More than 18,000 young people and hundreds of teachers are returning to Archdiocese of Louisville Catholic schools as summer draws to a close.
Some are returning to renovated spaces, others are returning to find new school leaders and teachers.
All grade school students will also find a new religion curriculum this year.
Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre approved the updated curriculum for kindergarten through eighth grade in early August.
Helping students build a relationship with Jesus Christ is fundamental to the mission of Catholic schools, said the archbishop.
“In living out that mission in a Catholic school, students must encounter Christ in their schools daily so they may become disciples of Christ who will bring the Gospel to life in their communities,” he said. “A shared commitment to the mission creates communities where students, families, educators and leaders are drawn together by a shared commitment to faith.”
He went on to note that Catholic schools fulfill their identity and mission “when fundamental Catholic principles are expressed continuously in the school’s ritual and symbols, policies and procedures, and academic curriculum.”
“In our system, we see teaching as a ministry. So everyone who works in Catholic schools is part of this ministry. A beautiful sentiment in the document is that a school is a living sacrament. This is where our students come to encounter God and grace, and the people who work in Catholic schools are kind of the vehicles to do that.”
— Christine Kelly, curriculum, instruction, and assessment specialist
“The faith development of students is primary to the mission of Catholic schools,” he said. “Therefore, it should be approached with great care and part of an ongoing process to ensure that our schools are providing an exemplary academic program for religious education and catechesis in the Catholic faith.”
The religion curriculum in the Archdiocese of Louisville is updated every five years. In this latest update, the primary changes focus on how everyone involved in the schools can live out the Catholic schools’ mission and vision, said Christine Kelly, who serves in the archdiocese’s Office of Catholic Schools as a curriculum, instruction and assessment specialist.
Kelly, who led the effort to review the curriculum, said the Office of Catholic Schools considers teaching a ministry, and everyone who serves in a Catholic school is part of that ministry.
“A beautiful sentiment in the document is that a school is a living sacrament. This is where our students come to encounter God and grace, and the people who work in Catholic schools are kind of the vehicles to do that,” said Kelly.
Kelly said the 2025 update also presented the opportunity to streamline the curriculum’s language and clarify what students should be taught at every grade level.
“A lot of our teachers aren’t trained as catechists; some of the very catechetical language isn’t as accessible,” said Kelly. “A lot of the changes in the document were less on content, since the catechism doesn’t change, and more around the accessibility of the document, and painting a clear picture of what our expectations are at each grade level.”
The foundation of the curriculum is the four pillars of “The Catechism of the Catholic Church,” said Kelly: the creed, the sacraments, life in Christ and Christian prayer. It also draws on six tasks of catechesis with a set of standards for each task, she noted.
Kelly said that one difference in the curriculum that students and parents may notice is that the standards for confirmation are no longer in the seventh and eighth grade standards.
They now stand alone because the archdiocese realized confirmation is happening in multiple grade levels, said Art Turner, director of the archdiocese’s Faith Formation Office and part of a committee that worked on the new curriculum.
Kelly said, ultimately, the goal and hope is that “parents, families and students see a much more integrated approach to religion, potentially some more cross-curricular projects. … Math teachers, science teachers, English teachers are pulling that thread through their core content as well.”
