At Catholic schools, students are not the only individuals impacted by their religious education. Schools across the Diocese of Columbus are witnessing non-Catholic students choosing to enter the Church.
Some students are impacted by the parish priest or their religion classes. For others, there is a sense of community in the Catholic Church, or they are attracted to the Church’s beauty and history.
Whatever the reason for their conversion, many diocesan Catholic schools are seeing students convert to Catholicism, and some are bringing members of their family into the Church.
St. Vincent de Paul School
Mount Vernon St. Vincent de Paul School had 12 students and two staff members enter the Catholic Church in the past two years.
“In an environment like in our school and all of our Catholic schools, where Christ truly is exemplified in everything that we do, people are really attracted to that,” said Cecelia Pitt, the school’s principal. “People are really drawn to the beauty of our faith when they experience it firsthand.
“That initial invitation to join us for Mass or for the sacraments is really important because it allows people the opportunity to experience it who might not have otherwise.”
She said the presence of the St. Vincent de Paul Church clergy in the classrooms is a significant factor for students desiring to become Catholic.
“Father (PJ) Brandimarti and Father (Mark) Hammond are incredibly involved,” she said. “Father Brandimarti, he’s in the classrooms a lot, so is Deacon Tim (Birie). Every week he comes in and teaches classes to our kids and sparks that excitement.
“Since they’ve been in the classrooms and talking about what the faith has done for them and their own conversions stories, I think that the kids are really inspired by that. They’re excited to become part of our community.”
Students attend Mass each week, and teachers take their classes to spend time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. The school also has penance services during Advent and Lenten seasons.
“Our Catholic faith is the center of everything we do,” Pitt said. “We make sure that our Catholic identity is never compromised.”
Students are involved in the liturgical planning process for Mass each week. They also participate in the Mass by serving as lectors, cantors and bringing the gifts of bread and wine to the altar for consecration.
The Mass sparked the interest of non-Catholic students. Pitt said she believes those students are impacted by regular exposure to the sacraments, and they desire to join their Catholic peers by fully participating in the Mass.
Parents are invited to attend Mass each week with the school. Pitt said she receives positive feedback from parents who join the students for Mass.
“We always extend the invitation to parents to join us, and a lot of times, parents who attend Mass … we get the most feedback from about how beautiful the Mass is and how excited they are that their kids are part of something that’s so beautiful,” she said.
“I think that may spark some interest in families as well, just that initial exposure and that invitation each week to come to Mass with us.”
Exposing students to the sacraments and the truth of the Catholic faith, Pitt said, has “excited a lot of people.”
Two staff members at the school became Catholic in the past year. One staff member, who serves as the school custodian, entered the Catholic Church at last year’s Easter Vigil in April with his son, who is in third grade at St. Vincent de Paul.
“As he started to get involved in our school, he became really excited about our community, and the more he learned about us, the more he was drawn to the Catholic faith,” Pitt said.
“He went through (the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA), and then he and his son both came into the Church last Easter.”
Another staff member, who is a teacher at the school, entered the Catholic Church at the beginning of the 2023-24 school year.
“She spent the last five years teaching in our school, being exposed to the Catholic faith, learning about the faith, and the more she learned about it, the more excited she was to take the next steps to become Catholic,” Pitt said.
The school has an Adoration Club for middle school students, which was started by the school’s eighth grade religion teacher. The club meets once a week after school to adore the Blessed Sacrament together.
The teacher saw the club as an opportunity to increase belief in the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, Pitt said. The club also allows children – who might be unable to otherwise – to spend time with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
Bishop Flaget School
At Chillicothe Bishop Flaget School, principal Laura Corcoran said students learn about Catholicism in their daily religion classes. She said the school welcomes and reaches out to non-Catholic students and their families, helping them to understand the Catholic faith.
“We have a great opportunity for evangelization in our schools, and it’s just a natural flow,” Corcoran said. “Jesus said, ‘Go forward and teach what I’ve taught you. Make disciples,’ so we have a great opportunity that we need to capitalize (on).”
Corcoran said Bishop Flaget typically has between one and three students a year enter the Catholic Church. She said parents often enter the Church with their child, and families go through OCIA together.
“What we find a lot is that the students become interested,” she said. “They want to join the Church, and they bring their parents along with them.
“I’ve also had parents say … the people are so welcoming, and they feel like such a part of the family that they want to get more involved and become more a part of the community, which often leads them into learning more about the faith and entering (OCIA) and bringing the whole family along.”
Corcoran said students desire to be part of a community, and they find that in the Catholic Church. Students also want to receive the sacraments as their Catholic peers do.
Attending a Catholic school helps non-Catholic students understand the faith, and they learn about the Church in their daily religion classes.
Many students desire to convert around second grade, when they learn about the Eucharist and receiving First Holy Communion. Corcoran said these students want to be baptized Catholic, if they have not been baptized already, or convert and enter the Church.
In addition to daily religion classes and teaching children about the sacraments, Corcoran evangelizes through her communication with families. Her outreach to families is an opportunity to share the Catholic faith.
“I’ve been trying to get lots of information out there about the need to go to Mass on Sundays and also basic tenants of the faith or explain why we do this or what’s this all about … to help the parents be better teachers,” she said.
The school is not connected to a parish, but a tabernacle is present in the school’s chapel. Beginning in January, Corcoran said, Bishop Flaget will offer one or two class Masses every Friday, and an all-school Mass will be celebrated each month on First Fridays.
