Pastor and DRE refusing FHC to homeschooled child

[babochka]

One last thing:

I spent my high school years in a very, very rural small town, population of about 1,000. There was a Catholic church there, but of course, no Catholic school. The local public school was the center of much of the social life of the town–sports games, etc. As public high schools went, it wasn’t exactly superb academically, but it was a pretty safe place to send your kids.

The pastor of the local church decided that unless your kids attended the local public school, he would refuse to give them the sacraments. Recourse on the diocesan level was ignored. The parents of a family I knew had their kids attend the sacrament prep at the parish and fulfill all their obligations in that regard, but were told that if they didn’t enroll the kids in public school (the kids were homeschooled), they wouldn’t be allowed to receive the sacraments.

The parents started driving 45 minutes each way for Mass on Sundays to attend a parish that wouldn’t pull a bait-and-switch like that.

Tell me, should the parents have enrolled their kids in the public school strictly on the whim of the pastor/because the religious ed teachers were also teachers at the public school and were offended by parents homeschooling rather than using the local schools?

This is just bizarre. How would the parish even know if the kids were enrolled in the public school, anyway? I’m sorry that the parents didn’t get any help from the diocese in this. Where exactly were they supposed to receive their sacraments, if their canonical parish refused them because of something that should have been of no concern to the parish whatsoever?

 

[jmjZelie]

That is wonderful that your children have served as examples to others in their Confirmation classes and are willing to discuss the course material afterwards with you.

I have a few students here who cannot afford, spiritually, to attend a class with heretical teachings. That is all I am going to say about it.

This is a legitimate concern. I understand your desire to state simply and not discuss, but I wanted to say that you are not alone in this concern. It is precisely why I am volunteering in my son’s class, and not just generally volunteering wherever they could use me.

 

[mommy_k]

But since when do religious ed classes=God?

Mass, Confession, et all are requirements of the Church. If I decided that we aren’t going to Mass because that would interfere with family time, that would be wrong of me. No arguments. Ditto Confession.

Spending two nights a week, one of them the only night when the kids can reliably see Daddy for any length of time, at Church for hours and hours and, not incidentally, thereby not being able to do prayers as a family is not a requirement of the Church. It’s a requirement of our particular parish, and it’s not a reasonable one.

I do see what you’re saying as far as not instilling pride in kids. I grew up homeschooled, and there was a strong element in that community of not wanting their kids to mix with “lesser” kids. I do not want that for my kids. Even if the classes aren’t great, my plan is to provide the body of instruction at home, anyway. I’m the primary educator of my kids, and that’s my job.

On the other hand, let’s say that you have two kids, one of whom is preparing for First Communion and the other of whom is preparing for Confirmation or First Confession. Is it reasonable of a church to expect the parents to hire a babysitter every Sunday night for a year so that they can attend the classes with their kids? (Childcare is not provided for these events.) Because that’s what they’re requiring, and I would bet money on that plus the scheduling being part of the reason that a lot of families in the parish tend to wait until the youngest kid, or the youngest of a group of kids in their family, is old enough to make their FHC before enrolling them in those classes so that they can do them all together in one year. As a result, there are a fair number of kids who don’t receive their FHC until they’re ten or eleven so that mom and dad don’t have to dedicate 3-4 years of Sunday family time (bear in mind that a lot of our parish is very working-class, and the majority are working 2+ jobs to get by, so family time is even more at a premium) to sitting in a classroom and listening to someone explain, as another poster described it, how to make the Sign of the Cross.

God isn’t making those requirements; the church/DRE is. For context, if you read (Catholic!) stories written 80-100 years ago, it was once the norm in certain parts of the country to not allow children to make their FHC until their family could afford a fancy white dress or suit sheerly because it didn’t “look” nice for the kids to not all be dressed to the nines–never mind if mom and dad were working double shifts at the factory just to put food on the table, and couldn’t possibly afford to spend that kind of money on a one-time outfit! That certainly isn’t a requirement of the Church, either, but it was a requirement of the local parish. Does that mean that it should have been followed, too, and those kids who couldn’t afford to drop that kind of money on an outfit should have waited 'til they could because the parish said so?

In answer to your first question: if we believe that the church is the bride of Christ, and the church mandates re ed-then re ed is very important -no? The church does state that parents are the primary educators of religion to their children-however I have never read that parents are the only educators of religion either.

