Parents Are the First Educators

This podcast is brought to you by Ascension. To discover even more free Catholic podcasts, videos and resources, to help you live your faith every day, visit AscensionPress.com. A father and a mother who give a child life also take on the obligation to raise that child in a fully human and Christian life. This is a direct and grave moral duty and it comes with a right that no one else can take from parents. No one can take this right because it blunts the natural law from parents. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen to every knees, shall bow your weekly Catholic podcasts on evangelization and discipleship. My name is Mike Gomergormley and I am not joined today by Dave the Body Bambiccle. He is absent in body but here in spirit as I have an image of him printed out and taped above my monitor at all times. I am actually getting over the flu that my beautiful children gave me. It's awesome. So if I sound a little nasally, you know why, but I wanted to do this episode that I've been stewing on for a while on parents, diocese and the models of Catholic education. So that's what my brain, how I think of this title, essential will come up with something far clever. But I've actually, this is going to sound crazy to you. I've organized this according to chapters which to you neurotypical people that might sound like a very normal thing to do. But to those of us will say not neurotypical who just want to talk and ramble. This is quite a feat on my part so you should be proud of me. Okay, so the earlier episode, okay, I do want to say this disclaimer. This might make me enemies of pastors and bishops and the U.S. CCB. That's not at all my hope. My hope is that we can start to see things a little bit clearer from an educational perspective and from the heart of the church, not from Michael Gormley with an ideological axagrand because honestly, I don't have one. So let's go through. After one, the duty belongs to parents. In the first few episodes, we talked about education that is ordered to the end of the human person and that modern schooling often claims to be neutral about ultimate ends, right? So they only care about means, efficiency, careerism, blah, blah, blah. But then the question in this episode that we need to tackle is, well, who is responsible for bringing a child to that ultimate end? And the church's answer has always been, it is the parents that are responsible, a father and a mother who give a child life, also take on the obligation to raise that child in a fully human and Christian life. This is a direct and grave moral duty, grave moral duty. And it comes with a right that no one else can take from parents. No one can take this right because it belongs to the natural law from parents. This is why the church is always spoken of whenever you hear people talk about what are the goods of marriage. It always says procreation and education of children, it always uses and education. St. Augustine named the three goods of marriage, offspring, fidelity and the sacrament. When he explained the good of offspring, he didn't stop at birth. Pius XI quote him in Casti Canubi, the great modern encyclical that started the church's thinking around contraception. Brilliant. He said children are to be begotten lovingly and educated religiously, and that's in paragraph 17. And then he quoted St. Augustine and that Pius XI went on to say that by the law of nature and of God, the right and duty of educating belongs first to those who gave the child birth. The 1917 Code of Canola, that's the old one, named the primary end of marriage as the procreation and education of children. The Second Vatican Council taught that marriage and married love are by their nature, quote ordained for the procreation and education of children, it's God him, it spends 48. The current code, Code of Canola, keeps the same pairing. And in 1055 says the marriage covenant is ordered to the good of the spouses and to the procreation and education of offspring. So when a couple says yes at the altar, they are saying yes to more than children, they are saying yes to forming them. Education is part of what marriage is for. Do you ever think about that? I didn't until I read that and I wrote that chapter two. How the church states parents rights. Okay, this is very important. A lot of ink has been spilled over this. I'm going to give you the cliff notes version and it probably won't satisfy any canon lawyer out there. But here we go. The church does not teach the parents role as a sentiment. She writes it into her law and repeats it in her teaching over and over again. So here's the update in 1983 code of canon law. Now, I'm going to throw out a handful of these canons and some numbers. This is only if you want to go and look it up. I find it really helpful. Modern law 1136 as parents have the most grave duty. Oh, there's a word grave, baby. The most it doesn't say grave, baby. The most grave duty in primary right to care for the physical, social, cultural, moral, and religious education of their children canon 226 subsection to says because parents have given life to their children, they have a most grave obligation in the right to educate them and parents, Catholic parents, Christian parents are particularly to see their Christian education canon 774 subsection two says that before