Clergy are available to offer the Sacrament of Reconciliation to students, and Fathers Chris Tuttle and Frank Brown, who serve as the pastor and parochial vicar at Chillicothe St. Mary and St. Peter churches and Waverly St. Mary Church, have a regular presence in the school.
“Father Frank Brown and Father Chris Tuttle, they’ve been coming up to school and just being present,” Corcoran said. “Father Brown will come up and have lunch in the cafeteria with the kids.
“I think that’s a great opportunity for the students to learn more about their faith but also see what exactly happens with vocations, what does it mean to be a priest, that a priest is just a normal guy, that they like to play video games and watch movies, too. Those are all, I think, essential parts of bringing the faith to life for kids and letting them see what opportunities are out there.”
Our Lady of Peace
At Columbus Our Lady of Peace (OLP) School, Anthony Rosselli, the parish’s director of evangelization, agreed that a priest can have a significant impact on students.
Father Sean Dooley, the OLP pastor, is a “terrific witness,” especially as a young priest, Rosselli said, and makes Catholicism attractive to students of all ages.
“He’s very quirky and funny, and the students definitely think that he’s just great,” he said. “I think that a lot of kids love to see a priest, somebody who’s given their life to God, who they also see making jokes and being funny and laughing and having a good time with students.
“The staff often go over to eat lunch in the cafeteria … and when Father goes over there, he’s like a rock star. All the kids are shouting out to him. I think they look at him, and they think, ‘Wow, here’s a guy who’s young and cool and interesting and funny, and he loves God.’”
The school had 12 students in 2023 and seven in 2022 enter the Catholic Church.
“I think that it has most to do with the Mass and the sacraments and the students coming here, singing together, praying together, listening to Father preach,” Rosselli said. “Father often teaches them about the saints, and I think that the whole world of Catholicism sort of reaches into their world, and they find it attractive, and they say, ‘I want to be a part of that, too.”
Students at OLP also have a desire to belong to a community, which several found in the Catholic Church. Some students view the Catholic community as a means to encountering God.
“If there is something that I hear often, it’s that Catholicism gives them a sense of community that they’ve been looking for, and I think it’s more than just, ‘Oh, my friends are all doing it. I want to do it, too,’” Rosselli said.
“The language that they use is more a sense of they found a home. They feel like this is the community within which they’re going to find God.”
OLP principal Jim Silcott also makes Catholicism “present” and “real” to students every day in school, Rosselli said. Students sing a hymn to the Blessed Virgin Mary every morning.
The school has had students in second and third grade through eighth grade choose to become Catholic. There is not one grade or teacher who has been particularly influential to conversions, Rosselli said.
Rather, the environment of the school and parish as a whole has impacted non-Catholic students, who sense something beautiful about Catholicism and are drawn to it.
“It’s become something attractive to these students,” he said. “They want to start walking down the road of Catholicism, and they’re excited about it.
“I haven’t seen anything like a group of friends or two or three friends who all decided they wanted to do this together. It’s been more individual, for whatever reason, God drawing these specific students into the Church.”
The school recently had an eighth-grade student enter the Church. Her mother, who is Hindu, began exploring the faith as a result of her daughter’s conversion.
At home, the student shares with her mother what she is learning in her religion classes, and her mother began attending OCIA classes.
“Usually, it’s the parents teaching the children, but now it’s the child teaching the parent,” Rosselli said.
“Her mom was telling me interesting stories about how (her daughter) has this deep desire to take the things that she’s learning about in school, things that Jesus is saying, parables and making them come alive in her life – that ‘my life can actually be changed if I live this way.’”
St. Brigid of Kildare
At Dublin St. Brigid of Kildare School, Andrea Komenda, the director of religious education at the parish, said the school has had several students enter the Church each year for about the past five years. Komenda works with students preparing to become Catholic.
She said religion class has an impact on the students as well as daily prayer in school. Students practice daily devotions, she said, including praying the Stations of the Cross, the Rosary and the Angelus.
The school follows the Church’s liturgical calendar. As an example, the school primarily focuses on praying the Rosary in May, the month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and in October, which is dedicated to the Rosary.
“All of those pieces really give them the liturgical feel for the Church,” Komenda said.
She said this is also teaching students who do not have catechesis or prayer at home, and they can share that with their families.
“Daily school life really is the mouthpiece of the Gospel for that family,” she said. “They are able to know there’s more.”
Komenda noted that the children she works with appreciate the traditions of the Catholic Church and the Church’s history.
“I did a tour of the Church for a few of my students, and they really liked looking at the altar and seeing the relics placed and seeing the stain glass and hearing stories of why,” she said.
Learning about the Church, praying and being exposed to sacramentals, or tangible realities of the Catholic Church, such as Rosaries or statues, leads students to start “putting together the puzzle pieces of ‘this is more than just a building.’ There is intentionality in all of the things that we do here,’” Komenda said.
Clergy members, who are present in the school and St. Brigid community, have an opportunity to teach the children every Thursday at Mass and after Mass, she said, and they are “essential” for transmitting the Catholic faith to students.
Komenda also credited St. Brigid principal Kathy O’Reilly, who, she said, makes catholicity a “central focus” at the school.
“She reminds them to be good disciples every day,” Komenda said.
As a result, Komenda said it “makes sense” that students are drawn to the Catholic faith and desire to become a member of Christ’s Church.