There is nothing in Catholic teaching that suggests fidelity requires a price tag.
What the Church has always required is something far more demanding: obedience to truth.
Faithful Catholic education is not defined by tuition, branding, or exclusivity. It is defined by its relationship to the Magisterium, the Catechism, and Sacred Scripture. These are the measures by which formation has always been judged.
When those anchors are present, cost becomes secondary.
Catholic Online School was built on this principle. Its courses are not simplified to appeal to trends, nor detached from Church authority to broaden appeal. They are intentionally rooted in what the Church teaches—and why.
This is not accidental.
Each lesson is structured to convey clarity rather than confusion, continuity rather than novelty. The Catechism is not treated as optional background material, but as the backbone of instruction. Scripture is not isolated into fragments, but presented within the life of the Church.
And because the program is global, used across cultures, languages, and circumstances, it must rely on what unites Catholics everywhere, not what divides them.
That universality is itself a form of accountability.
A resource used by Catholics in nearly 200 countries cannot survive on ideological narrowness or doctrinal drift. It must remain faithful, or it would fracture under its own reach.
Free does not mean ungoverned.
Accessible does not mean ambiguous.
Widely available does not mean loosely taught.
When Catholic formation is judged by its sources, structure, and consistency, the assumption that “free equals faithless” quickly collapses.
What remains is a simpler, more demanding question:
Is it true?
Is it faithful?
Does it form Catholics as Catholics?
When the answer is yes, cost becomes irrelevant.