all others parents are bound to form their children in the faith in Christian living by word and example. It's beautiful. Canon 793 subsection one says parents have the obligation and right to educate that Catholic parents have the duty and right to choose the means and institutions that best provide for their children's Catholic education and their local circumstances. Now, some of these are paraphrases because I don't want to get dinged by copyright laws. I'm kind of paraphrasing some of this. Canon 797 says parents must have true freedom in choosing schools and it asks the faithful to see that civil society recognizes and supports that freedom. That's interesting to support that freedom in the second Vatican Council. There's a document. I'm going to reference a handful of times. It's called grab Eastseemum education on these, you got to say it like your Italian. Graviceum education onus is the document on the declaration on Christian education. I might call it GE because I'm going to reference it a bunch, but it says that because parents gave their children life, surprise, they're the first educators of their children and must be recognized as such. This is very important over and against the state. The state does not have the right to educate your children. You do as parents the state cannot take that away, but neither can the church. The same documents as parents have primary and inalienable right and duty to educate and must enjoy true liberty in choosing schools, GE 6, true liberty in choosing schools. JP2, everyone's favorite and familiarist consortium describes the parents' right and duty as essential, original and primary and irreplaceable and inalienable so that it cannot be entirely delegated to others or usurped by them. That's in paragraph 36 of familiarist consortium. It cannot be entirely delegated to others or usurped by them. Now again, JP2 is writing while there's totalitarian regimes who are physically removing children from homes in order to give them a anti-Christian, godless, communist education. But this has obviously broader reach for our society today as we are also, he's also speaking at a time of mass secularization of our society in the West. He adds that the right of parents to choose an education and keeping with their faith must be absolutely guaranteed and that both the church and state must create and foster the institution's families justly demand. That's in paragraph 40. In his 1994 letter to families, he explains how everyone else fits in under the principle of subsidiarity, which is such an important social justice principle of the church. Teachers and institutions help parents and they carry out their work in the name of the parents with their consent and to a degree with their authorization. That comes from, he's referencing another church document called Gravitisi Mamsane, paragraph 16. This is super important for us to understand that expanding outwards where the job of education surpasses that of any family, you then expand outwards using the principle of subsidiarity in order that teachers and institutions can come and help you. The Catechism paragraph 20 to 21 says, it is the right and duty of parents to educate. It is primordial and inalienable. It says the parents have the right to choose a school that corresponds to their convictions and then says plainly, this right is fundamental and that's in paragraph 2229. The order in all of these taxes is the same. The parent comes first, schools, parishes and even the state comes alongside them to help. That help assistance is subsidiarity. Number three, the church's own mandate. Parents are not the only ones with a duty here. We need to be totally honest how we address these issues. Some people think, well, I'm a homeschooler. I don't think my rights are absolute in any regard here. I need to understand my relationship with the church. As my pastor says, the family is an incomplete or imperfect society and the church is a perfect society. So my family needs to be joined to that perfect society. The Lord gave the church a mandate of our own, which includes teaching at the end of Matthew's gospel. He sends the apostles out with these words, go there for teaching all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all the things whatsoever I have commanded you. That's the duet range version because I'm scared to copyright. Pope Paul VI put it as directly as anyone else has evangelizing and this is one of my favorite. If you're an evangelist, you got to love Evangelion, Nutsy Andi. Evangelizing is the grace and vocation proper to the church. It's our deepest identity. And here's a great quote, she exists in order to evangelize. The Catechesis of Children is one of the ordinary ways the church does this. And Paul VI's name's parents, among the instructors, the church she needs to prepare. And that's in paragraph 44. The Canaan law says the same thing. Canaan 794 says the duty and right of education belongs in a special way to the church and the pastors of souls must arrange everything so that all the faithful have a Catholic education. Interesting. Canaan 773 calls Catechesis a proper and grave duty of pastors. Canaan 528, subsection 1 says the pastor is to have particular care for the Catholic education of children in youth. Canaan 776 says the pastor is to foster the role of parents in family