Pedaling for Providence: A Priest’s 350-Mile Family Tradition Is Saving Catholic Education
Father Jim Sullivan’s mother inspired his cycling fundraising efforts with a 350-mile bicycle trip from Connecticut to Montreal in 1948. After 25 years co-owning a construction firm with his brother, Sullivan became a priest; their company incorporated prayer into its workplace routine. Sullivan’s latest ride traverses the Haute Route through the French, Italian, and Swiss Alps and is expected to raise more than $250,000 for Catholic education.
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Father James Sullivan has turned a family cycling story into a fundraising tradition for Catholic education. His latest ride through the French, Italian and Swiss Alps is expected to raise more than $250,000 for the Catholic Academy of Waterbury, Connecticut.
Sullivan’s inspiration began with his mother, Phyllis, who in 1948, at age 17, rode a heavy bicycle with her sister about 350 miles from Waterbury to Montreal. As a boy, he heard her story and thought, “If Mom can do it, so can I.”
Before becoming a priest, Sullivan spent 25 years co-owning a construction company with his brother. The business grew to 33 employees, built homes and church facilities, and included a workplace chapel where employees paused for the Angelus and the Divine Mercy Chaplet. After his brother died at 43, Sullivan pursued the priesthood: he was ordained a permanent deacon in 2008 and a priest in 2014, at age 53.
Sullivan began organizing long-distance rides to help address Catholic schools’ tight budgets. In 2015, he and nine other priests rode from Connecticut to Emmitsburg, Maryland, raising $11,000; the route echoed his mother’s 350-mile ride. The next year, he retraced her journey to Montreal and raised $175,000 to renovate a parish gym that had been unused since 1968.
His latest ride was the Haute Route through the French, Italian and Swiss Alps. Proceeds are designated for the Catholic Academy of Waterbury, where tuition is kept below $6,000 to make the school accessible to working-class families and converts. Sullivan also described the school as an opportunity for evangelization, noting that six students chose to enter the faith the previous year.
The European ride also included visits connected to Sullivan’s faith. He celebrated Mass in Ars, France, associated with St. John Vianney, and visited the confessional where the saint heard confessions; in Geneva, he paid tribute to St. Francis de Sales.
Sullivan recalled that climbing Alpe d’Huez was exhausting but said he felt unusually energized near the summit. He was among 351 riders and said he believed he was the only priest and likely the only participant riding for a charitable cause.
Catholic education as a shared ecclesial responsibility
Catholic education is a shared ecclesial responsibility: parents have the first and primary responsibility, but they do not educate alone. Schools, teachers, parishes, pastors, bishops, and the wider Church each contribute according to their proper role. This cooperation serves more than academic achievement: it helps young people grow in faith, human maturity, and responsibility toward others.
Parents are the first persons responsible for their children’s education. Their right and duty include choosing suitable means and institutions for their children’s Catholic formation; choosing a Catholic school does not transfer that responsibility to the school.
That responsibility is lived at home as well as through school choice. Parents help form their children by the faith they practice, the values they teach, and the relationship they build with teachers and school leaders. The family and school should therefore work in active partnership, rather than treating education as something the school delivers and parents merely receive.
A Catholic school’s educational mission involves students, parents, teachers, other staff, and school leaders. Each has a distinct contribution, and their cooperation helps shape the school’s daily life—not only its formal lessons—into a Christian educational environment.
Teachers have a particular responsibility: their competence, formation, integrity, and witness influence whether the school can fulfill its mission. Catholic education calls them to work in harmony with the wider Church and to help students understand the faith, not merely encounter its vocabulary.
Students, too, belong to the educating community. Their participation is part of a shared effort in which cooperation can itself witness to Christ and to the Gospel.
Catholic education belongs to the Church’s evangelizing mission. A school is not simply a private educational institution with a religious label; it has an ecclesial identity and should be connected with the life of the local Church. Cooperation between school and parish is especially important in supporting students’ faith and sacramental life.
The bishop’s role is not identical to that of parents or school staff. He has responsibility to watch over the orthodoxy of religious instruction and the observance of Christian morals in Catholic schools. The whole educational community, meanwhile, shares responsibility for sustaining a genuinely Christian environment. When serious conflicts arise about a school’s Catholic character, hierarchical authority has a role in addressing them.
This shared responsibility does not mean that everyone has the same authority or function. Catholic teaching instead describes cooperation among distinct participants, each contributing according to their proper competence and vocation.
The Church’s educational mission is both evangelizing and concerned with the full development of the human person. Catholic education seeks to help students grow in faith while also preparing them to contribute to society and to a more humane world. It is meant to be open to all, with particular concern for those who are poor or vulnerable.
Because education is a right, responsibility extends beyond families and the Church. The Church teaches that civil authorities should respect families’ freedom to choose an education according to conscience and support their ability to do so within the law.
Catholic education, then, is neither the parents’ task alone nor the school’s task alone. It is a work of communion: parents lead in their children’s formation; teachers and school communities educate through learning and witness; parishes support faith and sacramental life; and bishops safeguard the Church’s teaching and mission. When these responsibilities are carried out in collaboration, education becomes a concrete expression of the Church’s care for the young.