We all have blind spots in teaching and guiding our children-I know I do, so I rely on the church and parish to fill in those blanks. The gift of well rounded religious instuction is the best gift we can give to our children.

I know a family that during confirmation retreats, took their 2 week annual vacation in days and evenings so they could have their children attend this once in a lifetime religious milestone. Many if not most families that I know are 2 parent working familes or have many little ones. But they prioritized and made it happen.

This is not to say there are not legitmate reasons for some families. But from the vantage point of other familes who make extremely hard sacrifices to go, the reasons must be compelling enough, and serious enough to be excused.

 

[mommy_k]

That is wonderful that your children have served as examples to others in their Confirmation classes and are willing to discuss the course material afterwards with you.

I have a few students here who cannot afford, spiritually, to attend a class with heretical teachings. That is all I am going to say about it.

By the time children are of age to receive confirmation, they should also be able to discern a heretical teaching. If not, then they are not ready.

If the dre or religion teacher is spitting out nonsense, then the pastor should be informed also.

 

[MomaMary8]

Thank you for sharing your story!

I think one big issue is that there’s another homeschool family in our small rural parish that was very undiplomatic and aggressive and forceful with their demands around their children receiving a Sacrament…which no doubt has left a bad taste in the mouths of pastor and DRE. How could it not? So I think we are guilty by association even though we’ve tried to distance ourselves from that situation and have tried to be exceedlingly respectful in all communications.

That is unfortunate and sadly, all too common. At least you may know the reasoning for their apprehension. Being respectful and obedient in matters that are less important than the sacrament may be the best option in the future if you’d like to smooth the road for the future. When explaining to career educators my decision to homeschool, I often explain that it is the option that I find best suits the learning styles of my children and the structure needs of my large family. When I approach and explain my choice in those ways (positively) without declaring the faults of their school, they seem to be more open to my choice of homeschooling. They may feel their school is the “best” option, but they seem to be open to the idea that it may not be the “best fit” for my family.

You get more flies with honey than you do with vinegar! Such a shame that things were soured before you, but hopefully you can be sweet and sugary through this all and show a positive example of homeschooling. God bless!

 

[MomaMary8]

Well, to be fair, sometimes only 5% of less of “those kids” are parishioners, whereas the rest have connections to some fairly unsavory activities and a high incidence of drug use, blackout drinking, and pregnancy after the age of 12 or 14, with parents stretched so thin just trying to survive or so negligent that they are absent in their children’s lives in some other important ways. It depends on where you live.

Having said that, our parish recognizes that the “RE families” include some of the most devout families in the parish, whereas the school accepts families who are not Catholic at all. They don’t assume that the parish school has “the best Catholics.”

I must not have been clear. She referred to the RE kids as “those kids.” Not the public school kids. Even so, half the public school kids are Catholic, parishioners at one of the 4 local Catholic Churches. Either way, referring to a group of children as “those kids” is uncharitable from a Cathoic school principal.

 

[mommy_k]

When I spoke of volunteering and making sure that my children has access to the sacraments, those were two contemporaneous issues. I am doing everything I can to ensure that there are no problems with sacramental prep, because the sacraments are our very life. I happened to be invited to make my weekly presence official and become part of the team, because they knew I have lots of teaching experience, which I gladly did. It has turned out to be a good thing for my family and for the parish.

However, if volunteering were the thing I needed to do to make it possible for my kids to receive a sacrament, with no worries of 11th hour changes, I absolutely would volunteer for that reason. I strongly disagree with you that that is volunteering for the wrong reasons.

My vocation is to be a wife and mother. My vocation is not to be a parish volunteer. Whatever time I can dedicate to helping out my parish, which is incredibly dependent upon whether my husband will be home because they have no child care assistance for volunteers, is only allowed after I make sure that my duties toward my family are met.

I serve God by serving my family. That is of primary importance. If I were to take away time I need to meet the needs of my family for the sake of volunteering at the parish, I would be serving myself and my own ego, not serving God.

So I see a false dichotomy in your post. One does not serve family at the expense of serving God, if one is a mother. One serves God through serving the family God has given one. Serving outside the family, through parish and community volunteerism, can never be at the expense of the family. And there are many acceptable reasons to volunteer: getting to know people, finding out the kind of catechesis that goes on in the parish, and building up a support network for one’s family are all perfectly acceptable reasons, even if none of those fit in the totally altruistic category of self-denial and humility.

