When Archbishop Gregory Hartmayer attended Catholic schools in the 1960s, the landscape of Catholic education was such that there were typically only Catholics in Catholic schools; the schools were almost exclusively run by religious, and it was as if every parish had one.
Times have since changed, and those past realities are, for the most part, just that. Hartmayer maintains that Catholic schools are “essential,” and he has now taken the helm of an association that supports and develops Catholic educators, who are now predominantly lay people.
“When I was growing up there were only Catholics in Catholic schools because there were so many of us, and there were so many religious, and it was almost as if every parish had a school,” Hartmayer told Crux. “But things have changed, and have evolved as there are fewer and fewer religious.”