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Catholic Schools Foundation

Friday, February 28, 2025Culture

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Catholic schools change lives because they challenge students to seek the truth.

Since January, the term "flood the zone," has been in the news every day as new initiatives and efforts are announced from Washington at an endless pace. According to Evan Nierman, the founder and CEO of global crisis PR agency Red Banyan, as quoted by Barron's on Jan. 29, "It's a classic PR strategy: overwhelm, distract, and control the narrative before anyone else can."
The ability to "flood the zone" has clearly been amplified in recent years by social media, increasing number of news organizations, influencers, and others who simply want their voice heard or opinion pushed. The challenge is that this approach is fully about pushing an agenda and facts can be missed or dismissed, with the volume of noise creating a cacophony from which it is no longer easy to discern truth or even intent. Facts are replaced by emotion or endless changes to the narrative to distract. This is not a political statement about one party or the other, this occurs on all sides of the political spectrum and in organizations and institutions of all types. The question is what does this do to the search for truth?

At no point in history has information and facts been more accessible, and yet, there seems to be more confusion and divisiveness. How can this be when so much empirical data is out there and easily accessible? The answer is that agendas have taken the place of facts. Personal, political, or social narratives create noise and confusion to drive agendas forward instead of shared commitment to finding the truth.
Catholic schools exist because Jesus Christ is real; this is not just a truth, it is the truth. With this as the reason for Catholic schools, it also demands that students in Catholic schools be taught to seek the truth through both faith and reason. Never in the history of our world has educating young people been more important to understand that there are truths, that facts matter, and that faith and reason are not just compatible but, as St. John Paul II says in the opening lines to his encyclical "Fides et Ratio," "Faith and Reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of Truth."
As the zone continues to be flooded, a thoughtful, faith-filled, intellectually competent generation that seeks the truth through faith and reason must re-emerge. No organization in the world has done more to eliminate illiteracy and move people from poverty than the Catholic Church and the church must continue to lead in education. It is through education that people can learn how to seek the truth, advocate for justice, and make the world a better place.
Catholic schools change lives because they challenge students to seek the truth. The truth that Jesus Christ is real, the truth that each one of us is known and loved by God and the truth that facts exist and there is right and wrong. Now more than ever, more students need to learn to clear through the noise and seek the truth.
Thanks to the supporters of the Catholic Schools Foundation, over 4,000 students will have an opportunity to seek truth through a Catholic education this year. There are thousands more we still need to help, but it is a start, and it gives me hope that the future is bright. Together, we can change lives, and through the students of today, we can help change the world.

- Michael B. Reardon is executive director of the Catholic Schools Foundation, www.CSFBoston.org.