Catechesis. And canaan 529, subsection 1 says the pastor is to work so that the spouses and parents are supported in fulfilling their proper duties. Do you see how subsidiarity works? There's a support. There's a location proper in the church. It's beautiful. The counsel, second Vatican counsel, said the church has the right to establish and run schools of every kind, GE8. It also said the church must be present with her help to the great number of children in schools that are not Catholic. Do you see Catholics? Do you see the local Catholic parish in great number with children in schools that are not Catholic? Some of you belong to parish schools of religion. I never heard of that where the population is so Catholic that even though people go to public school, the last hour of the day is devoted to Catholic education and the priest comes over and teaches. That's cool. Notice how these duties fit together though. The church's duty does not replace the parents duty. Canaan 796 calls the schools, the principal assistants to parents, and that word assistance tells you who is primary. The bishop and the pastor are charged to make sure every Catholic child gets a Catholic education and the ordinary way that they do this is by helping parents do what parents are already bound gravely to do. Okay. Chapter four, 10 models of Catholic education today. Now I think most of us, when we hear of Catholic education, we only think of parochial or diocesan schools. That's one model of Catholic education and it can serve parishes and communities brilliantly. Now this is a model most of us picture and the sad thing is many of these local parish schools are consolidating into regional schools as enrollment falls. You also have religious order schools and independent schools, independent Catholic schools. These carry a particular charism like a Jesuit school, a Benedictine school, a Dominican school, an Opus Day school and they might be under the diocese with diocesan approval, you know, whatever, but these are religious order schools. When I was out in St. Louis applying for jobs 17 years ago when I got married, I mean, there are more Catholic schools and paris system religious order schools. They all were flourishing kind of all around each other. It's pretty epic. I never seen anything like that grown up in Texas. Three is classical Catholic schools. Some of these are actually diocesan schools that are converting to a classical curriculum, double plus good. Others are independent networks such as the Chesterton Academy. If you've heard of that, if you know, Brandon Vott out with word on fire, he built one in Orlando, Florida. It's pretty cool. Number four, mission schools for low income families. This is great. The Crystal Way Ray work study network and the Nativity Miguel middle schools serve families who can never pay full tuition. The work study network is pretty impressive. We have one here in the Houston area. My dad, God bless him. I found out he was funding it. He funded so many great Catholic initiatives. I miss that man. Any. Number five, the university model or hybrid schools. Students spend two to three days a week on campus and then the rest of the week learning at home under their parents. So this is where you get kind of teacher instruction and then guidance going forward. And then six straight up homeschooling. Some families use a complete Catholic curricula such as Seaton, Colby, Mother of Divine Grace. Others design their own. Others use Classical programs. That's what my family does. We use Memorial Press. I remember one day I came home and my daughter I said, Hey, Cateri, what are you doing? And she was like five or six. And she was in the garage on a little chair that desk that she had set up in the garage. And she said, I was waiting for you, Daddy. And I said, no, what are you doing? What are you working on your school? And she said, Well, I'm just writing the song Doose In cursive. Are you kidding me? Write in the song Doose In cursive. Three things you would never see at a public school. The song Doose in Latin. In cursive. Incredible. So yeah, others designed their own program. There's a wonderful book called Choosing Your Own or Designing Your Own Classical Curriculum. That book was very influential on our family. Number eight, online Catholic schools and course providers. Families can enroll full-time or take individual classes. Number nine, Parish Catechesis for Children in Public Schools. There's a ton of different variations on this. Most Catholic children are formed in this way. This number nine way. So Fafirmation, CCD, RE, whatever you call it. Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. Family centered programs. And then number 10 is interesting. The rise of publicly funded choice. So in Texas, we got a new education freedom accounts where if students are in private schools, they get $10,474 per student. And homeschooling families get $2,000. So that's a big discrepancy. But whatever, guess my kids aren't getting printer paper this year. I'm just kidding. But none of these models, I just want to point out, all of these things are very different, but they don't have to be antagonistic. And also, none of these models guarantee formation. You can have a fancy building. You can have a kitchen table. You can have a two-day-a-week campus. And each can be ordered to the true end of a human person, right, forming them to be saints. Each can also become this sandbox of means only with a crucifix on the wall. We don't want that for any of them. Chapter five, what the hierarchy carries. So next is being fair to our bishops and our pastors. They take their duties seriously, and running schools carry burdens that we parents rarely see. Not just accreditation and all that stuff, but think about safe environment since 2002, the charter for the protection of children and young people. We got to run safe environment training. You got to run background checks. All the stuff has to be updated. Schools are in a much stricter rotation than, you know, parish volunteers. Diases are audited routinely on both. Any group that uses parish property with children falls under that responsibility. There's also things you might not think about like insurance and liability. So if you are wanting to run a hybrid program and you're children, let's say your kids are there from eight to three or eight to four two days a week, that's a lot of opportunities for someone to get hurt on parish property. And it doesn't matter who's running the program. If it's on your property, the parish and the diocese will have to answer for it. So that matters. Oversight of what is taught, the bishop has the right in duty to watch over Catholic schools in his territory, Canon 806, and no school may call itself a Catholic school without the consent of competent ecclesiastical authority. Canon 803, subsection three. Now what does that mean? I was at a school. We'll call it, and we'll name it after me, St. Michael's. And I said, oh, the St. Michael's Catholic school, and they said, no, no, the bishop just denied us that status. And I said, oh, what? And they're like, yeah, the bishop decides who gets the word Catholic. We are not a diocese school. We're a private school that teaches Catholicism. And I said, why is that? And they said, well, we used to be super liberal and we are more liberal than the rest of the diocese. And then I looked at them and said, then why am I here? And they said, well, we're not that liberal anymore. So we reapplied. But, I guess, uh, old feelings run deep there. So when a pastor says he has to ask the chance, or if this is this is a great line, I love this. A parent said this to me. When a pastor says he has to ask the chance, or he is telling the truth, these are real responsibilities and parents asking for help that need to respect them. And when you say ask the chance, or it is a whole host of things, especially if you're in a very large diocese. So, uh, yeah, we need to respect that that reality. Chapter six, why the parochial system is shrinking. The Catholic school system has lost more than half of its schools since the 1960s. In 1965, there are about 5.2 million children enrolled in close to 13,000 Catholic schools. This year, the National Catholic Educational Association accounts 1.67 million students in 5,800 schools. In the 24/25 school year alone, 63 Catholic schools closed and 24 opened. The main reason is who used to teach in them. In the 1950s, a religious sister's brothers and priests made up 90% of the staff in Catholic schools. In 1960, lay teachers were only about 27%. Today, that's 92.8% are now lay people. And when you think about that, the sisters of the old system made everything affordable. They took a vow of poverty. Their communities would receive a small stipend for each of the nuns work. The parish could run a school on very little. One historian of teaching orders estimated that in the 19th century, a teaching brother taught for about half the cost of a male public schoolteacher and a sister taught for about half of what a brother to cost. Late teachers have families to support and they deserve a just wage. Even so, they are underpaid. Federal data reported in 2023. put the average base salary of a Catholic school teacher about 45,200 against about 61,600 in public schools, roughly 26% less. These salaries are still most of what a school spends. So tuition rises even while teachers sacrifice to stay. In Texas, average private school tuition in 2023, 2024 was $10,965 for kindergarten through eighth grade and about 15,000 for high school. No one planned this transition. The sister's age, their numbers fell, and the system built on their sacrifice now has to be paid for in cash. And this is where we get chapter seven, the frustration of faithful parents. And this was me. Many parents are frustrated with Catholic schools for two reasons. The cost is high and the Catholic part of education is often thin. The cost is easy to see. A family with four children can be looking at tuition that rivals a mortgage, right? A second problem is harder to talk about, but we have to talk about it. Some Catholic schools, I would say many, do not actually form students to be devout Roman Catholics. They offer a religion class of uniform mass once a month. And the rest of the day is the same sandbox of means that we describe in the last few episodes. To pretend otherwise is to refuse to look at what is in front of us. Families you take the faith most seriously, often feel this most sharply. They are the ones asking about curriculum, the Sacramento life of the school. And whether the teachers believe what the church teaches. Too often they end up feeling like outsiders in their