No Catholic Schooling is Sinful?

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leonie said:
We are required to give our children a Catholic education. There are several avenues to this: Catholic school, public school with additional Catholic instruction at home and Sunday school, and homeschooling.

It is a serious sin not to provide your children with a Catholic education.
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Woah! Now I’m convicted.
What does one do when a good Catholic education is unaffordable, and there is no CCD available?

That is the situation I am currently in.
I understand my only option IS to home school my children in their religious education.

BUT, How does one go about doing that?

In my parish, my children’s CCD is offered in the summer.
It seems a little foolish to put their religious education off, but what else can I do?

I guess specifically what I’m questioning is: Who determines WHAT I teach my children? Have you seen the RE choices that are out there? So many of them really are pitiful choices.
 
In some Catholic schools, the majority of students are non-Catholic. They can be Catholic in name only. Ours is run by a board of mixed Catholic and non-Catholic parents. I pulled my daughter out of it, and she received a better Christian education at another school.
 
For us it would be difficult as they are shutting down left and right due to our Bishop taking appropriate fiscal actions as to not cause additional undue stress on the system.

Additionally, the way our Pastor explained the original reason for the school was to give means to the children for Catholic teachings which (in our area) has been put back on the Church and has been done so with a great success rate & result.

Having gone to one myself from 1972-1980, I honestly can say that I think with the boundaries the Nuns and Priests had a positive influence on me.

That being said, schools today are nothing like that - at least around here and are much better served with Religious Ed in the Church followed by living example at home.

As explained by the assisting Nun in our Parish this past weekend, the roles & teachings in school and church are dwarfed by what takes place in the home itself.

So to answer your question, it doesn’t seem like a sin to me to NOT send them. It would be a sin to NOT send them to religious education followed by the culture and attitudes lived out in the home.
 
graceandglory said:
Woah! Now I’m convicted.
What does one do when a good Catholic education is unaffordable, and there is no CCD available?

That is the situation I am currently in.
I understand my only option IS to home school my children in their religious education.

BUT, How does one go about doing that?

In my parish, my children’s CCD is offered in the summer.
It seems a little foolish to put their religious education off, but what else can I do?

I guess specifically what I’m questioning is: Who determines WHAT I teach my children? Have you seen the RE choices that are out there? So many of them really are pitiful choices.
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uh oh–you’ve awakened my passion!! 😛 here I go.

One resource you can use is catechismclass.com/

It is a really good program that goes year round. It’s all online, very thorough, daily.

The Baltimore Catechism is a good place to start.

I use Image of God for preschool to 1st grade then we switch to Faith and Life

I use a Bible History text book for middle school

For first communion prep, I use King of the Golden city

In addition, I use saint stories from Catholic Heritage Curricula–in their reading comprehension section. I use this list from Fisheaters.com (a Traditionalist site)

fisheaters.com/lists.html We discuss and memorize it.

We have on occasion used CCD, but to be truthful, my children haven’t really learned anything from it. We did go to a nice VBS this past summer on the Trinity, and my six year old is still talking about the Trinity.

I teach CCD and I do think my students are learning something, but almost all of them have had no instruction in their homes.

We do other things, too. We have a shelf of Vision Books and some fiction from Bethlehem books. I have some readable Adult level books for my older kids like Pope Fiction and Why do Catholics do that that I’ve assigned reading in.

The older kids have done the 8 week Jeff Cavins study on Salvation history. That’s pretty cool, I must say.

I think my kids have a pretty good head knowledge on the faith, but it doesn’t always translate into virtuous behavior, like now when I must quit typing about my passion and go stop a fight. :rolleyes:
 
I would consider it maybe not sinful, but certainly ill-advisable, to sent my children to our local catholic school. I would consider it lying for one-to tell my children this is a catholic school, while having been there myself, know very well it is nothing of the sort.
 
I don’t think its sinfull, especially if you don’t live near one. But if you live in Ireland like me, then almost every school is Catholic, so in a case like that you should.

I go to a convent, but its not run by nuns anymore.
 
graceandglory said:
That is the situation I am currently in.
I understand my only option IS to home school my children in their religious education.

BUT, How does one go about doing that?
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Check out Ignatius Press! They rock, and they carry the Faith and Life series, which I and many home schoolers think is the best!
 
graceandglory said:
👍

The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen said it best,
“If you want your children to lose their faith, send them to a Catholic school. If you want your children to know how to defend their faith, send them to a public school.”.
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Please cite your source. Thank you.
 
When you don’t have formal teaching available to you as one poster said, doesn’t providing a Catholic education for your children at home, readings from the bible, teaching the history, and bringing them to mass every week count as giving your children a Catholic education? I don’t see any parameters for it other than it is a parent’s responsibility to ensure that the child has a Catholic education. I don’t see where it says they HAVE to go to an outside source to get the education.

As far as that priest goes, I think that he simply misinterpreted what it means to provide your children with said Catholic education.
 
I believe teachers in public school must belong to some type of union, like the NEA. I could not, in good conscious, entrust the education of my catholic children to someone who pays membership to that type of organization. There are things I do not like about my pastor, but he is my pastor and I have to trust in his judgment which includes running the parish school.

