Thanks to You, The Tide is Turning
How We Can Move Past Culture Wars
Dear Friends,
As Scala celebrates its 10th anniversary in August 2026, I wanted to share with you my opening remarks at our recent board meeting. Don’t miss the chance to support our work—every gift this month to Scala will be matched up to $15,000!
Anyone who becomes a monthly patron by donating $100 a month (or $1,200 annually) will get a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls: Surprising Encounters with the Mother of God. Thanks to all of you who have already given. If you haven’t yet given, you still have time!
No More Desecration
Are more people hungry for beauty that transcends divisive social categories? Carl Trueman, a professor at Grove City College and personal friend, has argued that the West did not go through secularization but rather desecration.
“The Icons are Coming Alive Again,” was the title of Mary Harrington’s review of my book When Mary Calls. This title captures a larger shift that has happened over the last five years. People perhaps have always talked about cultural renewal, but now they are realizing that without the divine presence flowing through the beauty of that recreated culture, our human nature could be damaged and our hearts turned away from the common good.
Could the tide be turning? Not long ago, Mary Harrington, whom I had the chance to sit down with several times during my time in the UK, never would have guessed she would be writing about Mary, culture, and beauty. She was a secular progressive feminist philosopher. Her wake-up call came when she became a mother. She realized there was something missing. As a result, she began to explore Christianity, tradition, and true beauty, and shares her insights with a large readership.
If Trueman is correct that the symbols of Christianity which undergirded Western Civilization have been targeted for destruction or ridicule, then Harrington was right to pick up on the message of When Mary Calls: cultural renewal must be incarnational—fully human (as Mary was) and uniting us to the divine (as Jesus came to do, and which the Church continues).
I used to fear that Scala would be labeled as somehow un-academic because we promote beauty. But around the US, UK, and elsewhere, families and schools are increasingly recognizing that students need integral formation of the imagination and the intellect. We cannot build civilization without the images that speak to the heart of the joy of living in the truth. Even when evil seems to be growing, beauty inspires people with the courage to do good.
Yet significant hurdles remain. Ugliness and misery run rampant on many college campuses. Too many hearts are drowning in despair, gasping for the air that beauty alone can give.
WILL YOU HELP US SPREAD HOPE?
Thanks to the support of our donors over the last ten years, we have consistently shared this message that beauty is as essential in education and human formation as truth and virtue. Ten years ago, I was passionate to start Scala because I realized that most young people had never heard the message that beauty, creativity, and practicing an artistic talent can be integrated with their intellectual life. They thought education was about choosing a profession, rather than pursuing a vocation and integral formation.
What a surprise was in store for me when just over five years ago, on July 4th, 2021, I met my husband, David Clayton. Just over a year later, on July 23, 2022, we were married.
Because of his decades of work building a network of culture creators who want to evangelize culture, Scala has been able to connect grassroots educators, elite artists and musicians, and intellectuals.
For example, Robert Puschautz, the Executive Director and Founder of Stabat Mater Foundation and Atelier School of Fine Art (stabatmater.org) in Tyler, Texas, traveled to Princeton for Scala’s 2023 conference on Art, the Sacred and the Common Good. Having made a personal connection with David and me at that event, we began to publicize his excellent work and visited his art school several times. Robert has said:
“Through his writing and personal advice over the years, David Clayton has influenced my approach to painting and teaching art in the Catholic tradition. He has visited our studio in Tyler, Texas, a number of times and has been incredibly generous with his time in offering his valuable insights to our students during his residencies. It is largely due to his work publicizing our art program among Catholics across America that we acquired many of our dedicated students. We are delighted to endorse David’s work as part of both Scala Foundation and Pontifex University.“
Growing numbers of people who come to ask us: How do we form the culture?
Our answer is that, as with Robert and the Stabat Mater Atelier, we connect elite artists, patrons of the arts like you, and grassroots educators.
Scala’s accomplishments in its first ten years have set us up to expand our network in the coming 10 years. We expect exponential growth in the numbers we reach through our partnerships with art schools, programs for musicians, classical schools, and churches. Much of Scala’s work is personal and intensive. And it is through those close personal relationships that we can build a powerful network.
We need your support to work on several fronts:
Ongoing intensive mentorship of the next generation of culture-creators who want to preserve Western civilization and defend its most treasured values;
Expand work to form patrons who will fund the training of culture creators and new works of art, music and architecture to be commissioned;
Respond to the grassroots demand for beauty in schools, churches, and families through our publications and videos that reach hundreds of thousands;
Launch new Way of Beauty fellowships in schools and churches that change lives.
Beauty Transcends Divisions
Across the political and religious spectrum is the growing awareness that ‘cheap’ and ‘false’ beauty does not fulfill the human heart and often leads to misery. The approach we take to all our work is informed by our Catholic faith, but the people who attend our events are from a variety of backgrounds: Christians of various denominations and seekers. All people who are attracted by our vision of beauty come away transformed. Connecting individuals across networks then injects new resources into existing communities.
Restoring beauty is a generational project that goes beyond any election cycle and transcends all people. Our goal is to reform the culture, one personal relationship and one heart at a time requires. We seek collaborators with an entrepreneurial mindset to counter the narrow-minded ideology that reigns in too many circles. With your help, we can build the networks that gather together the growing number of creatives who love tradition, have faith, and aim to renew Western culture.
Will you support Scala’s mission today? Every gift to Scala in August will be matched up to $15,000!
With gratitude,
Margarita Mooney Clayton, Executive Director, The Scala Foundation
PS-If you become a monthly patron of Scala at $100 or more a month, or donate $1200 annually, I’d be delighted to send you a signed copy of my book When Mary Calls!