own parochial system. And they're viewed as complainers by a lot of people in the parish and diocesan school system, diocesan personnel. But here they go complaining. I remember I had a friend who kept asking about the religious curriculum. Like I want to see what religious textbooks you guys use. And they just flat out told her no. And she's like, but I'm the parent. Like I just want to know what you guys are using. And they're like, no, trust us to educate your kids. And she's like, ah, no, I want to be fair here because the data also shows something good. Kara, the research center of Georgetown, reported in 2014, so it's kind of old. But 24, 34% of millennial Catholics, that's me, attended a Catholic primary school. And 39% who attended a Catholic high school go to mass weekly. Among those who never attended a Catholic school, the figure was five percent. Wow. So if you go to public school and you go to faith formation, you're looking at around a 5% attendance at weekly mass, as opposed to 34 and 39 for primary and Catholic high school. A good Catholic school still forms people. And many families choose these schools precisely because they're serious about their faith. My point is narrower. A Catholic name does not guarantee Catholic formation. And parents know the difference when they see it. Chapter eight, what families are building? Oh, listen, I'm sorry, this is so boring. I'm speaking at a low clip because I'm about to have a coughing fit at any moment. And this is the only way I can get through this episode 'cause I love you all so much. Okay, and it's about to get very controversial. So buckle up. So some parents are choosing other models, especially homeschooling, that's what we did. They rarely do it alone for long. What happens is other homeschooling families find each other. Networks form, we got connected with a whole bunch of homeschooling families. These networks grow in recognizable stages. They meet for field trips, feast days, for spry days. Then they start to co-op. And then parents start rotating teaching certain subjects they know best. Some will hire a tutor or two. Then it becomes a little school. Some go further and found a two day a week Catholic hybrid. I got a buddy who goes through an independent Catholic hybrid as a wife used to teach there. Where students take their core classes on a campus with trained teachers and finish the week at home under their parents. I teach at one of these now. This is what the church's own teaching describes. JP2 wrote that families should build bonds of solidarity among themselves. So that parents are educated by other parents and children by other children. This is Gravati Simam Sane 16. The code of Cana losses. The faithful are free to found associations for the purposes of piety and the promotion of the Christian vocation. Cana 215 and it tells pastors to foster the associations of the laity. Cana 529. These families have not left the church. Many of them are in your pews every Sunday. What they need now is a place to meet and the parish has rooms. Chapter nine, why some diocese say no. Dun dun dun. Not every diocese welcomes these families. Some are openly negative. Their reasons are worth stating fairly before we answer them. Okay, so I'm trying to be fair here. Protecting the remaining Catholic schools is the number one reason that's given most often. Some diocese worry that every family in a co-op or a hybrid is a family that's now not paying tuition at the parish school. One East Coast archdiocese, you like I phrase that, refused to lease or sell vacant buildings to charter schools for this reason. Another East Coast archdiocese, weighs the tenets effect on nearby Catholic schools before approving a lease. So that's the number one thing. Protect the remaining schools. The next is the appearance of endorsement. This is important. A program of parish property can look like a diocesan program, even when the diocese has no oversight of it. That's important. Liability and safe environment, children on parish property are the parishes or responsibility, whoever is teaching them. Sacrimental preparation, many dioceses treat the parish program as the normal path for first communion and confirmation and they resist separate tracks for homeschool families. That can be a fight. And then lastly, parish unity. Some leaders feel that homeschool groups become enclaves that keep to themselves. Some of these concerns are serious and a good leasing agreement answers most of them, which I'll get into. The first one is different though. It asks Catholic families to give up a good they can reach in order to protect an institution that they have already left and that they cannot reach. That reason puts the institution ahead of the families it was built to serve. Now let me give you an example of this. Chapter 10, San Diego 2024. This one infuriates me to no end. However, we report you decide. I can't believe I said that. Okay, in September of 2024, the diocese, not an archdiocese, the diocese of San Diego then led by Colonel Robert McElroy, banned homeschool programs from parish facilities, a memo dated September 18th, prohibited the use of parish facilities by charter schools, homeschool programs, and private school programs. The memo gave two reasons. Such use it said, "Can undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools?" And