By Joe Pisani

Pat Brady’s life of service in the Church began at an early age. 

As a girl growing up in West Haven, she was inspired by the example of her parents—Anne, a committed volunteer in St. Louis Church, and Edward, a trustee, who made sure their five children were focused on their faith and engaged in parish life, whether it involved school activities or the annual carnival.

“It was a wonderful example of Catholic life and education,” she recalled. “And because of my parents, service has always been very important to me.” 

The Brady family had such a strong commitment to Catholic education that all of them went on to Catholic high schools—Lauralton Hall, Notre Dame of West Haven and Sacred Heart Academy, where Pat felt a calling to the religious life.

After 45 years in education, 31 of them as a principal and 25 as an Apostle of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, she is embarking on a new role as Director for Leadership Formation, where she will be focused on providing support for the 24 principals in diocesan schools.

“I want to accompany them on their journey with the goal of making our schools have an even stronger Catholic identity,” Brady said. “I can be a resource to them in all things regarding leadership and in creating a Catholic culture by providing ideas and resources and ways to go about doing that. This is all part of the renewal in our diocese.”

Brady is beginning the process by meeting with nine principals who are new to their role or new to the diocese or newly assigned to a different school. Among her goals is to help them respond rather than react to challenges and to provide resources through an online library that will include materials she has collected during her years as an educator, such as Advent prayer services, the Living Stations of the Cross, and talks for parents, faculty and students.

During the initial meetings, her aim is to understand their personal faith journeys and identify possible areas for growth. Brady will be guided by Bishop Frank J. Caggiano’s vision for Catholic schools and work closely under the direction of Father Christopher Ford, PhD, the newly appointed Vicar for Education, and Superintendent of Schools Stacie Stueber. 

The goal for her first year is to ensure the schools showcase the beauty of Catholicism so that anyone entering a diocesan school will perceive there is something distinctly sacred there. 

“We see beauty with our eyes and we hear it with our ears, so when you come into one of our Catholic schools, you should immediately sense there’s something different about this place,” she said.

In the following years, she will focus on the other two transcendentals of truth and charity as pathways to God and their application in Catholic education.

“Even  though we have outstanding educational programs and academic excellence, we want to make sure that we put our full attention on our Catholic identity,” she says. “It’s great to see bulletin boards with the children’s work or a birthday wheel, but we should also see religious symbols and icons, and use music at our liturgies that calls us to greater prayer and leads us to God.”

Brady defines her new role as “supportive” and not “supervisory.” Since she has walked the same path as the diocesan principals, she wants to accompany them on their journeys.

Of her 45 years in Catholic education, 14 were spent teaching and 31 as a principal, including leadership roles at St. Thomas Aquinas in Fairfield, the Catholic Academy of Stamford and Trinity Catholic High School. She has taught all across the country from Pittsburgh to Pensacola and St. Louis, and eventually came back in Connecticut.

Catholic schools, she says, exist for much more than just academic excellence. They exist for evangelization and the formation of our youth as future leaders of faith, and she believes a strong Catholic identity in the schools is fundamental to that mission. 

“What we do as principals has to be intentional,” she says. “That means when I plan something in the school or I do something that might give an example to students, I have to do it intentionally.”

For Brady, Catholic education is also about giving witness. 

“You don’t teach only with your words but with your example. It’s about formation—forming good, faithful people,” she says. “It’s also about the future of our Church and providing us with vocations … and I have no doubt that a future bishop of Bridgeport is probably sitting in one of our classrooms right now.”

She praised Bishop Caggiano’s leadership and said he places a high priority on Catholic education and that his vision flows through the superintendent’s office to all 24 schools. 

Guided by that vision, she hopes to support the principals and provide practical tools and best practices that will help them strengthen their Catholic identity by accentuating the beauty of our faith.

“There’s no doubt that Catholic education and formation changed my life,” she says. “I’m doing what I know God has called me to do as a Catholic school teacher, as a Catholic school principal and now in this role as Director for Leadership Formation.”