What Is Vitae Catholica?

A Catholic Mission for the Whole Child

“Ab ovo usque ad mala, homo imago Dei.”From beginning to end, the human being is the image of God.

Vitae Catholica is a Catholic 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to faith-based virtue and health formation for children — for every family, and especially those who need it most. We offer the Quintivium K–12 curriculum, Theology of the Body and Natural Family Planning resources, and free formation consultations for families who cannot otherwise afford them. A preferential option for the poor is at the heart of the mission.

A 501(c)(3) Christian Nonprofit AZ · Founded 2025

A Note from the Curator

The modern reader may ask: what is a Catholic nonprofit doing authoring a K–12 health-formation curriculum? The answer is that the Church has always taught the body as imago Dei — and a child cannot be formed in virtue and health unless someone is willing to teach it whole. Hildegard taught it. Salerno taught it. The Theology of the Body teaches it. Vitae Catholica is the continuation of that tradition for today's families.

The Lineage The Mission The Theological Argument The Four Marks

Movement I · The Mission

The Mission & the Work

A Catholic 501(c)(3) nonprofit forming children in virtue and health — for every family, and especially those who need it most.

Pars Prima

The Formation

The heart of Vitae Catholica. A Catholic K–12 virtue and health formation curriculum — the Quintivium — together with Theology of the Body and Natural Family Planning resources, and free formation consultations for families in need.

Quintivium curriculum: one volume per grade, K through 12
Five arts of the person: Body, Mind, Ethics, Theology, Politics
Eleven body systems revisited each year at increasing depth
RSV-CE Scripture, Theology of the Body, Catholic Social Teaching
Free formation consultations for families who cannot otherwise afford them — a preferential option for the poor

The Quintivium →

Pars Secunda

Affiliated Telemedicine

A minor, affiliated service. Rodriguez Corporation operates a small Christian telemedicine practice led by Prof. Dana Rodriguez, PhD, serving families across Arizona and Wisconsin by video and phone. It is separate from the nonprofit, for-profit, and not tax-deductible.

Pediatric wellness and developmental assessment
Chronic-condition management and parent coaching
Christian bioethical counsel
No subscription — fees discussed openly at intake

Available Telemedicine →

From the Book of Psalms

“I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.”

Psalm 139:14–15 · RSV-CE

Movement II · The Lineage

A Thousand Years of Christian Teaching on the Body

Vitae Catholica is not an invention but a recovery. Five points on a thousand-year arc of Christian teaching on the body — from Salerno to the Theology of the Body to today's families.

Manuscript folio from the Trotula corpus

XI Century · Salerno

Schola Medica Salernitana

The first Christian school of medicine

Southern Italy, eleventh century. The first medical school in Christendom, founded centuries before the university system. Women taught men; Christians and Jews taught together. Trota of Salerno wrote the Trotula corpus that taught Europe gynecology for five hundred years.

Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias illumination

XII Century · Rhineland

Hildegard of Bingen, OSB

Causae et Curae · Physica

Benedictine abbess, composer, mystic, and physician. Her Causae et Curae treats disease theologically and sin physiologically. Declared Doctor of the Church in 2012.

XIV Century · Padua, Lombardy

Tacuinum Sanitatis & Padua

Regimen Vitae · Theatrum Anatomicum

The Tacuinum Sanitatis teaches health as a daily rule of life. At Padua, Vesalius and Fabricius build the first Christian anatomical theatre (Palazzo del Bo, 1594), teaching the body as a visible theological text.

III

XX Century · Rome

St. John Paul II

Theologia Corporis · 1979–1984

In 129 Wednesday audiences, JPII delivers the most developed modern Christian treatment of the human body as theological reality — the Theology of the Body. Fully a thousand years after Salerno, the argument is complete.

Prof. Dana Rodriguez, PhD, with a young patient

2025 · Arizona

Vitae Catholica

The Living Continuation

A Catholic 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to virtue and health formation for children — the Quintivium K–12 curriculum, Theology of the Body, Natural Family Planning, and free formation consultations for families in need. Founded by Prof. Dana Rodriguez, PhD, and Zeus Rodriguez in 2025. The lineage, continued in the present tense.

Movement III · The Argument

Why Catholic Health Formation Is Needed Now

Modern health education is technically informed and philosophically exhausted. It can describe the body better than any generation in history — and it does not know what the body is for.

The Christian tradition has always taught that the human body is imago Dei: the image and likeness of God. That the body is not a machine a soul rides inside, but a sacramental reality — the visible form of an invisible person. The body is not the problem and the soul is not the solution. The body is already a theological text.

A Catholic health formation therefore does what the secular curriculum cannot: it teaches the child that he is a person with a soul who will live forever, and it teaches him what the body is for. Anatomy and ethics, biology and theology, hygiene and prayer — all parts of one unbroken argument about the human person.

A Christian school, in turn, cannot teach the child the body is a machine at 8 a.m. and that the person has dignity at 10 a.m. The curriculum must be one unbroken argument, top to bottom, from anatomy up through politics. That is what the Quintivium is.

Vitae Catholica exists to put that formation within reach of every family — and to make it free for the families who need it most.

Movement IV · The Four Marks

What Makes Vitae Vitae

Four non-negotiable commitments that distinguish Vitae from a concierge practice, a secular curriculum, or a parachurch ministry.

Nota Prima

Unapologetically Christian

Every volume is RSV-CE-anchored. Every visit is open to prayer if the family wishes. Our anthropology of the body is Catholic and classical. We make no attempt to secularize what we do.

Nota Secunda

Nonprofit, with Clear Lines

The mission — the Quintivium curriculum, Theology of the Body and Natural Family Planning resources, and free formation consultations — is the work of Vitae Catholica, Inc., an Arizona 501(c)(3) nonprofit. The affiliated Christian telemedicine service is operated separately by Rodriguez Corporation (for-profit, not tax-deductible).

Nota Tertia

Practitioner-Authored

The curriculum is not written by editors reading textbooks. It is authored by a practicing pediatric nurse practitioner — Prof. Dana Rodriguez, PhD — with twenty-one years at the bedside.

Nota Quarta

Rigorous & Cited

Every theological claim is attributable to a real source. Every clinical claim rests on current evidence. Salerno, Hildegard, Trota, Padua, Theology of the Body, contemporary pediatrics — cited, not hand-waved.

The Windhover · excerpt

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear, Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Gerard Manley Hopkins, SJ · 1877