Within church circles, Melbourne’s Catholic Education Office is known as the CEO, making it sound like the boss of a company. The comparison is apt. The Melbourne CEO is nothing if not big. Indirectly, it looks after more schools and more students than a number of state education departments. So it is little wonder that the CEO has long been a turf on which ideological battles have been fought. If you cup an ear to the walls of the CEO, you won’t hear much: culture wars are fought quietly there. But bear in mind that this is an organisation that brings together two of the most contested elements in any culture war: the meaning of life and the minds of the young. Listen harder, and you will hear pulses racing.