it could lead people to think the church was endorsing alternative programs. Okay, so to a certain extent, yeah, you don't want to just say, "Oh, we have this charter school here. We give the church's 100% approval." The same policy left a door open for someone else. If a parish had a closed school building causing economic hardship, it could rent that building to a non-Catholic educational program, on a case by case basis with a bishop's approval, provided it did not harm the neighboring Catholic schools, but Catholic home school families were completely shut out, while non-Catholic programs could apply. In Catholic parish buildings that were being unused 'cause the school closed down. On September 25th, Cardinal McElroy, issued a statement defending the policy. He wrote that the vibrancy of Catholic schools takes precedence and that housing homeschool activities in parishes would create the impression that the church endorses a parallel model without the oversight it gives parochial schools. He also wrote, "Homeschooling is not inherently a ministry of the parish." The statement said that the Presbyteral Council approved the policy by a vote of 13 to one. For those of you who don't know, the Presbyteral Council is the council of priests that advise the bishop. So they're usually chosen from around the diocese to kind of give the flavor of the diocese. 13 to one in favor of the policy, interesting. In a later statement, he acknowledged, this is so sweet of him, parents as the primary educators of their children, but he kept the ban. The human cost was immediate. Some co-ops learned of the policy only days before their weekly classes began. One group had to find a new location for at least 40 children. The competition argument was also weak on the facts. If you follow the research by the pillar, which is the best Catholic news out there, the pillar reported that many Catholic schools in the area were already filled to capacity. So homeschooling pose a little threat to their enrollment. Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing? Cardinal McElroy has since become the archbishop of Washington and Bishop Michael Femme now leads the San Diego diocese. So I have no clue if that policy is still in force. My point is not about one bishop, okay? San Diego shows the reasoning written down and that reasoning exists in other diocese too. But here's the counterpoint. Now arguably this is about nine or 10 years old. Chapter 11, St. Clair Michigan. The St. Mary Parish and St. Clair Michigan, the Archdiocese of Detroit, chose the opposite path. The pastor noticed many homeschool families in the area were attending a Protestant co-op. He also had unused space in the parish school building. So in the 2015-2016 school year, the parish began a homeschool program inside the parish school. Homestool students come to the parish on Tuesday. and Fridays from September to June. The day begins with Mass and the family's sign in at the school office. A parent serves as a liaison between the homeschool families in the school. And at least one homeschool parent also teaches music in the school. How awesome. The parish did not see these families as competition. Its leaders expected the homeschool program and the parish school to strengthen each other. And they spoke of the goal of the two program share. San Diego and St. Clair faced the same families with the same needs. One diocese saw a threat. One pair saw its own people already Catholic and already seeking formation and opened the doors. This is so important for us to understand. We don't have to be adversarial. Away forward, chapter 12, away forward. These models are going to keep changing. As Catholic schools continue to close, the church has an obligation to uphold the right of parents to choose the best Catholic education for their families. That obligation sits alongside the real authority of the bishop over his diocese and of the pastor over his parish. And I'm not asking anyone here to ignore either side of this. Someone will answer that the code tells parents to trust their children to Catholic schools. Can a 9, 7, 98. And at the council, remind parents of their duty to send their children to Catholic schools. The council's words were wherever and whenever it is possible, GE8. For many families, it is not possible. And canon 7, 98 itself says that parents who cannot use Catholic schools must provide a suitable Catholic education outside of them. Homeschooling families are doing exactly what the canon asks. The competition argument also misreads the situation. These families are not choosing between the payer school and the co-op. They've already ruled out the parish school, usually because of cost. I personally cannot afford a Catholic school for my kids at all. Homeschooling has been a game changer for us as a family. Now, I shouldn't say at all. I applied for financial scholarship. I actually was going to work a deal where I never got a raise. Oh, but all my kids went to school there. So people were willing to work. But if I didn't have that and I wasn't much beloved, and I genuinely, I loved the school and did a lot of things for the school as a parish side employee, it was insanely expensive for my family, maybe not for other families, but for my family, the type of people who work for the church. We attend a parish right now that fosters