Do you feel called to be one?
The Catholic Civic Leadership Institute finds, forms, and sends undergraduate and graduate students and recent graduates to carry the Catholic intellectual tradition and the witness of the saints into government, law, business, economics, diplomacy, and public policy. Open to Catholics, Christians, and all people of goodwill.
Called to lead. Formed in virtue. Sent to serve.
Founded 2026 in Austin, Texas. Already partnered with nearly a dozen campus ministries across Texas and beyond.
Every Sunday, the Church prays that those who hold authority govern with wisdom and justice. You could be the answer to that prayer.
Between your first class and your first office, something will form you: a party, a company culture, an algorithm. It will not ask your permission, and it will not wait. The only question is what.
The Church forms you young, through the sacraments, and gathers you into fellowship once you are established. But the decade in between, when your convictions harden into habits and your career takes its shape, is left to chance. That is the gap we close, and we close it early, before the world does.
You are not building a résumé. You are being sent, as a lay missionary, into the institutions that decide how we live: the courtroom, the agency, the firm, the committee room. Your workplace is your mission field. We form you to treat it like one.
Everything we teach is rooted in the cardinal virtues and the Catholic intellectual tradition, under the authority of the Diocese of Austin. The tradition is no one’s partisan property; it challenges every tribe. We form you to think with the Church, not with a party.
Every Civitas Seminar session pairs a hard question in public life with a saint who faced it. These five show what faithful witness in the public square looks like.
Pope St. John Paul II
1920–2005
Co-patronFormed under Nazi occupation and Communist rule, he carried the Gospel into the century’s worst tyrannies and helped bring one down without firing a shot.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
1873–1897
Co-patronA cloistered nun who never held office or traveled, yet was named patroness of the missions. Her “Little Way” teaches that the most consequential thing a leader can do is become a saint.
St. Pier Giorgio Frassati
1901–1925
Patron of StudentsA mountain-climbing university student who opposed Mussolini’s Fascists, joined the Catholic political party, and served the poor of Turin, all before dying at 24. Canonized in 2025.
St. Thomas More
1478–1535
Patron of LawyersLord Chancellor of England, who served his king faithfully until service required betraying the truth, and chose the scaffold over his conscience.
St. Catherine of Siena
1347–1380
Doctor of the ChurchA laywoman with no title who wrote to popes and kings demanding reform and was heard. Proof that you do not need an office to move the powerful; you need holiness, courage, and clarity.
One pathway, three stages, fully funded start to finish: we find you on campus, form you in the tradition, and send you into public life.
Find
We meet you where Catholic conviction meets career direction, through your campus ministry, a chapter, or a two-minute application, and bring you into the Civitas Seminar. Open to Catholics, Christians, and all people of goodwill who are enrolled undergraduate or graduate students in the United States, or recent graduates within three years of their degree.
Form
Every other Tuesday, online, you work through the hardest questions in public life with a saint who faced them and a cardinal virtue that answers them: Aquinas on unjust law, Frassati on the ballot, Romero on the cost of witness. Those who go furthest are selected for the Civitas Summer Fellowship, a fully funded two-week residency in Austin.
Send
The Civitas Washington and Rome Scholarships, in development, will place our strongest fellows inside the institutions that shape national policy and international diplomacy, and a lifelong alumni network sustains their witness across a career in government, law, business, economics, diplomacy, and public policy.
You bring the conviction. We provide the formation, the community, and the credential.
We don’t teach ideas. We form leaders. Every dimension of the program builds the competence, conviction, and courage you will need for faithful witness in the public square.
Reason from the Catholic intellectual tradition with enough rigor to hold your ground in any room. The foundation for every decision you will face.
Mass, prayer, spiritual direction, and the sacraments. Leaders without an interior life burn out or sell out; faithful ones face pressure their peers never see. We form the soul that can carry the weight.
Training in the craft of leadership: deliberation, public speaking, and persuasive writing. The skills you need in the courtroom, the boardroom, and the committee hearing.
A cohort that becomes a lifelong network: the people who keep you faithful across a forty-year career, and who send the next generation after you.
We operate under the pastoral authority of the Diocese of Austin and partner with the campus ministries you already know and trust. This is not separate from your faith. It is your faith, sent into your future.
The University of Texas at Austin
Texas A&M University
Texas State University
Baylor University
University of Houston
Southern Methodist University
Temple University
Rowan University
More partnerships in development nationwide. Don’t see your campus? Be the student who brings us there.
We are building a national institute that forms the next generation of faithful civic leaders. Whether you want to launch a chapter, partner with us as a campus minister, or invest in the mission, there is a place for you here.
Plant the Institute at your campus. Be a founding chapter president; we hand you the playbook, the materials, and the backing. You bring the students.
Campus ministers, clergy, and university administrators: introduce us to the students you already believe in. We do the rest.
Every gift removes a financial barrier for a young person called to lead. The model compounds: chapters seed chapters, and the same formation serves fifty students or five hundred at nearly the same cost.