Catholic Education in America: Homeschooling is Not the Problem Comments
The "Catholic schools vs. Homeschool" attitude is tragic. Those who insist that Catholic parents have an obligation to send their children to Catholic schools need to stop guilt-tripping parents and impugning their motives and deal with reality. We're not the enemy of Catholic schools - we are Catholic schools. Continue Reading
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Thank you for this article! As a homeschooling mom for the past ten years, I can attest to every point you made. I was shocked to discover that so much of the Catholic community did not understand, or were openly hostile, on this issue. You explained it very well. I don't know why some still don't get it.
The late Bishop Sheen once said if you want your children to turn away from the church, just send them to Catholic School. It is a shame but true. The Liberal Bishops and priests could care less.
Carl, with all due respect, I must disagree with your assessment of home education at the high school level. My children have had multiple opportunities for socialization (Scouts, athletic and dance classes, church activities, homeschool co-ops), specialized education (homeschool courses offered by our community college, which include bio and chem lab, as well as homeschool co-op courses in art, drama, video production and various sciences) and catechization (religious study at home and in our co-op, sacramental prep, parish youth group activities). My son started taking college courses during his senior year and did outstandingly well - and he has made the Dean's List both semesters this year. His moral compass seems to be surviving the college experience, too, despite the fact that it was formed via home education, a Catholic Scout troop (yes, he made Eagle) and a thriving Catholic homeschool co-op (where our children's friends are actively discerning vocations to the priesthood and religious life). May I suggest that you spend a little time researching what actually happens in a semester or so of Catholic home education (as well as the outrageous cost of Catholic schools in many parts of the country - guess what prevented us from considering Catholic high school?) before you disparage the science lab in my kitchen?
What strikes me is how the home-schoolers refuse to see how not sending their children to the Catholic school weakens the school. These families tend/profess to be the most orthodox in their faith and by keeping their kids away they cause the school to lose some of its strength/success, especially when it comes to evangelizing the school to those on the fence in their faith. So, why would someone on the fence send their kids there if those who believe in the faith do not?
My children go to a Catholic school. The more home-schoolers there are, the less kids in the Catholic school, and the greater likelihood our school will close. The result: I will have to send my kids to public school. Thanks home-schoolers for your truly selfish actions.
Rita--
One must be prudent when addressing topics within the context of private revelations which are in the process of being investigated.
Wow! What a great article Jennifer! As I kept reading the article, it seemed almost surreal that the thought process my wife and I have undergone for the last year was reflected in word and on paper in this article. I am sorry that Bishop Vasquez doesn't have a full perspective but I'm sure that if he did, he would be able to understand that Catholic Home Educators are CAtholic Schools. Parents are the primary educators, period. By Church teaching, the obligation is ours. We intend to do our job so that we can look our Blessed MOther in the eye and tell her that we tried to make her proud. So that she can lead our little ones directly to her Son. Totus Tuus.
Pre-Vatican II (when Catholic schools were actually Catholic most of the time), the Church also taught repeatedly that parents were the primary educators of our children. They have the right to delegate much of the work of the education to someone else, but not the obligation. And is isn't an abrogation of their responsibility. They are still the primary educators. It used to be to go to public school you had to get a dispensation from the bishop of the diocese. Now parents usually treat it like it's just one of many options. Sadly, I'm willing to bet that the reason that Bishop (and Fr. Stravinskas, who has openly and prominently denied the Church's ex cathedra dogma "No salvation outside the Church" and also has denied that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah as well) is against homeschooling is because most homeschooling parents are conservative or at least lean traditional, and feel very comfortable being involved and educated in their faith. Thus, the Bishop is missing the chance to indoctrinate the children in modernism.
Then there is the tuition money. Many of us families who are open to life are having large families, and are one income families. Tuition is a major burden on us. Also, most Catholic schools do not have the ability to deal with special needs kids.
When the crisis in the Church has reached all the way to the hierarchy of the Vatican, when in even the best Catholic schools you usually have numerous families who have lost the faith in practice if not openly and thus have the potential to negatively influence my children at a very impressionable time in their life, when most vocations come from either truly Traditional Catholic schools or homeschoolers, and when research has repeatedly shown homeschool to be a superior form of education verses the school setting...it's not really a choice for many of us- it's our duty.
Well, I have read all the comments above (65 of them) and what is the summary point of it all? That the Catholic Church in America has not been able to maintain an authentic Catholic education in its schools. That's it. Period. end of discussion. The same must be said of Catholic HIGHER education as well. If all the colleges that are Catholic in name were EVALUATED as to their true pedigree...we'd be down to the merest HANDFUL of really Catholic colleges..... Satan has succeeded in leading the elect astray. Only a remnant remains that are seeking to enter the narrow door. "Work out your salvation in fear and trembling." - St. Paul.
I posted a comment on Friday and would like to retract part of it, please. I said that our Catholic school principal was homosexual, and I found out that that may not be true. Everything else in the comment is absolutely true. Thank you.
I do agree that it is a false dichotomy between an home schooling and a Catholic school education. I must say, however, that it is true that the Pope, bishops, and priests are the first teachers of the faith and of morals (John 21:16 &17). Jesus left it to his Apostles to teach these things. It will be noted that Jesus did not say to a parent or to a group of parents, here are the keys to the gates of heaven; what will be bound by you will be bound in heaven; what will be loosed by you will be loosed in heaven; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against thee (meaning against you parents and what you parents teach). He left these keys and promises to Peter and his successors, and it is he upon whom He built the Church (Mat. 16:18 & 19) When you say that in Vatican II that it says that the parents are the primary teachers, you must be careful because this "primary" can mean a number of things. It is a word said equivocally. It does not mean God left it up to parents to be the first teachers of the faith in the sense that He left it to parents to teach infallibly the faith. They are first in the sense it is from the parents that the children will first hear it and see it practised. It is, however, still from the Church, i.e., from the Pope, the bishops, and priests that the faith is learned and passed on. For it is also from these that the parents know what is the true faith and what is heresy. The parents do not have the promise of teaching infallibly. The Pope does.
Again, I agree that Catholic Schools and home schooling parents should not be at odds with each other. This unfortunate argument is one that is like that of one between home schooling parents and public school bureaucracies. Parents can and often do teach classes including catechism as well as many Catholic Schools. I personally have seen the outcome of very many lovely and faithful children having gone through a good home schooling education. I have also seen it done badly. Yet, I have seen Catholic schools also teach poorly and well the students in their charge. Catholic schools are not a guarantor of the faith being taught well, nor are they, however, a promise of a bad education. Much like anything, they too can do well or ill. Nevertheless, whether it is through a Catholic school or through a parent home schooling, the faith is known through the Church. Both must teach the faith according to the Magisterium. Both the Catholic school and the parent will learn what the Faith is through the Church, and not from its or his own feelings on the matter. The reason is, is that the Church is the First Teacher of the Faith: this you can see from Christ's own words (ibid).
In cordibus Jesu et Mariae,