Introduction
In the renewed interest in classical education, Memoria Press has emerged as one of the most influential curricula in the Anglophone world. Founded by Cheryl Lowe and rooted in the American Protestant tradition, it has provided many families with a structured, language-centered educational alternative to modern pedagogies. In their 2024 article, Three Pillars Upon Which Memoria Press is Built, the institution articulates its foundation: a curriculum that is “Christian, Classical, and Traditional.”
The appeal of such a model is understandable. Yet for Catholics—and especially those seeking a revival of classical Catholic education as it was historically developed—the question must be asked: Does Memoria Press’s three-pillar model align with the historical framework and theological principles of authentic Catholic education? More precisely, does it reflect the intellectual tradition of the Church and the Scholastic philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas?
This article will argue that while Memoria Press shares several surface-level characteristics with the Catholic tradition—Latin, logic, literature, and moral formation—its approach lacks the ecclesial, sacramental, and metaphysical depth that defines true classical Catholic education. Though sincere and well-structured, the Memoria model reflects a Protestant moral intellectualism rather than the Thomistic integration of reason, grace, and doctrine.
I. What Is Classical Catholic Education?
1. Rooted in the Liberal Arts
The foundation of classical Catholic education is the seven liberal arts: the trivium (grammar, logic, rhetoric) and the quadrivium (arithmetic, geometry, music, astronomy). These were not arbitrary subjects but carefully ordered disciplines meant to purify and train the intellect for the study of sacra doctrina—sacred theology.
These arts were historically considered preparatory for philosophy and ultimately theology. The final end of education was not personal success, utility, or even virtue in the modern sense, but the contemplation of truth and union with God through participation in the divine life. This goal required intellectual discipline, metaphysical realism, and moral formation within the sacramental life of the Church.
2. Governed by Ecclesial Authority
Education in the Catholic tradition has never been independent or self-defined. It was developed under the guidance of the Church’s Magisterium, especially through the monastery schools, cathedral schools, and later, the universities of Paris, Bologna, and Oxford. The Ratio Studiorum, codified by the Jesuits in 1599, solidified this tradition. It set out a complete educational vision—from early grammar to advanced theology—ordered by ecclesial authority and guided by fidelity to doctrine.
This tradition culminated not in general moral uplift or cultural formation, but in the intellectual worship of God. Education was a path to sanctity, grounded in metaphysics and animated by grace.
II. Evaluating Memoria Press’s “Three Pillars”
Let us now examine Memoria Press’s stated pillars—Christian, Classical, and Traditional—in light of Catholic educational history and Thomistic principles.
1. Christian
Memoria’s Claim
Memoria Press insists that its curriculum is explicitly Christian. Scripture is central, moral formation is emphasized, and students read Augustine, Dante, Lewis, and Chesterton. Children memorize Scripture from the King James Bible and are immersed in a theistic cultural framework from kindergarten onward.
The article describes this as a kind of “ascent”—an educational journey up a spiritual mountain that draws the student closer to God.
Catholic Analysis
Here, we must acknowledge both the strengths and limitations of the model. Morally and culturally, there is overlap: the Christian West is a shared heritage. But from a Catholic perspective, Christianity in education is not merely Bible literacy, moral training, or great books. It is:
Participation in the sacramental life of the Church,
Subordination of reason to faith as defined by the Magisterium,
Cultivation of the soul through prayer, liturgy, and the doctrine of grace.
Memoria’s vision of Christian formation lacks sacramentality. The absence of the Church’s doctrinal and liturgical life as the interpretive context for Scripture, morality, and even history leads to a privatized or cultural Christianity. This reflects the Reformed emphasis on moral order and personal piety, rather than the Catholic ideal of sanctity through ecclesial grace.
Furthermore, the choice of the King James Version—though beautiful—is not a neutral decision. It places students in a Protestant textual and theological framework. St. Thomas and the Church Fathers relied on the Vulgate. The Church officially endorses the Douay-Rheims and the NABRE (in modern usage). The poetic cadence of the KJV cannot substitute for doctrinal fidelity.