I am happy you clairified… Your above thread sounded like the only reason you were volunteering is because f lack of trust for your parish priest and dre.

However-the hierachy of a Catholic still stands: God, spouse, children, extended family and so on. Of course you can serve God through your vocation as a mother. But you cannot serve your children or spouse at the expense of God.

 

[EasterJoy]

I must not have been clear. She referred to the RE kids as “those kids.” Not the public school kids. Even so, half the public school kids are Catholic, parishioners at one of the 4 local Catholic Churches. Either way, referring to a group of children as “those kids” is uncharitable from a Catholic school principal.

I think I would have discretely said something to our pastor about a comment like that, but I know that every pastor we have ever had has made it clear he won’t tolerate discrimination between parishioners in different circumstances.

And yes, I want to be clear, too: phrases such as “those people” or “those kids” are phrases that a prudent person avoids, lest they even give the impression that they make blanket judgments about whole classes of people.

That, by the way, is what I would tell him: that is, that she uses phrases like that, which either means she has an uncharitable prejudice or else she doesn’t realize how that comes across. (Because, hey, if you’re complaining about how uncharitable someone has been, at least be charitable about it, LOL.)

 

[PJM]

Originally Posted by UbiCaritas View Post
Well, sometimes it’s not just sports and the like; it’s family time, too.

We have a long ways to go before we need worry about this, but at our church, as with many, sacramental prep is separate from regular faith formation classes. FF classes are offered Sunday morning and various weekday evenings, and you register for whichever day fits your schedule best. Fair enough; it’s a huge parish, so they can offer lots of different times, and we really appreciate that!

What we don’t appreciate is that the year that a child makes his or her First Communion, the child and a parent are required to attend an additional sacramental prep session for a year prior. This session is held only on Sunday evenings. This effectively means that Sunday family dinner is impossible for almost a year (FF runs September-May) if you have a kid preparing for First Communion, and means that it’s one more evening that the family doesn’t get to spend together. If you have several small kids, it’s generally dad who attends with the first communicant, and you can bet that it leaves mom feeling pretty resentful that not only are her Sunday dinner plans wrecked, but she has yet another evening during the week when she’s kid-wrangling solo leading up to bedtime.

We love our parish in general; it’s very warm and family-friendly, and the priests and nearly all the staff are wonderful. That setup gives me pause, however, and it’s something we’ll have to take into consideration in a few years when DD’s preparing for her First Communion. We’re planning on homeschooling, but would like her to be a part of the FF classes at the parish for all sorts of reasons. Cancelling Sunday family dinner for a year, though, is a pretty stiff price to pay.

THE REPLY

QUOTE=pianistclare;13838548]A whole year for parents is excessive.
We have them go to 2 classes which they LOVE. The Deacons and I teach the classes.
I don’t agree with a whole year of prep for parents, but I suppose one could say that a Pastor might think it necessary given all the many misconceptions people have…we see it here on CAF all the time. Endless questions about things that we all think people should know already. CAF is sort of a hothouse for people who are pretty well catechized and then those who barely know their faith. These ancillary requirements come from the Bishops for the most part. Speak with your pastor and and ask him why the parents have to go for a full year.c It would interesting to know his thinking on this.

This is one of the many reasons why next year, we are going to Whole Family Catechesis. To make RE not the GAH! that it is for families with multiple children, and to help them work their faith into their daily lives throughout the month. Sac Prep remains the same though. The Archbishop is pretty clear on that.

A NOTE OF SANITY SEEMS REQUIRED HERE.

JESUS / GOD GAVE HIS LIFE:shrug: SO THAT WE MIGHT CHOOSE SALVATION, AND YOUR GOING TO COMPLAIN THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS “TOO MUCH” FAITH FORMATION.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT:shrug:

KNOWING WELL OUR BELIEFS AND PRACTICES & SACRIFICING AS EVIDENCE OF OUR FAITH-BELIEFS FOR YOUR KIDS, FOR WHOM AS A PARENT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IN JUDGMENT BEFORE GOD, OR HAVING MORE LEISURE TIME?

My friends, you really NEED to pray about this.