This is FALSE! My husband teaches in public school and he does not belong to any union and no teacher must belong to any union, it is their own decision. Some school districs do not even have an organized union.
Not one of the Catholic schools in our diocese has any special ed, thogh we are working on it, and yes you can be turned down if you can not afford it. You might not think it is right, but it is fact. In fact, that is exactly why my children will not be attending. I am not going to go back to work and be away from my children just to send them to Catholic schools.
When I first read this topic I thought, are you kidding me? why would someone ask such a silly question, then to find out that a priest gave a homily to his congregation and told them it was a sin, well that just turned to nuts. THis is yet another example of why it is soooooo important that we pray for our priests!!!
 
OutinChgoburbs said:
Please cite your source. Thank you.
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I quoted from memory, but before I posted, I checked for accuracy, and found it in a magazine article right here at Catholic.com. I was going to post the link, but the article wasn’t on topic. It’s a well-known quote, I’ll keep looking.
 
I used to teach in a Catholic School and I honestly must tell you that although they do get Religion every day, most of the teachers have no clue as to their faith, and some do not even practice it. Futhermore, if it is not reinforced at home, then it probably will not do much good. Well I have to qualify that. My parents were not practicing Catholic but I went to Catholic school from 1960-1976 and I turned into a pretty good Catholic…I’d like to think I even brought my parents back to the Church. But none of my sibling go to church or could care less about the faith, and we all went to Catholic schools. So I guess a lot depends on the kid too.
 
4blessings said:
I believe teachers in public school must belong to some type of union, like the NEA. I could not, in good conscious, entrust the education of my catholic children to someone who pays membership to that type of organization.
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This is FALSE! My husband teaches in public school and he does not belong to any union and no teacher must belong to any union, it is their own decision.
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Public school teachers do not have a choice in Washington state. They are required to pay union dues. I am completely opposed to the political arm of the NEA/WEA, etc. I have marched on my state capitol to oppose criminal practices within the WEA. (Our state attorney general (current governor) sued the WEA and WON for us!!! Christians and conservative teachers fought the NEA for taking our dues and supporting the liberal agenda. (They were, and they lost)

I hate the union, but as a teacher, I need the legal protection in case some student whines, “she touched me.” This country is LAWSUIT CRAZED, and good teachers have to be protected.
 
We have an obligation to educate our children in the faith, and an obligation to support our church (and other charities). That doesn’t mean we are required to cover both of these obligations in one action.

Where we live, our public school system is as good (if not better…) than our parish school. So, he can get a good education at the public school.

My son, now in 4th grade at a Catholic school, has never been taught about the real presence in the Eucharist, why we have Baptism, or other basics of the faith. So, he’s not getting the Catholic education he needs, so my wife and I are taking care of that at home.

The children (and parents) are less than welcoming or charitable to others at the parish school. So, he’s not in what I would consider a Catholic or Christian environment in the parish school.

We have decided to send him next year to the public school, take care of his religious education ourselves, and tithe more to the parish in light of our “savings”. Unfortunately, just because the school is Catholic doesn’t mean the education or environment is what we should (and used to) expect…
 
Priests are human just like anyone else. I have heard many people, IRL and here on these boards, say that whatever fits their own personal preference is “Church teaching.” Sometimes they don’t know any better, sometimes they don’t want to accept that the Church is not quite as narrow as they are, sometimes they wish the Church taught it even though it doesn’t. Just because someone, even a priest, tells you it is “Church teaching” doesn’t mean that it is. Research it and find out for yourself, from trustworthy sources, like the Catechism, encyclicals and Council documents, books on the topic that have an imprimatur, and even, dare I say… Catholic Answers! But from published and reviewed documents, not just posters’ opinions.
 
duskyjewel said:
Research it and find out for yourself, from trustworthy sources, like the Catechism, encyclicals and Council documents, books on the topic that have an imprimatur, and even, dare I say… Catholic Answers! But from published and reviewed documents, not just posters’ opinions.
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Yes, and even Catholic Answers will tell you not to take their word for it, look it up for yourselves. And they will refer to the CCC, encyclicals, and Council documents.
 
duskyjewel said:
Priests are human just like anyone else… Just because someone, even a priest, tells you it is “Church teaching” doesn’t mean that it is. Research it and find out for yourself, from trustworthy sources, like the Catechism, encyclicals and Council documents, books on the topic that have an imprimatur.
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I agree that priests are fallible, which is why I don’t have an issue with my priest. But I do question his judgement in this particular case. I don’t even want to make it a bigger issue for him. I just really wanted to know whether I was sinning or not. Of course one needs to inform oneself. But we can’t, as individual catholics, quote from the Cathecism, and each of us interpret things on our own. Which, I understand, is why we have “Church teaching”. I’ve resolved this issue in my conscience, ( I’m not sinning by NOT sending my kids to a catholic school ). However, I don’t think it is a dead issue just yet. I spoke with both our priests and they both said that their discussion with the Archbishop revolved around the use of “moral obligation” vs. “duty”. I think that is what has caused the confusion in our church. So I’ll leave the theology up to the powers that be, and I’ll just keep on praying!
 
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