Catholic Culture

“From the nature of the Catholic school also stems one of the most significant elements of its educational project: the synthesis between culture and faith.”

The Catholic School on the Threshold of the third Millennium
Congregation for Catholic Education
Culture is the water in which organizations and institutions – including schools – swim. Culture is the medium, in a sense, that sustains institutions and influences everything that happens in them. Others have described culture “as the glue that holds things together” or “the way things are done are here.” Culture holds and sustains Catholic identity. Therefore, it is the platform on which a better understanding of it should be built.

Practices, structured by norms and supported by persuasive narratives, are the building blocks of institutional culture. Changes in culture take place when those involved in the institution adjust or reinforce practices while adopting or adapting accompanying norms and enhancing or revising the narratives that make the practices compelling.

Given that, the way to better understand and enhance institutional Catholic identity is to look at these three elements as they operate in the three principal domains of Catholic schools: learning, character, and the practice of the faith.
Culture's Building Blocks

Practices

“Being Catholic matters; Being Catholic changes the way that one looks at the world. And the way to enter Catholicism, in the end, isn’t simply learning a series of doctrines or having some major, emotional religious experience everyday. Being Catholic is about the slow, transformative art of practice."
Dr. Timothy O’Malley
McGrath Institute for Church Life
University of Notre Dame

Narratives

“Stories are primary cultural vehicles that convey cultural content and meaning. Stories are the connective tissue of culture, giving it its depth, breadth, and texture…Narratives connect various components of culture and suggest why they play an important role in that particular culture."
Melanie M. Morey & Rev. John J. Piderit, S.J.
Catholic Higher Education: A Culture in Crisis

Norms

Cultural norms are the standards, shared expectations, and rules that steer behavior in a society, a religion, an organization, or a group. Cultural norms are learned and reinforced over time by cultural actors who personally sustain them and instill them in emerging members.

Catholic Culture

Practices

Narratives

Norms