Classical & Catholic. Forming souls & forming minds. Canongate seeks to educate the whole person, primarily through four pillars.
All searching for wisdom, all attempting to encounter reality, all seeking the grain of the universe begins with wonder. Canongate considers creating the space for wonder as essential to a genuine education, so that our students wouldn’t just busily pass by the “weeds” & “mundane” elements of the world but would allow those things to become vicars of the Infinite Wellspring that is God. Read more
The broader culture is awash with inattention. Canongate, by contrast, aims to create the kind of person who can resist the ephemeral, restless, & detached consumeristic spirit of our age. We strive to foster attention – to give space for a long, slow, surprised gaze given to a thing in the world – so that our students can discern the inexhaustible charge of God’s creative & sustaining action found pulsing through everything. Read more
True freedom – more than merely being without constraint or restriction – is found in one’s ability to do the Good. But for the Christian, the Good is not an abstract philosophical concept, but Christ himself. And this is why, for Canongate, the liturgical life of the Church courses throughout & punctuates our school day, drawing us further along in our discipleship to Christ, and thus toward true freedom. Read more
Joy is at the heart of the Gospel. It might even be said that joy is the Gospel, the Good News itself. All our longing & searching seeks some end. Jesus calls this “end” the sharing in the joy that is shared between him and his Father. As a school that sees discipleship to Christ as essential to the journey of education, Canongate considers experiencing the joy promised to all those who abide in Him as every bit as essential. Read more
Canongate Catholic High School sees education as a holistic endeavor – based in agency and participation. Our culture is ordered toward more than just the intellect and grades, as important as those are. Each day students are invited to come to school to see what they can give to their courses, peers, and teachers. Rather than merely seeing what they, as individuals, can get out of school, students consider it an act of charity toward others to contribute to the life of the school. As a place of lively & integral community, there are no empty structures at Canongate. Balancing between rigor and leisure, students bring their head and heart to school, cultivating virtue in addition to advancement.
AT CANONGATE, WE SERVE AS A RETREAT FROM THE NOISE AND DISTRACTION OF THE ONLINE WORLD AND OPEN OUR STUDENTS UP TO THE REAL. TECHNOLOGY IS A SUPPLEMENT NOT A SUBSTITUTE.
WE MAINTAIN HIGH ACADEMIC STANDARDS, WHILE PRIORITIZING IMMERSION IN REALITY. OUR DAYS ARE FILLED WITH REAL THINGS — NATURE, LITERATURE, CONVERSATION, AND THE LITURGY.
The name of the school is based on the life of our patron saint, St. Margaret of Scotland. Canongate was the name of the medieval road that connected her castle to the grand church built in her honor. The name Canongate is a perfect metaphor to describe authentic education: by way of the canon – the enduring works of science, art and literature, together with the Church’s scripture and its Eucharistic prayer – we find our gate or path out of shadows into the truth, Ex umbris in veritatem.