May God guide you,

PJM

 

[pensmama87]

In fairness, many (most) of the posters on CAF are very, very interested in integrating their faith into all aspects of their family life, and do so. At the same time, I think many of us are aware that parish requirements are often not aimed at those who really make an effort in this area. It can be frustrating, and noting that it might not be the best system does not mean we aren’t really living our faith.

 

[jmjZelie]

I am happy you clairified… Your above thread sounded like the only reason you were volunteering is because f lack of trust for your parish priest and dre.

However-the hierachy of a Catholic still stands: God, spouse, children, extended family and so on. Of course you can serve God through your vocation as a mother. But you cannot serve your children or spouse at the expense of God.

Why should I have trusted them in the first place?

I have stated a couple times that we were new to the parish this year. At our previous parish, I knew the pastor and DRE personally, and they approved of the training we provided in our homeschool as more than sufficient. The DRE actually told me that she would prefer I NOT enroll my children in weekly RE classes, but only do the extra sacramental prep materials in the proper years.

Then we moved cross country to a new parish where I knew no one. I had no reason to trust anything. I still don’t. Errors are still being taught right alongside the truth. I have mentioned only two of them in this thread. My son’s life was threatened by a disturbed child and initially it was going to be ignored, until my husband and I insisted that either the child be accompanied by his mother or by the DRE every week, because in no way would we tolerate a threat like that against our child. They complied when they realized we were not going to let that drop.

My weekly presence WAS due to a lack of trust. My volunteering has been a help to the parish, probably far more than a mere watchful and protective presence would have been. I would never volunteer at any parish at the expense of my family. In fact, if my children are not enrolled in a particular year, I will not be volunteering.

You may disagree with my priorities. But I have 5 kids and I homeschool. THAT is how I serve God. I still very much disagree with the false dichotomy you are making. God did not give me a parish. He gave me a spouse and children. We are free to select our own parish. I also think you are conflating our duty to God with parish volunteerism.

 

[HouseArrest]

By the time children are of age to receive confirmation, they should also be able to discern a heretical teaching. If not, then they are not ready.

If the dre or religion teacher is spitting out nonsense, then the pastor should be informed also.

The problem is that many students can discern the heretical teaching and are looking for someone to validate it. Not ready for confirmation? That is the least of the problem. A decades long split from the church, with secular lifestyles to follow are the result. These are not my own kids, so not my story to tell, but I have seen students sidetracked for very long amounts of time over a lackluster REP program.

I think we have witnessed, in this thread alone, multiple instances of problems with REP programs being reported to the pastors, with problems continuing.

 

[jmjZelie]

In fairness, many (most) of the posters on CAF are very, very interested in integrating their faith into all aspects of their family life, and do so. At the same time, I think many of us are aware that parish requirements are often not aimed at those who really make an effort in this area. It can be frustrating, and noting that it might not be the best system does not mean we aren’t really living our faith.

Right.

By the time I finish my work for the day, I have probably taught for 1-2 hours on the Faith. That is for 3 school aged children, their catechism, Bible story time, and religion curriculum. That is 1-2 hours daily, or a total of about 10 hours per week, once you count family Rosary and conversational time on religious issues. Then there is REP class and Mass each week.

That is on top of my own studies that I do to learn more about the Faith and the history of the Church and current issues affecting the Church and the world, and on top of my own devotional time.

So for someone to question my priorities for placing the access to the sacraments above everything else and volunteering only when I am able to align it with supervising what some stranger is teaching my children, it is very strange and out of touch with the reality of my life. How many years have I wanted to volunteer, but cannot because there is no child care or because God has blessed me with another pregnancy that causes me to be overwhelmed with nausea and vomiting or tied to the home with a newborn? Every year of my Catholic motherhood, is the answer. If that is not serving God first in my life, I don’t know what is.

But no matter. I know that I am supposed to focus upon pleasing God and not winning the approval of others. But I thank you, pensmama, for so charitably pointing out such a reality that is true for many faithful Catholic mothers. It is good to know that many others are experiencing the same challenges and doing their best to please God.

 

[DarkLight]

Originally Posted by UbiCaritas View Post
Well, sometimes it’s not just sports and the like; it’s family time, too.

We have a long ways to go before we need worry about this, but at our church, as with many, sacramental prep is separate from regular faith formation classes. FF classes are offered Sunday morning and various weekday evenings, and you register for whichever day fits your schedule best. Fair enough; it’s a huge parish, so they can offer lots of different times, and we really appreciate that!

