Real Presence Collective
Real Presence Collective: An Incarnational Approach to Friendship, Family, and the Good Life
St. Rita School’s Real Presence Collective is a partnership among St. Rita families, administration, faculty, and clergy that fosters a culture of presence within our community. This initiative responds to a pressing cultural challenge—the pervasiveness of ever-more addicting and isolating technology use—that robs children of their innocence, wreaks havoc on their social and emotional health, and encourages destructive habits of disconnection, distraction, and vice. In emulation of Christ, who entered the world not virtually, but in the flesh, to walk with us, speak with us, and form us in love, RPC members affirm the deep and irreplaceable value of real, face-to-face, human connection and take a collective-action approach to creating and maintaining a healthy childhood culture.
Specifically, RPC families pledge not to introduce personal internet capable devices or social media to their children while at St. Rita School—and even beyond—and the administration, faculty and clergy support this effort by facilitating enriching, in-person social alternatives for RPC students designed to cultivate the imagination, and focus on the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. The school also assists families by educating students and the broader school community about the dangers of unmitigated technology use and the life-giving value of incarnational living.
For a complete discussion of the motivations and goals of the RPC, please read the RPC philosophy down below.
To join the RPC, parents sign the RPC pledge. Upon joining, families will be included in RPC discussions and events.
We believe that the more St. Rita families that adopt the philosophy and sign the pledge of the RPC, the more our children, and our entire community, will be free to joyfully follow Christ’s incarnational model of the good life—one that is together, whole, grounded, and truly human.
We hope you will join us!
St. Carlo Acutis, pray for us!
Events that Foster Real Presence
RPC members do not merely reject technology, but also actively seek out opportunities for real presence together. Thus, RPC events are as integral to its mission as the pledge. RPC leadership, which includes St. Rita clergy, school administration and faculty, and parent volunteers, strives to plan a variety of events to appeal to students and families across all ages and interests.
Past events for students have included an on-campus fall festival, where St. Rita faculty hosted students for an evening of chili, s’mores, and campfire singalongs; service projects; museum visits; a children’s summer book club; a caroling party; prayer events and mini-pilgrimages. Many events are family-friendly, and parents and siblings are welcome to participate. Events often occur on half days or teacher work days, to allow as many children as possible to participate.
Real Presence Philosophy
Saint Rita School recognizes the sacred responsibility of parents as the primary educators of their children. In harmony with this role, our mission as a Catholic school is to assist in forming students, nurturing their hearts, minds, and souls, helping them to grow in faith, virtue, wisdom, and character. Just as important as providing them with a stellar education in history, math, and literature, our mission of equipping our students to navigate an ever secularizing and expanding world, as faithful and well-adjusted individuals, is critical.
Saint Rita School’s Real Presence Collective partners with families to adopt a collective-action approach to creating and maintaining a healthy childhood culture, by choosing not to introduce personal internet capable devices or social media while at Saint Rita School – and even beyond. This initiative responds to a pressing cultural challenge that threatens the social, emotional, and spiritual well-being of our children, a challenge which undermines their innocence, and contributes to scientifically evidenced mental health issues and social struggles.
By fostering a community of like-minded families committed to this goal, we aim to create an environment where students are free to develop authentic relationships with God and others, cultivate imagination, and focus on the pursuit of truth, goodness, and beauty. This partnership — rooted in active and mutual support amongst and between Saint Rita School and its families — reflects our shared dedication to protecting and nurturing our children’s innocence, helping them to flourish in a world that, through the use of and dependence on devices, encourages harmful habits of disconnection, distraction, and vice.
Just as Christ entered the world not virtually, but in the flesh, to walk with us, speak with us, and form us in love, so too does our program affirm the deep and irreplaceable value of real, face-to-face, human connection. In a time when digital devices increasingly mediate and fragment relationships, we call families to a renewed commitment to being fully present both in their homes and communities; to engaging in the slow, intentional, and personal nature of meaningful relationships and friendships rooted in the here and now. This incarnational approach of the Real Presence Collective is not simply a rejection of smartphones and other internet capable devices, but, more than that, it is a joyful affirmation of what it means to live the good life – together, whole, grounded, and truly human.
Saint Rita School fully embraces this program as a vital extension of our mission to form faith-filled, virtuous, healthy, and happy individuals. Together with our families, we resolve to face the cultural challenges our children face today with courage, offering a pathway for them to thrive as resilient, joyful, and faithful disciples of Christ, fully present.
What it looks like
Saint Rita School not only boasts a de-emphasis on technology in the classroom, but we also maintain a strict cell-phone policy. In doing so, we ensure that students are present and active in their learning. We also want our students to be present and active in their lives. The Real Presence Collective guides Saint Rita families in de-emphasizing technology at home, not just at school, creating a community which learns together, plays together, and grows together. It is not just a movement to minimize screen time – more than this, it is a movement to help in the formation of a lifestyle. This program relies on two important components in reaching this goal: our school and our families.
As the facilitators of this program, Saint Rita is committed to educating and guiding our families in learning about this topic, and in providing further formation through various resources, activities, and events. Further, by building a community of families, all sharing the goal of preserving our children’s innocence, we are creating a network of support, wherein we can share troubles, successes, questions, and ideas, boost motivation by encouraging and building each other up, and collaborate on ideas and goals, all while feeling a strong sense of belonging. This further increases accountability: by being part of a community where everyone is working towards similar goals, families are motivated to stay committed, and to resist societal pressures to give their children smart devices.
Parents who are passionate about this initiative make up the bedrock of Saint Rita’s efforts on this front. Our Real Presence Collective Parent Committee facilitates communication between our school leaders and community members, while also planning and leading initiatives throughout the year. We have various exciting activities and events which students and families can participate in, which emphasize the importance of – and joy to be found in – real-life, face-to-face, in-person relationships. From pumpkin-carving and laser tag, to trivia and bookclub: our Parent Committee creates opportunities for interpersonal connection, friendship, and bonding.
We also want our students themselves to have genuine buy-in to our program. Besides the fun events, we educate our classes – in age-appropriate ways – on the effects of not just smartphones, but also technology in general. Students are taught about the potential struggles and dangers, as well as what safe and healthy technology use looks like. For example, our annual technology detox challenge helps to draw our students’ awareness to the many ways in which technology use negatively impacts us, the benefits of better moderating our usage of it, as well as strategies in doing so. As more families pledge themselves to the Real Presence Collective, rallying together, our students will also face less peer pressure to want a smartphone, as friends no longer depend on these devices to communicate and connect.
Saint Rita is uniting families and students in saying ”No” to smartphones, and in lessening our dependence on technology. We are creating an educated community that wants its children to flourish in all aspects of their lives: academically, spiritually, socially, and emotionally. We are facilitating a movement of lifestyle, which brings parents closer to their children, and families closer together. The preservation of virtue, human connection, healthiness, happiness, and faith are at the heart of what we do, and we truly believe that our Real Presence Collective Program is life-changing.
