William C. MichaelWilliam C. Michael

Mr. William C. Michael, O.P., is the founder and headmaster of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy and a Lay Dominican in the Catholic Church. Mr. Michael received an honors degree in Classics and Ancient History from Rutgers University and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He led the CLAA to accreditation with Cognia in 2024. He has been studying and teaching the classical liberal arts for over 30 years.

School is for Intellectual Formation, Not Social Life and Sports

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Today is Thursday, March 5, and this is William Michael of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy. One of the most important mistakes that parents make is seeking to find a school that provides everything that their children need to grow and develop well. Parents look for schools to provide not only academic instruction and assessment, which is the principal role of schools, but they look for teachers to provide role models. They look for schools to provide children with friends. They look for schools to provide children with extracurricular activities like sports, music, and fine arts. The problem is that … Continue

Don’t Be Deceived by Critics of the Church

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Today, the following image was posted was made on social media: The image was spread around by men and women who were interested in criticizing the Second Vatican Council. The argument goes like this: 1. Whatever happens after Vatican II was caused by Vatican II.2. The decline in religious priests and sisters happened after Vatican II.3. Therefore, Vatican II caused the decline in religious priests and sisters. This will persuade people who are seeking a cause to separate from the Catholic Church (Proverbs 18:1). It will not, however, persuade anyone who is reasonable. First, the argument is a fallacy. The … Continue

Was Peter the First Pope?

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Recently, I’ve been engaged in a number of interesting discussions with Protestants who deny that the papacy was established by Christ in the person of St. Peter. And as I’ve been engaged in these discussions for several days, I’ve been just jotting some thoughts down and organizing my own thoughts on the topic, studying the scriptures, trying as hard as I can to gain a full picture of what the scriptures have to say, especially as others present their interpretation and ideas on the topic, and I started to collect a bunch of different points and notes that I wanted … Continue

Homeschool Advice for Catholic Parents

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I’d like to take some time today to talk about a plan for homeschooling that I would recommend for homeschooling parents who have no idea what they’re doing. When I say homeschooling parents who have no idea what they’re doing, I’m not being negative or critical. I’m being honest. I’m talking to Christian parents who desire to give their children a Christian education, who are concerned about the quality of modern schools, who love their children very much, who fear God and desire to honor Him as parents. But when it comes to education, when it comes to homeschooling, when … Continue

Modern Sciences in Classical Catholic Education

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This talk is intended for parents and students of the Classical Liberal Arts Academy who are trying to understand how Catholic students should think about the study of the natural sciences, with a Catholic mindset, with a coherent system of Catholic thought. Many think that there’s a choice to be made between Classical Studies and Modern studies. But as I’d like to explain in this talk, that’s not the case. In fact, I would argue that in order to be true scientists, to be good scientists, we actually need to understand scholastic philosophy first and then study science within the … Continue

The Bible Does Not Teach “Sola Scriptura”

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In this talk, I’d like to share a response to the Protestant teaching of sola scriptura, or the Protestant idea that everything necessary for the Christian life must be present in Sacred Scripture, or must be proven from Sacred Scripture and from scripture alone. Any time that Protestants and Catholics attempt to speak to each other, this issue of authority is obviously central to the discussion. The Protestant position that Christian doctrine comes only from Sacred Scripture, I will argue in this talk, is not only impossible to prove, but it’s contrary to what the Scriptures actually say. I’m going … Continue

Realistic Goals for Catholic Homeschooling in the Modern World

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Catholic families who hope to live faithfully and raise their children well in the modern world must begin with realistic goals. The conditions under which Catholic parents now live are not those of medieval Christendom, nor even those of nineteenth-century America. They live under the influence of compulsory education laws. They live in an economy that requires academic credentials. They live in a culture that often measures success by college admissions statistics and income levels. If Catholic parents attempt to compete with secular society on its own terms, while also trying to preserve the Faith in their homes, they will … Continue

The Hidden Cause of Schism in the Catholic Church

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Schism in Christianity is usually explained in terms of personalities, politics, scandals, or discipline. But those explanations never seem to reach the root of the problem. In this talk, I argue that the deepest cause of schism in the Church is not moral or historical, but philosophical. Beneath many modern disagreements—between Protestants and Catholics, and even among Catholics themselves—lies a hidden metaphysical assumption about where the Christian faith exists. Is the faith an abstract ideal that can exist apart from the visible Church? Or does it exist only as embodied, historical, and concrete? Drawing on the classical distinction between Platonism … Continue