An Education of Faith

By Ben Kleier, literature/history teacher and communications assistant

It is not hard to find articles, podcasts, news reports, or interviews talking about how classical education is finding its way into schools across the country. It may seem that classical schools are a new phenomenon. However, this isn’t a birth but a resurgence and many of the people involved in this resurgence have not primarily received a classical education, but have developed a love of classical education through their own self-learning, practice, and study.

Father Christian Cone-Lombarte is an example of such a person. He was largely educated at Department of Defense schools and public schools. His first exposure to classical education was when he went to Mount St. Mary’s Seminary—an experience that changed his perspective on what education could be. Ordained in 2019 for the Archdiocese of Cincinnati, he is currently a parochial vicar at the Queen of Apostles family of parishes. He is also a member of Fiat Classical Academy’s advisory team.

Through his experiences in seminary and as a priest, he has observed the state of Catholic education and, in places, “its de facto dissociation from Catholic culture, the life of prayer, and the sacramental life.” As a member of the advisory team, Fr. Christian “brings a perspective on prayer, the sacramental life, and the primary spiritual texts. This is the primary difference between classical education and classical Catholic education. At Fiat Classical Academy, the two can’t be separated.

Fr. Christian is also convinced of the value of classical education. In reflecting on its development, he says: “It is no accident that the Greek/Roman tradition of education for freedom was taken up by the Church Fathers and ultimately brought to fruition in Christ, just as it is no accident that Greek philosophy came to give the Church her language for understanding many truths of the faith.”

Through such an education, students at Fiat Classical Academy orient themselves to the Truth, Jesus Christ, and are given a rich opportunity, with support from the whole community of the school, to respond to Him. This education, as Fr. Christian says, “involves the formation of the whole person—of the heart, the soul, the mind, and the strength, which are ultimately to be dedicated to the love of God.”

No one is unfamiliar with the decline in Mass attendance and engagement that the Church has struggled with for the past few decades. To a certain extent, this reality has become a normalized part of discussion within the Church as schools, parents, pastors, teachers, and lay people grapple with how to help and encourage people to participate. Fr. Christian noted that in some institutional cultures, “faith is treated by many as something good but unreal: a symbolic framework in which to talk to children about morals and the meaning of life, but nothing more.” In contrast to that, the work of a Catholic high school is to develop a serious understanding and application of faith. “While this is true at all levels, it is particularly applicable at the high school level, where children are developing into adults and are more capable of and interested in dealing with serious questions of life.”

Classical Catholic education is a means by which students are able to encounter rigorous learning and encounter God through every academic discipline. “A Catholic high school,” says Fr. Christian, “must support the formation of each open heart, by means of a wholistic education, in a genuine spiritual life, which, precisely because it is rooted on an unshakable foundation, is able to be sincere and joyful in its expression in the world.” This is precisely what Fiat Classical Academy strives to do every day.

With the guidance and participation of advisory team members like Fr. Christian Cone-Lombarte, Fiat Classical Academy is excited by the potential of its alumni to do just this: to give sincere and joyful witness to their faith as mature disciples of Christ in the world.