, rhetoric and logic, to focus students on intellectual virtues that are “grounded in wonder and culminating in a certain kind of wisdom where they (students) can see the whole of truth by seeing the connections between the different disciplines,” Gerlach said.
“We ask ourselves, ‘What is a metric of success for Chesterton?’” Gerlach said. “The number one thing is: Have (students) grown in their discipleship? Have they actually become intentional disciples where they’re following the Lord and living in the Church? We see fruits of that immediately during their time here, and they testify to that.”
Gerlach said he knows that many students at Chesterton have strong families dedicated to giving their kids the best of Christian culture and the Catholic faith.
“We’re there to just reinforce that and help inform that and catalyze that, so (students) can launch into life post-high school with a lot of strength in their faith and that ability to navigate the world intellectually in a very confusing time,” Gerlach said.
To hear the full interview with radio show host Patrick Conley, listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. Aug. 9 and 2 p.m. Aug. 10.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes an interview with Marcus Roesler, parishioner of St. Francis Xavier in Shafer, who shares how a visit to see the Our Lady of Guadalupe tilma in Mexico City sparked a journey back to the Church and eventually to his wife, Jenna. Also, Bishop Michael Izen shares how to rekindle the role of spiritual elders, such as grandparents, in forming young hearts.
Listen to interviews after they have aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