What we don’t appreciate is that the year that a child makes his or her First Communion, the child and a parent are required to attend an additional sacramental prep session for a year prior. This session is held only on Sunday evenings. This effectively means that Sunday family dinner is impossible for almost a year (FF runs September-May) if you have a kid preparing for First Communion, and means that it’s one more evening that the family doesn’t get to spend together. If you have several small kids, it’s generally dad who attends with the first communicant, and you can bet that it leaves mom feeling pretty resentful that not only are her Sunday dinner plans wrecked, but she has yet another evening during the week when she’s kid-wrangling solo leading up to bedtime.

We love our parish in general; it’s very warm and family-friendly, and the priests and nearly all the staff are wonderful. That setup gives me pause, however, and it’s something we’ll have to take into consideration in a few years when DD’s preparing for her First Communion. We’re planning on homeschooling, but would like her to be a part of the FF classes at the parish for all sorts of reasons. Cancelling Sunday family dinner for a year, though, is a pretty stiff price to pay.

THE REPLY

QUOTE=pianistclare;13838548]A whole year for parents is excessive.
We have them go to 2 classes which they LOVE. The Deacons and I teach the classes.
I don’t agree with a whole year of prep for parents, but I suppose one could say that a Pastor might think it necessary given all the many misconceptions people have…we see it here on CAF all the time. Endless questions about things that we all think people should know already. CAF is sort of a hothouse for people who are pretty well catechized and then those who barely know their faith. These ancillary requirements come from the Bishops for the most part. Speak with your pastor and and ask him why the parents have to go for a full year.c It would interesting to know his thinking on this.

This is one of the many reasons why next year, we are going to Whole Family Catechesis. To make RE not the GAH! that it is for families with multiple children, and to help them work their faith into their daily lives throughout the month. Sac Prep remains the same though. The Archbishop is pretty clear on that.

A NOTE OF SANITY SEEMS REQUIRED HERE.

JESUS / GOD GAVE HIS LIFE:shrug: SO THAT WE MIGHT CHOOSE SALVATION, AND YOUR GOING TO COMPLAIN THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS “TOO MUCH” FAITH FORMATION.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT:shrug:

KNOWING WELL OUR BELIEFS AND PRACTICES & SACRIFICING AS EVIDENCE OF OUR FAITH-BELIEFS FOR YOUR KIDS, FOR WHOM AS A PARENT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IN JUDGMENT BEFORE GOD, OR HAVING MORE LEISURE TIME?

My friends, you really NEED to pray about this.

May God guide you,

PJM

I don’t think family time is fairly categorized as just leisure time. It’s important for kids to have time with their parents, which for many families is sunday evening.

 

[MomaMary8]

I think I would have discretely said something to our pastor about a comment like that, but I know that every pastor we have ever had has made it clear he won’t tolerate discrimination between parishioners in different circumstances.

And yes, I want to be clear, too: phrases such as “those people” or “those kids” are phrases that a prudent person avoids, lest they even give the impression that they make blanket judgments about whole classes of people.

That, by the way, is what I would tell him: that is, that she uses phrases like that, which either means she has an uncharitable prejudice or else she doesn’t realize how that comes across. (Because, hey, if you’re complaining about how uncharitable someone has been, at least be charitable about it, LOL.)

At the time our pastor was in his first year at our parish and the principal was in her second year. She was a great improvement over the previous principal, so overall I was glad it was her in the lead of the school rather than the principal that was previous. Could she be corrected? Yes, but I didn’t feel it was a prudent time to do so. I also have to weigh anything I say with the possibility of looking like an overly critical disgruntled parishioner. There are plenty of those around!

She went on to criticize public high school in a very similar manner. What can be said? She loves her Catholic school students! I’m just hoping she can learn to love others students with the same heart.

 

[EasterJoy]

A NOTE OF SANITY SEEMS REQUIRED HERE.

JESUS / GOD GAVE HIS LIFE:shrug: SO THAT WE MIGHT CHOOSE SALVATION, AND YOUR GOING TO COMPLAIN THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS “TOO MUCH” FAITH FORMATION.

WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT:shrug:

KNOWING WELL OUR BELIEFS AND PRACTICES & SACRIFICING AS EVIDENCE OF OUR FAITH-BELIEFS FOR YOUR KIDS, FOR WHOM AS A PARENT YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IN JUDGMENT BEFORE GOD, OR HAVING MORE LEISURE TIME?

My friends, you really NEED to pray about this.

May God guide you,

PJM

The serenity that goes with sanity is more evident when the caps lock is turned off, friend.

With all due respect, formal educational opportunities provided by a parish, even the most wholesome and salutory of them, are not always preferable in some ultimate sense to all other things parents can do in the advancement of faith formation of either their children individually or of the family as a whole.

This is what Pius XI had to say about the formation of priests, for instance:
“…the first and most natural place where the flowers of the sanctuary should almost spontaneously grow and bloom, remains always the truly and deeply Christian family. Most of the saintly bishops and priests whose “praise the Church declares,” owe the beginning of their vocation and their holiness to example and teaching of a father strong in faith and manly virtues, of a pure and devoted mother, and of a family in which the love of God and neighbor, joined with simplicity of life, has reigned supreme. To this ordinary rule of divine Providence exceptions are rare and only serve to prove the rule.” --Encyclical Ad Catholici Sacerdotii, 1935

If the formation of children at the parish level is not seen in the context of the sacred unit we call the domestic Church, in the interests of the integrated formation of the entire family as a unit, the aims of religious education is to some degree missing the boat.

Religious formation is not about providing a number of group experiences that will in turn make ardent Catholics. From time immemorial, ardent Catholics have been formed in ardent Catholic* homes*. When we consider the number of hours of salaried work that some parents must work in order to provide for the children God has blessed them with, we must realize that the number of times during a week that both parents are free to spend unencumbered time with all their children may be precious and few.

It is not practical for a given parish to provide an unlimited amount of times for group experience. That is not what I am saying. I am saying that it is no condemnation of a family that they would change programs in order to better integrate family time and family activities with the group experiences that a particular parish provides for their children. This situation requires a certain amount of flexibility from the parish and a correct respect for the inescapable fact that some families are best** served** by not being shoehorned into a one-size-MUST-fit-ALL program model. When suitable alternatives are available, suitable alternatives ought to be welcomed, not resented or resisted.

Does that mean that any activity that a family proposes to do as a family ought to always or even routinely supercede parish-sponsored group formation events? I am suggesting no such thing. I am only saying that it is inevitable and indeed legitimate that even very devout families will have scheduling conflicts with certain parish formation events, even ones intended to fulfill an obligatory aspect of sacramental preparation, and that this inevitability should elicit a certain openness in pastors and directors of religious education to be flexible. Under no circumstances should it be rashly assumed that families unwilling to change their schedules to accommodate the more-or-less arbitrary scheduling decisions of their geographical parish are lacking in devotion, let alone lacking solicitude for the souls of their children. Yes, some of them may be, but to put one blanket over all is inviting rash judgment.

 

[UbiCaritas]

PJM:

It’s a generally-accepted internet convention that the use of all-caps font indicates shouting when used for more than one emphasized words, and it’s therefore considered rather rude.

Now, as to Faith Formation.

Another poster described her kids’ sacrament prep class as consisting in lessons in personal hygiene. Please explain to me how my children will better spiritually benefit from spending three hours on Sunday evening being told “daily showers after puberty are important” vs spending the afternoon doing some fun family activity, followed by family dinner, Scripture reading/discussion, and the rosary.

Similarly, I and other posters have pointed out that Sunday evening is, for many of us, the only solid block of family time we have. It’s important to be willing to sacrifice for our faith. It’s also important to discern when sacrifice is a good idea vs when it’s just plain silly, and also important to weigh the risk/benefit ratio of sacrificing something. If a family is going to sacrifice the only real family time they’re getting in a week, the reason had better be pretty good. If the reason is simply “because we said your child needs to check this box, and won’t receive any actual content in the class,” that’s not a good enough reason.

To the poster who suggested that it’s reasonable to expect a family to use all their vacation time to attend a confirmation retreat: somehow, I’m not sure that “I know that you wanted to see Nana and Poppa this year, but you can’t because you have to go to a retreat to learn how to make quesadillas. Perhaps we can go see them in three years after your sisters have been confirmed, too” is not a lesson I want my kids learning about what the Church expects of us. Another poster on this thread is a military spouse. I hope I’m not speaking out of turn in saying that telling her to pay for a babysitter for 6-8 kids every Sunday night in order to attend FHC prep classes is grossly unreasonable.

