Catholic educators are now revisiting questions concerning the nature and purpose of education, as seen in the recently released Front Royal Statement. Perhaps among these questions should be whether the near-universal adoption of coeducational schooling has served the distinct educational needs of boys and girls as effectively as earlier Catholic models.
The decline of single-sex institutions has coincided with broader transformations in educational philosophy, many of which have subordinated moral and spiritual formation to the utilitarian concerns touted by progressive education. Consequently, the restoration of Catholic education requires examination of institutions that have maintained older pedagogical traditions.
Within the United States, few organizations have preserved these traditions as consistently as the Society of St. Pius X. While public discussion surrounding the Society frequently centers upon ecclesiastical controversies, its educational apostolate merits consideration in its own right. The Society presently operates twenty-seven primary and secondary schools and one college throughout the United States, constituting one of the largest networks of traditional Catholic education in the country.
The distinguishing characteristic of SSPX education is its rejection of the modern separation between religious and secular instruction. The Society’s educational standards insist that all studies be integrated with the knowledge and practice of the Faith. Education is understood not principally as vocational preparation but as the formation of the entire human person under the reign of Christ. Intellectual development, moral discipline, religious practice, and physical cultivation are treated as components of a unified educational enterprise. So too, the teacher’s vocation is seen as a participation in the Church’s mission of forming souls. The Society places considerable emphasis upon doctrinal formation, the liberal arts, and the philosophical tradition of St. Thomas Aquinas. Under the direction of superintendent Fr. Gerard Beck, all SSPX schools in the States are maintaining a type of continuity with educational principles that characterized Catholic schooling prior to the widespread reforms of the twentieth century.
One of the most noteworthy manifestations of this philosophy is the Society’s preservation of single-sex education. At a time when dedicated Catholic academies for boys and girls have become increasingly uncommon, the SSPX continues to maintain institutions explicitly ordered toward the distinct formation of each sex. The most complete examples are found in its dedicated girls’ schools. St. Dominic School in Post Falls, Idaho, and Holy Name of Jesus Academy in Massena, New York, provide kindergarten-through-twelfth-grade education exclusively for young women. Both schools are operated by the Dominican Teaching Sisters of Fanjeaux and offer academic, spiritual, and cultural formation within an environment intentionally structured for female students. These institutions preserve a model once common within Catholic education but now largely absent from the American educational landscape.
The Society has also retained extensive forms of educational separation within schools that are technically coeducational. St. Vincent de Paul Academy maintains separate campuses for older boys and girls. Assumption Academy in Kentucky organizes distinct upper-school divisions according to sex. Mater Dei Academy in New York separates students beginning in the seventh grade, while Saint Gregory the Great Academy in New Jersey maintains separate programs for young men and young women during the high school years.
These arrangements reflect an anthropological conviction that boys and girls, while equal in dignity, often benefit from distinct educational environments during adolescence. This approach stands in marked contrast to contemporary educational theories that minimize sexual distinction as a factor in pedagogy. This model instead presumes that differences between the sexes possess educational significance and therefore warrant institutional expression.
Even within the Society’s coeducational academies, this principle remains evident. Institutions such as Saint Mary’s Academy in Kansas, Our Lady of Sorrows Academy in Arizona, and Saint Thomas More Academy in Florida maintain expectations regarding conduct, modesty, discipline, and personal formation that reflect a traditional Catholic understanding of masculinity and femininity. The objective is not academic achievement but the cultivation of virtue according to the student’s state in life.
The significance of these institutions extends beyond the Society itself. They demonstrate that alternatives to prevailing educational models remain both viable and sustainable. At a moment when many Catholic educators have begun reconsidering the effects of coeducation, prolonged adolescence, and increasingly utilitarian curricula, the SSPX provides a noteworthy example of institutional continuity. Its schools have preserved forms of education that much of the Catholic world abandoned and which some now seek to recover.
The future of Catholic education will undoubtedly involve renewed reflection upon the relationship between intellectual formation, religious identity, and human flourishing. Such reflection should include careful consideration of those institutions that have maintained older educational principles not merely in theory but in practice. Whatever judgments may be rendered concerning the Society’s broader ecclesiastical position, its role in preserving traditional education in the United States constitutes a chapter in the history of contemporary Catholic schooling.
Photo by Barry Zhou on Unsplash
