This paper reports the findings of a case study aimed at investigating the forces influencing curriculum policy in one Catholic school in Western Australia (WA). The student-outcomes' focused Curriculum Framework was released in 1998 and is mandated to be implemented in all WA schools by 2004. This has made non-government schools answerable to the State in a way which had previously not been the case. What is interesting, however, is that the staff at St. John's ("pseudonym") worked out ways to privilege its distinctive Catholic philosophy of education as constituting the broad curriculum parameters, while at the same time accommodating state-mandated requirements within such parameters. Thus, the case study is one which should be of interest to Catholic educationalists since it demonstrates that state-mandated curricula need not always sit in juxtaposition to the Church's educational aims. (Contains 15 notes.)