From Fighter Pilot to Founder: How Ali Ghaffari Is Advancing Classical Catholic Education

In this week's episode of the LiberatED Podcast, Kerry McDonald interviews Ali Ghaffari, founder of Divine Mercy Academy, a K–8 classical Catholic school in Pasadena, Maryland, and now Executive Director of the St. John Henry Newman Institute, an organization dedicated to accelerating the renewal of Catholic education worldwide.

Ali's path to school founding is anything but ordinary. After graduating from Colby College, he spent 20 years in the U.S. Navy as an F/A-18 fighter pilot before teaching leadership and ethics at the U.S. Naval Academy. Raised without religious belief, Ali experienced a dramatic conversion sparked by reading the Great Books—an encounter that convinced him of the importance of deep intellectual and moral formation. When he couldn't find a classical Catholic school nearby for his children, he joined with other families to start one.

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