I would also point out that 20-30 years ago, it was SOP for a lot of pastors to expect the young boys of their parish to do unchaperoned sleepovers at the rectory as part of (pick one) “sacramental prep,” “vocation discernment,” “altar boys’ night out,” etc. There are reasons that unquestioning acceptance of church authority in this or any matter is a bad idea. In this case, I’m “only” talking about the physical and psychological aspect of what could happen. In the case of bad teachers, we’re talking spiritual affects, and that’s orders of magnitude worse.

The Church’s authority isn’t being questioned. The authority of her local shepherds to make arbitrary and unreasonable demands on their flocks is.

Come to think of it, I remember my parents telling me about being required to discuss which method of artificial birth control they planned on using during their pre-marital retreat some 30 years ago. Does that mean that they were required to go get a prescription for the Pill? Or what about when your local pastor refuses to marry you unless you pony up a few grand first, even if you’re willing to be married with no fuss, no muss in the chapel or during a daily Mass? That’s okay, too, because Father Says So? No. No, it isn’t. The divine right of kings applies neither to parish priests nor to directors of religious education.

 

[UbiCaritas]

DD is all of 2, so her FHC is a ways down the road, and our parish will hopefully have revamped their program by then.

I can speak to the process of getting her baptized, though, and that process did not exactly inspire me with confidence as to the rest of the sacrament programs.

I teach the infant baptism classes at this parish. Therefore, it’s reasonable to say that I’m pretty involved in the catechesis program for it.

Nonetheless, we had to go to another parish to get DD baptized. Why? Canon Law requires parents to get their children baptized within a few weeks of birth. Due to a combination of parish policy of no baptisms during Lent (not a Church teaching), only doing public, group baptisms (ditto), and scheduling those group baptisms once per month, DD would have been about 3 months old before we could have her baptized at this parish. When I pointed out the appropriate passage in Canon Law about the timeframe, I was told, and I quote, that “Canon Law doesn’t apply anymore.” I decided not to have WWIII over it and called another parish which was happy to oblige.

In retrospect, I should have gone all the way to the priest with this, but we were pretty new to the parish, I had just started teaching the classes a few months before, and I was unwilling to make the priest’s life still more difficult with this kind of thing, as he’d just been handed this parish of 3,000 families solo and in the wake of a rather disastrous, if well-meaning, pastor who had left him all sorts of messes to clean up.

 

[EasterJoy]

“Canon Law doesn’t apply anymore.” I decided not to have WWIII over it and called another parish which was happy to oblige.

In retrospect, I should have gone all the way to the priest with this, but we were pretty new to the parish, I had just started teaching the classes a few months before, and I was unwilling to make the priest’s life still more difficult with this kind of thing, as he’d just been handed this parish of 3,000 families solo and in the wake of a rather disastrous, if well-meaning, pastor who had left him all sorts of messes to clean up.

I’d still have repeated the “canon law doesn’t apply any more” line to the pastor. Those are the kind of things that priests want to know their staff has been telling the parishioners. If someone doesn’t tell him personally, the first person who lets him know may be the vicar of clergy.

I’m guessing, however, that the pastors of parishes surrounding yours have long been made more than slightly aware of what had been going on. (Some parishes are so enamored of their liturgical abuses that they gain a local reputation of being all but pagan until a pastor comes in who succeeds in cleaning things up.) On that account, it doesn’t surprise me that another local priest was willing to perform the baptism for you in a timely manner and keep this one problem off of your pastor’s plate.

 

[dconklin]

It took some time but I got through all 119 posts.

I am an Asst DRE at a large parish and would like to try and shed a little light on what may be going on in the OP’s parish’s side of the fence. As a matter of practice, we do not allow at home sacrament prep because it is up to us (the parish) to make sure the child is properly instructed and knowledgeable. We have over 100 families who use our home school religious ed option. Our program has a built-in component that allows us to monitor completion of work as well as understanding. Even with all of this high tech accountability, we must foster the sense of community - the origin of the word Communion.

While a small number of posts does not allow me to fully know or understand the OP, the reasons for not wanting to have her child attend classes sounded weak.