Every Sunday, the whole Church prays for our civic leaders—that they govern justly, uphold human dignity, and promote the common good. The Catholic Civic Leadership Institute exists to prepare the answer to that prayer, by forming young people before a first career sets a worldview for good.
Called to lead. Formed in virtue. Sent to serve.
Since Rerum Novarum in 1891, the Church has built the most sophisticated body of social teaching on earth—a hundred and thirty-five years of it, addressed to work, wealth, war, human dignity, and most recently to artificial intelligence. What she never built is the institution that puts that teaching in a twenty-year-old’s hands.
Meanwhile, three formers arrive early and stay: political partisanship forms them for a tribe, corporate culture for a promotion, secular ideology for whatever the culture applauds this year. All three are camped in the college years—the last open window.
The Institute launches its inaugural Civitas Seminar cohort this September—less than nine months from incorporation, with no paid advertising, no full-time staff, and no chapters yet seeded. Every hour of it runs on the time, talent, and treasure of the founding board.
The fall cohort is capped—not for lack of interest, but to keep every formation discussion small enough to form somebody. Additional universities continue to ask for cohorts of their own.
Every gift removes a financial barrier for a young person called to lead, and every gift compounds: the curriculum, the manuals, and the source library cost the same whether they serve seventy-five students or five hundred.
Forms an entire campus chapter for a year—roughly fifteen students at a named university, meeting monthly, with formation continuing on the ground between Tuesday nights. Every chapter recruits the next cohort. You can pick the campus.
Sponsor a ChapterSends five students to the Civitas Summer Fellowship—two weeks in Austin: intensive study with lifelong professional mentors, daily Mass, and spiritual direction. Every place fully funded, so a student’s ability to pay never enters into it.
Fund Five FellowsThe gift that puts our first full-time person in the chair. Not a program—a payroll. It is the difference between a project that lives on nights and weekends and an institution that outlasts all of us.
Join the Founders CircleGifts of any size are welcome and go directly to student formation. To discuss a multi-year commitment, a named fellowship, or a gift of appreciated assets, contact C. J. Hudson directly.
With permanent staff, three cohorts run in three time zones—seventy-five students each, so every discussion stays small enough to actually form somebody. That is 225 students in a single academic year.
Five years out: close to a thousand young people formed in this tradition, and up to two hundred Summer Fellowship graduates entering statehouses, boardrooms, classrooms, and newsrooms. Then their alumni chapters begin recruiting the cohorts after them.
A seven-member Board of Directors holding four Notre Dame M.A.s in theology alongside professional, pastoral, and diocesan credentials: a founding board chair holding a JD and MBA, a permanent deacon with twenty-eight years in institutional asset management, a fifteen-year parish youth minister, an ecumenical Christian voice, and the Diocese of Austin’s Secretariat Director for Formation and Spirituality. The Institute operates under the pastoral guidance of the Diocese of Austin, with an appointed Spiritual Advisor on the Board.
Your gift is the Church’s answer to the prayer she offers every Sunday. To give, or to discuss a commitment, reach C. J. Hudson directly.
cj@ccl.institute · 512-470-6190
Start the ConversationThe Catholic Civic Leadership Institute is a 501(c)(3) public charity. EIN 41-4476475. Gifts are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.