St. Gertrude the Great School

Retribuam – “I will give back”

Our Mission Statement

St. Gertrude the Great School provides a Catholic liberal arts education, including an integrated core curriculum grounded in natural and revealed truth, the purpose of which at both the elementary and high school levels is to form the whole person for a life spent in the pursuit of truth and wisdom. Intrinsic to such an education is the formation of moral character and the fostering of the spiritual life. This education prepares students for their role as faithful, informed, and articulate members of Christ’s Church and society.

Who We Are

Education, properly so-called, is the process of perfecting the highest human faculties: the intellect and the will. Thus, education is more than mere communication of facts; it is above all a process of moral development of the human character, forming a person to know truth and to love goodness.

In his timeless encyclical on Catholic education, Divini Illius, December 31, 1929, Pope Pius XI explains with clarity the results of adhering to sound philosophical principles of Catholic education (as noted above): “The product of Christian education is the supernatural man who thinks, judges, and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ.”

The Holy Fathers also add: “The true Christian does not renounce the activities of this life, he does not stunt his natural faculties; but he develops and perfects them by coordinating them with the supernatural. He thus ennobles what is merely natural in life and secures for it new strength in the material and temporal order, no less than in the spiritual and eternal.

St. Gertrude the Great School is dedicated to perfecting the intellects and wills of its students, and thus achieving the goal of Christian education.

A Day at Our School

8:10 am. – Classes begin

11:25 am. – Daily Mass and Sermon

12:25 pm. – Lunch and recreation

1:10 pm. – Classes begin again

3:25 pm. – Dismissal

Curriculum

At the heart of the entire curriculum is the Catholic faith. It is comprised of several time-tested texts as well as several contemporary publications. The grammar school uses several traditional texts such as the Living My Religion series, the Voyages in English series, Professor Phonics, and the much cherished Faith and Freedom readers. Seton Publishing provides English, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary text-workbooks, whose attractive and colorful layouts captivate the grammar school student, and have proven themselves to be valuable assets in the classroom. Abeka Books offers up-to-date mathematics and science texts which are used in all grade levels. In addition to the mathematics and science texts previously noted, our high school students use the Our Quest for Happiness religion series that has been reproduced by Lepanto Press, as well as Catholic English and literature texts that have been reprinted by both Seton Publishing and Lepanto Press.

Pastor

Bishop Charles McGuire was born just outside the small town of Chillicothe, Ohio. When he was about fifteen years old, he and his family left the New Vatican II Religion and became Traditional Catholics. Fr. Cekada was instrumental in helping him to understand what had happened in the Church since the 1960s. After much deliberation, Bp. McGuire left his childhood home for Detroit, Michigan in 1999, in order to join the seminary which is under the direction of the Bp. Sanborn. He attended the minor seminary for his senior year of high school before entering the major seminary. He was ordained a priest on November 16th, 2005 by Bp. Dolan at St. Gertrude the Great Church. In his first couple years, he moved around assisting different clergy and traveling to different missions. In 2009 he was transferred to St. Gertrude where he assisted Bp Dolan. Shortly after Bp. Dolan’s death, Bishop McGuire was consecrated a bishop on May 18th, 2022. Since then he has been the pastor at St. Gertrude the Great Church.

School Chaplain

Fr. Vili Lehtoranta was born and raised in Turku, Finland. After high school he began to study Church history at the University of Helsinki. Fr. Lehtoranta converted from Lutheranism to Catholicism (Novus ordo) in 1998. After beginning studies in the university, he gave up on the Traditional movement but re-discovered it when he read some of Fr. Cekada’s writings. He made his first trip to the USA in late 2006 to visit St. Gertrude the Great Church and talked with Bp. Dolan and Fr. Cekada. After graduating from the University of Helsinki as a Master of Theology, Fr. Lehtoranta started his studies at the seminary in September 2007. On November 16, 2011, he was ordained a priest at St. Gertrude the Great Church by Bp. Dolan. He graduated from the seminary in the summer of 2012. Since then, he has been teaching religion, history, and Latin at St. Gertrude the Great School, as well as saying the Mass and preaching to our school children.

Principal

Dr. Daniel Stanislowski, sedevacantist since 2004, was born and raised in Grand Forks, North Dakota and was a member of the SGG mission in Grand Forks since its inception. He has a wife and five young children. He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and worked as a research scientist until it became expedient to expose the truth about the biological realities of world events to as many people as possible. To accomplish this, he became the Chief Science Officer of a public information company called Midwest Public Health Coalition. He happily lent his expertise to the SGG clergy and was greatly rewarded with an invitation to be the principal of St. Gertrude the Great School. He considers educating Catholic youth one of the highest callings and a great responsibility. He every day seeks to draw closer to the Lord so as to better educate his students, improve his school, and live by the motto of the school: retribuam, I will give back.

Mass is the center of our daily life at SGGS.

For more information, please contact us at sggschool@sgg.org