By Michael F. Flach
HERALD Staff Report
(From the issue of 5/20/04)

The Brent Society honored two pillars of Catholic education in the Arlington Diocese at its annual awards banquet May 13 at the Fairview Park Marriott in Falls Church.

Dr. Warren Carroll, founder and first president of Christendom College in Front Royal, and his wife, Anne W. Carroll, founder and principal of Seton School in Manassas, received the Distinguished Service Award from Brent Society President Kathleen Hunt. The award is named in honor of the Brent family, the first permanent Catholic settlers in Virginia.

Dr. Timothy O’Donnell, current president of Christendom College, described the Carrolls "as two great oaks intertwined. They are teachers, writers, educators and founders in the full Catholic sense of those words."

O’Donnell said that Warren entered the Church in 1968 — a tumultuous "year of betrayal" during which Pope Paul VI released the encyclical "Humanae Vitae."

"Warren Carroll came into the Church when everyone else was leaving it," O’Donnell said. "He pledged to swim against the tide."

Warren is considered a leader in the restoration of orthodox Catholic liberal arts education in America. He started Christendom College in 1977 with 26 students and $50,000 in the bank from a rented building in Triangle. He remained president until 1985 and served as history department chairman until his retirement in 2002.

Christendom today has 500 students and is in the midst of unprecedented growth. In recent years it has added new dorms, gymnasium and chapel to its Front Royal campus. A new library is currently under construction.

O’Donnell said it was fitting to honor the Carrolls on May 13, the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima and the 23rd anniversary of the failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II.

Although the Carrolls were not blessed with children of their own, "their domestic Church has been most fruitful," O’Donnell said. Both Seton and Christendom have produced an abundance of religious vocations and strong Catholic marriages.

"We tried to promote marriages and vocations that will be helpful to the Church," said Warren. He publicly thanked Arlington’s first bishop, Thomas Welsh, "for allowing us to go forward in our earliest days." He also recognized his late mother, a non-Catholic, who still encouraged him to "make a contribution in life."

Anne earned her master’s degree in English from New York University and was working for Triumph Magazine when the magazine’s parent organization, the Society for the Christian Commonwealth, expressed an interest in beginning a school that taught Catholicism throughout its curriculum.

With just eight students and a tight budget, she started the Christian Commonwealth School in Warrenton. Two years later, in 1975, she doubled the number of students to 16 and moved the school to Manassas. She renamed it Seton School in honor of the Church’s newest canonized saint. Seton School currently has 350 students and 29 full or part-time teachers.

"I didn’t have the resources at the beginning," said Anne. "The success of Seton, under God’s grace, has been because of the resources of all those who have contributed over the years."

Parents and teachers have contributed "hours and hours of volunteer time" over the years to keep Seton going, she said. "It is truly the mystical body in action."

In addition to the Carrolls, the Brent Society presented its "Militantis Ecclesiae Miles" ("Soldier of the Church Militant") award to Dr. Martin McCavitt, former Brent Society board member, and Kenneth Cuccinelli, Jay O’Brien and Robert Marshall for their strong pro-life efforts in the state legislature.

Father John De Celles, Brent Society moderator and parochial vicar at St. Michael Parish in Annandale, gave the invocation and benediction.