Should a Catholic child live with a non-Catholic family?

[Bsb61]

We are a Catholic family from Brazil, and my husband and I have raised our three kids according to Church’s teachings. We all are active members of our parish and attend Mass every Sunday. My 15-year-old son wishes to study abroad (for a six-month period) as an exchange student in the U.S. or Canada living with a family, which will be arranged through an specialized agency.

We had an interview with the people from the agency, in which I exposed my concern that my son not be assigned to live with a non-Catholic family. They said they could try to find a Catholic family, but that it would be a bit difficult and would restrict my son’s options of families – maybe even to a point of impossibility. They pointed out that some other Catholic kids went to non-Catholic Christian families and did just fine.

My son really wants to have this experience, but I’m confused about letting him stay for six months without going to our Church. (I was advised that, as a minor, he would not be allowed to go to church by himself, unless the family agrees to take him to a Catholic church).

What if he is exposed to anti-Catholic doctrines? Is it sinful for us as parents to allow this situation? Thank you very much!

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Look at it this way:

Your 15-year-old son is proposing that he live in a foreign country for six months with a family who you will not know and most likely will not meet personally, who may or may not be Catholic (and, if Catholic, who knows how faithfully Catholic?), who will have no obligation to ensure that he is able to attend church, and with whom you will have limited contact due to distance and possible language and cultural barriers. The agency may believe that the Catholic teens it has placed with non-Catholic families “did just fine” but I doubt they were assessing the teens’ religious and moral formation.

If this were a more limited trip abroad – say, two weeks to a month – these considerations likely would not be nearly so significant. But six months of inculturation into a strange family in a strange land is not an experience many young teenagers are sufficiently formed in their religious and moral commitments to undertake. The decision is, of course, only one that you and your husband can make, but I strongly recommend that you explain to your son that this kind of experience is for adults and that you will reconsider the matter when he is in college. In the meantime, perhaps you might check with your parish or diocese to see if there are short mission trips for youth available in which your son could participate.