The comparison of classical education to “climbing a mountain” is evocative, but vague. In Catholic thought, true ascent toward God requires sacramental grace and theological formation, not merely moral discipline and literary exposure.
2. Classical
Memoria’s Claim
The centerpiece of Memoria’s classical pillar is the study of Latin and the Greco-Roman heritage. Latin, they claim, is the “most effective tool” for developing the mind, as its grammatical precision shapes logical thought and clarity of expression. Alongside this linguistic core is the reading of great literature—from Homer to Cicero to Shakespeare—as a means of forming virtue and cultural literacy.
Students are expected to engage not merely with the stories of the past, but with the wisdom embedded in them. Literature, says Lowe, teaches “unselfishness, compassion, courage, integrity, and justice.”
Catholic Analysis
Again, this is laudable—but incomplete. Latin and the classics are essential to Catholic education, but not in isolation. In the Catholic tradition, the study of Latin was for theology, not just mental training. The Vulgate, the Mass, the Fathers—all required fluency for sacra doctrina. Latin was not an academic ornament but a sacred necessity.
Moreover, the purpose of classical texts in Catholic education is not merely to “build virtue” but to serve truth. In Scholasticism, all learning is ordered by a hierarchy:
Logic serves
Philosophy, which serves
Theology, which contemplates
God as First Truth.
Memoria’s emphasis on “the best that has been thought and said”—while borrowing from Matthew Arnold—is largely a humanist claim. It risks divorcing the classics from the supernatural ordering of truth. This is particularly evident in its presentation of literature as the chief source of moral formation, rather than grace and doctrine as communicated through the Church.
Finally, the centrality of virtue in Memoria’s curriculum is admirable. But it must be remembered that for Aquinas, virtue alone is insufficient for beatitude. The cardinal virtues must be elevated by the theological virtues—faith, hope, and charity—which are infused by grace. Any moral system that does not explicitly acknowledge this will fall short of the Catholic view of man’s final end.
3. Traditional
Memoria’s Claim
The third pillar, “Traditional,” is described as a return to pre-progressive educational methods: teacher-centered instruction, phonics, recitation, mastery learning, and cursive penmanship. The classroom is ordered, hierarchical, and disciplined. Memorization and drill are prized. The curriculum is content-rich and rigorous.
This traditionalism is held up as a rebuke to the failures of modern child-centered education, which the article describes as chaotic and ineffective.
Catholic Analysis
Here, Memoria is strongest—and closest to Catholic tradition. The Church has long recognized the need for order, mastery, and structure in the intellectual formation of the young. From the monastic schools to the Ratio Studiorum, the emphasis has always been on discipline and progression in learning.
Recitation, memorization, and exactitude were cornerstones of Catholic pedagogy. The Ratio explicitly outlines the repetition of Latin declensions, the disputation of syllogisms, and the structured ascent from grammar to rhetoric to philosophy.
However, even here, the Memoria vision remains pedagogical, not theological. Traditionalism is valuable, but it must serve a teleology—an end. In Catholic education, the traditional methods were justified not because they “worked,” but because they trained the intellect for truth and disposed the soul for grace.
A Catholic critique of Memoria’s traditionalism is not that it is too strict or structured, but that it lacks supernatural integration. Without the Mass, without the sacraments, without explicit Magisterial formation, discipline becomes utilitarian, not sanctifying.
III. Missing Foundations in Memoria’s Model
1. No Sacramental Economy
Catholic education is, above all, a participation in the sacramental life of the Church. The goal is not merely to produce virtuous citizens, but saints. Without Confession, the Eucharist, and Confirmation, students cannot receive the supernatural help necessary for true intellectual and moral formation.
Memoria’s Christian formation—prayers, Scripture memory, reading Christian authors—is valuable. But in the Catholic tradition, these practices are ordered to and perfected by the sacraments, not substitutes for them.
