Alleged Theodore McCarrick victim says he is helping fact-check abuse dossier

Martin Earle, a sacred artist who specializes in works for churches and the liturgy, told CNA that one should not mistake an artistic revival for a simple re-creation of the past. / Credit: Courtesy of Martin Earle

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The Augustine Institute’s new facilities in Florissant, Missouri. / Credit: Boeing Company and Augustine Institute

CNA Staff, Apr 23, 2024 / 13:30 pm (CNA).

The Augustine Institute, a Catholic educational and evangelization apostolate based in Denver for nearly two decades, announced on Tuesday that it will be moving its operations to a new campus in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. 

The institute, founded in 2005 as a Catholic graduate theology school, currently has an enrollment of a little over 300 students. It says on its website that it exists to serve “the formation of Catholics for the new evangelization” by “equip[ping] Catholics intellectually, spiritually, and pastorally to renew the Church and transform the world for Christ.”

The organization announced on Tuesday that it had purchased the former Boeing Leadership Center in Florissant, Missouri, just outside of downtown St. Louis. The school will “begin transitioning its operations over the next few years,” it said in a press release. 

The nearly 300-acre property “offers an unprecedented opportunity to expand our Graduate School of Theology and further our mission to help Catholics understand, live, and share their faith,” institute President Tim Gray said in a Tuesday press release. 

The Boeing facility, a former retreat center that went on sale in March, offers “state-of-the-art facilities” for the group’s Catholic mission, Gray said. 

The president told CNA this week that the Augustine Institute “wasn’t even in a search mode” when they learned of the facility.

“Some of the leadership at the Archdiocese of St. Louis told us about this property when it became available,” he said. 

The property was on the market for nearly a year before the institute began exploring it. “A couple of different buyers tied it up, but those deals fell through,” he said. “We found out about it toward the end of November, and it wasn’t until December that we started looking into it.”

Gray himself visited the campus in January; within several weeks the institute had purchased the property. 

“My head’s still spinning,” he said. “Just a few months ago this was not even on our radar.”

‘We have a big vision for this property’

Archbishop of Denver Samuel Aquila said in the institute’s press release this week that the discovery of the property was “providential” for the organization. 

“It will allow the institute the opportunity to remain faithful to its mission while continuing to grow,” the prelate said, calling the purchase “the realization of a long-standing hope for a campus environment for students, faculty, and expanded theology programs.”

In addition to its graduate school, the Augustine Institute offers sacramental preparation resources, a Bible study app, an apologetics course for high school seniors, and other instructional and catechetical materials. 

Much of that material is in digital format. Gray said this week that the new property will allow the Augustine Institute to expand from digital into “a national center for Catholic conferences, retreats, evangelization, and fellowship.”

The institute had largely outgrown its facilities in Denver, he told CNA. 

“We’ve been growing here and we’ve filled up our building,” he said. “We love Denver, it’s been great for us. But we didn’t have student housing. Housing is very expensive in Denver and it’s hard to recruit people to move out here. Those were challenges we were facing.”

The organization had to work quickly to raise enough funds to realize the sale, he said. 

“We had to raise a lot of money in just a few months so we could purchase this campus in cash,” he said. “We also had to raise enough money to have a reserve fund for the operations of such a large campus.” The institute amassed $50 million over the course of several months, he said.

The Augustine Institute is expecting to hold its 2024-2025 graduate school year at the new property starting in September. 

Mitchell Rozanski, the archbishop of St. Louis, said in the press release that the facility could become “the premier center for the new evangelization in the United States.”

The institute “can foster a new era of collaboration with Catholic organizations nationwide,” the archbishop said, “and invite more people to encounter Jesus Christ and his Church.”

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Washington D.C., Feb 13, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- The Senate will soon vote on two key pieces of pro-life legislation to protect infants surviving abortions and unborn children after they can feel pain.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed cloture on Thursday on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection bill (S. 311), as well as a bill “to protect pain-capable unborn children” (S. 3275). “Pain-capable” bills establish protections for babies from around the time they have been medically shown to feel pain, around 20 weeks gestation.

McConnell’s procedural action brings up a Senate floor vote on whether or not to consider the two bills. As a 60-vote majority is needed to consider the legislation, the bills are not expected to pass.

The pro-life Susan B. Anthony List thanked McConnell in a tweet on Thursday. Regarding the consideration of the “Born-Alive” bill, the group stated, “I mean come on, are we really still debating this, Senate Dems?”

Sen. Lindsey Graham’s (R-S.C.) introduced the “pain-capable” bill on Tuesday, a year after he authored a 20-week abortion ban, the “Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act” (S. 160).

“I don’t believe abortion five months into the pregnancy makes us a better nation. America’s at her best when she’s standing up for the least among us,” Graham stated during an April, 2019 hearing on his pain-capable bill.

Sen. Ben Sasse’s (R-Neb.) Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act requires babies who survive abortion attempts to be given the same standard of care that other infants receive who are born alive at the same age, and to be immediately admitted to a hospital.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reported that from 2003-2014, 143 infant deaths in the U.S. occured after children were born alive following botched abortions, and “it is possible” that the number was higher. In Florida alone in 2017, 11 babies were reportedly born live during abortions. 

Sasse told CNA on Monday that, although he is pro-life, his bill is not about limiting abortion.

“This is about babies that survive botched abortions, and whether or not they deserve the same level of care that other babies get at the same gestational stage. And the answer for all humans should obviously be ‘yes,’ if people aren’t just obsessed with politics,” he told CNA.

In 2015 and again in 2017, the House passed a pain-capable bill but the measure failed in the Senate. In 2015, the Senate failed to proceed with the House bill, six votes short of the necessary 60 votes.

The Senate in 2018 failed to proceed with Graham’s pain-capable bill, by a vote of 51-46. Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Joe Donnelly (D-Ind.) and Bob Casey (D-Pa.) voted yes, while Doug Jones (D-Ala.) voted no, along with Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine).

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