Kimberley Heatherington recently reported (OSV News, January
29, 2026):
The Chesterton Schools Network (CSN) are expanding rapidly. As Emily de Rotstein, the CSN’s Executive Director, and her husband, Nes, who is responsible for international pat-partnerships in education, revealed at the 2025 Australian Chesterton Conference, Chesterton schools are springing up throughout America and in many other countries.
“At the beginning of 2026, there were Chesterton schools in 30 U.S. states and 76 dioceses, with more than 3,000 students enrolled. The list of schools on the Network’s website includes anticipated openings both domestic and overseas. It notes 22 schools slated to open this year, including those in as diverse locations as Tokyo; Barcelona, Spain; and Lagos, Nigeria.”
Heatherington quotes Emily de Rotstein on the special attraction of this movement:
“The Chesterton Schools Network unites the growing interest in classical, Catholic education with the entrepreneurial spirit of faithful parents who want to be of service to the Church. We’ve been growing consistently over the last few years, and our pipeline of interested start-up groups wanting to open new Greg Sheridan and his wife Jessie (seated left and centre) visiting with the Cleary family who founded and run the Chesterton Academy inAnnapolis, Maryland (USA) schools is only increasing, now internationally as well as in the U.S.”
In his recent book on Christianity, Greg Sheridan reports on his visit in 2024 to
a Chesterton school in Annapolis near Washington DC, where he met Bill and Azin Cleary, the couple who founded and run the school. The Clearys drew on the experience and guidance of the CSN, which, Sheridan notes, “provided them, invaluably, a full template for a classical school.”
In 2025, the CSN won a prestigious award for its remarkable initiative – the Yass Prize, which is seen in America as a form of Pulitzer Prize for education. The prize is worth US$1 million and will be used to strengthen resources and support current schools, while launching an ambitious 15-year plan to grow to 1,000 schools worldwide by 2040.
Chesterton Centre in Sierra Leone – An Appeal for Support by Gary Furnell
In the Spring 2025 issue of The Defendant, John Kanu described the sterling and effective efforts of the Sierra Leone Chesterton Centre (SLCC) to serve its local communities.
John focused on three initiatives:
- returning land degraded through surface mining for diamonds and gold, into productive fields or fish ponds run by families/co-operative clans;
- Chesterton Academy of Sierra Leone, providing Catholic education to over 500 students, many of them Muslims; and
- Chesterton Vocational and Skills Development Institute, providing useful job skills for young people with little education, some of whom might have slipped into unemployment, dependency or drugs.
John’s story, and his firm support of the very Chestertonian ideal of local people taking charge of local matters, has inspired the Australian Chesterton Society to contact John and ask if a donation of $200 would be helpful. John’s response was strongly positive. He indicated that the money would directly Sierra Leone – restoring the productivity of degraded land benefit the mining-affected village of Bandafayi in the Eastern Province of Sierra Leone, allowing families living in this community to convert degraded lands into fish ponds.
With additional donations from a number of Australian Chestertonians, an amount of $1,000 has recently been sent to the SLCC for its use in their projects.
John’s words show how far the influence of Chesterton’s social and economic ideas can reach:
After 15 years involvement in this work, we now have irrefutable evidence to demonstrate that the cooperative approach is an effective ‘distributist’ model.
Expanded goal for Sierra Leone
We’d now like to expand this donation opportunity to other Australian Chestertonians.
Our aim is send a further $2000 by the end of July. We don’t need governments or NGOs to solve every problem. Local people in Australia can help local people in Sierra Leone.
If you’d like to participate, please send a donation to the Australian Chesterton Society, clearly identifying the amount for transfer to the SLCC.
Please contact us if you would like to make a donation.