2. No Magisterial Authority
The Catholic vision of truth is guarded and defined by the Magisterium. Doctrinal fidelity is not a matter of interpretation, consensus, or personal insight—it is an act of submission. Memoria’s use of authors like Lewis and Chesterton reflects a general Christian culture, but not a specifically doctrinally Catholic formation.
Where is the Catechism? The Councils? The Papal Encyclicals? Where is St. Thomas’s Summa Theologiae? Without these, the student’s education remains theological-lite—more Christian humanism than Catholic theology.
3. No Philosophical Realism
Finally, Memoria’s curriculum lacks an articulated metaphysical foundation. Classical Catholic education is built on Aristotelian-Thomistic realism: that things exist, that truth is the conformity of mind to reality (adaequatio rei et intellectus), and that human reason can know being. Without metaphysics, education drifts toward moralism or sentimentality.
Memoria offers no such philosophical framework. Their educational anthropology is essentially pragmatic: Latin teaches logic; literature teaches virtue; structure teaches mastery. But what is man? What is truth? What is beatitude? These are metaphysical questions, and the Catholic tradition demands their answers.
Conclusion: A Good Beginning, But Not the Whole Tradition
Memoria Press represents a serious and sincere effort to restore classical learning in the Christian world. It offers a structured curriculum, a rich literary canon, and a reverent culture of study. For many families, it is a welcome alternative to both secularism and progressive chaos.
But from a Catholic perspective, Memoria’s model—while good—is incomplete. It lacks:
The sacramental economy that defines Catholic sanctity,
The Magisterial authority that secures doctrinal truth,
The metaphysical realism that grounds Scholastic inquiry,
And the teleological vision that orders all education to union with God.
It is, in short, not classical Catholic education, but Protestant moral intellectualism in a classical shell.
As Catholics seek to restore authentic education, they must look not only to Latin, literature, and logic, but to the Eucharist, the Catechism, and the Angelic Doctor. The true three pillars of Catholic education are:
The Faith, handed on by the Church,
Reason, disciplined by the liberal arts,
Grace, communicated through the sacraments.
Memoria Press may help some to recover the form of classical education. But only the Church can restore its substance.
Headmaster
Classical Liberal Arts Academy
References
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa Theologica. Translated by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province. Benziger Bros., 1947.
https://www.newadvent.org/summa/Ratio Studiorum: The Official Plan for Jesuit Education (1599). Translated by Claude Pavur, S.J. Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2005.
https://jesuitinstitute.org/Resources/RatioStudiorum.htmCatechism of the Catholic Church. Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1993.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTMSecond Vatican Council. Gravissimum Educationis (Declaration on Christian Education), 1965.
https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decl_19651028_gravissimum-educationis_en.htmlPope Pius XI. Divini Illius Magistri (On the Christian Education of Youth), 1929.
https://www.vatican.va/content/pius-xi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xi_enc_31121929_divini-illius-magistri.htmlPope Leo XIII. Aeterni Patris (On the Restoration of Christian Philosophy), 1879.
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_l-xiii_enc_04081879_aeterni-patris.htmlPieper, Josef. Scholasticism: Personalities and Problems of Medieval Philosophy. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. New York: Pantheon Books, 1960.
https://archive.org/details/scholasticismper0000piepGilson, Étienne. The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Translated by L. K. Shook. New York: Random House, 1956.
https://archive.org/details/christianphiloso0000gils_n1x7Lowe, Cheryl. “Three Pillars Upon Which Memoria Press Is Built.” Memoria Press, June 5, 2024.
https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/three-pillars-upon-which-memoria-press-is-built/Kreeft, Peter. A Summa of the Summa. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1990.
https://ignatius.com/a-summa-of-the-summa-susup/Maritain, Jacques. Education at the Crossroads. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1943.
https://archive.org/details/educationatthecrossroads