homeschooling, the fosters hybrid schooling and offers electives on campus so that families stay tethered to the parish. Turning these families away does not send them back to a parish school. It sends them to a Protestant co-op, right? Or just to living rooms or away from the parish entirely. We gotta stop thinking it's either A or B. It's not one pie, it's not a zero sum game. So here's what I would ask, diocesan leaders, parents, teachers, institution runners, pastors, number one, let parishes lease empty or underused buildings to Catholic co-ops and hybrids, with leases that answer the real concerns that the diocese has. Insurance naming the parish and diocese, safe environment compliance for every adult, a statement that the program is not a diocesan school, a clause that ends the lease if anything taught contradicts church teaching. Number two, allow parents a track to prepare, at least partially, for the sacraments at home within the homeschooling program, with the parish verifying readiness. This is what I did at my parish. We had a family track that everyone attended, but we also had the formation track and you could do that at home or on campus, or in your Catholic school. We had to make room for Catholic schools too. Number three, open parish catechetical events, feast days and libraries to homeschool families and hybrid families. This is so important. Why is it that in some states and counties, homeschooling kids can participate in the local sports of public schools, but they're barred from Catholic schools. If you want to draw people into the Catholic school system, seems like a pretty great way to do that, is by opening up some of these aspects, right? Assign chaplains to independent Catholic schools and to these hybrid so that their students have regular access to the sacraments. So if our problem is we don't provide oversight over the curriculum, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But when most of these places have standardized curriculums, it takes what, a day to go through the content of these curriculums to read who they're produced by, what they teach and to realize whether or not it's in keeping with the church's teaching. Once you understand that, I mean, let's be honest, what is the diocese or the parish offer beyond ensuring that the catacetical materials are sound and strong, right? I mean, it's not like every diocese assigns a monitor in every classroom of every teacher of a faith formation program, right? So we offer ongoing education, we offer all this stuff. Why can't we do that for homeschooling? In a different mode, but why can't we do that? Why can't we offer chaplains? Why can't we offer part time enrollment in parish schools or subjects like lab science? My local Catholic school, like I said, that I love, has a beautiful lab, a very expensive, very nice lab. It is well maintained, it is awesome. I would love for my kids to study science in there. And maybe one day they'll open it up, maybe not enough homeschooling parents have asked. I don't know, I haven't asked. That would be awesome for many homeschooling families who are worried when they get into high school, oh, am I gonna have the resources to continue teaching? And this is where the principal's subsidiary then expands. Canon 796 calls schools, the principal assistants to parents. The school is a ministry of the parish. The parish is not a ministry of the school. Several pastors are laughing right now. When the families are already in the pews and the classrooms are already empty, a parish that turns them away owes them a better reason than protecting enrollment. So going forward, all I wanna do is say this, there are many models that can disrupt educational systems. Right now, charter schools are doing a lot of that disruption. Wouldn't it be great if the Catholic Church said, look, I see a lot of my religious families desire above all to homeschool their kids, which is their right and grave moral duty. So I'm gonna compliment them by asking all of our parish schools to open Fridays to homeschooling families. I'm gonna ask all my parish schools to allow their kids to join sports teams. And maybe then we'll clinch the championship, probably not. But I'm gonna ask all my Catholic schools, like, ask Catholic pastors to, if they want to offer these homeschool things. I mean, we already have hundreds of students meeting every week in weekly faith formation. Is that such a problem to have dozens of people meet twice a week? It might be. It might be a totally different thing. Like I said, eight hours a day, two days a week, a lot of kids, it's a different thing. However, let's think through these and say, maybe, especially as AI, it disrupting everything, especially as the quality of public education in America is epically failing. Especially since it's so easy to teach phonics, right? Which improves reading scores and spelling scores. And yet, what happens in schools because they're obsessed with common core and being a blue ribbon school that most Catholic schools just do whatever the public schools do? 'Cause they're trying to compete with public schools instead of being authentically Catholic. What we need to do is pump the brakes and say, maybe there's a better way forward. Because now more people are homeschooled than have ever homeschooled before. And a lot of them are doing it for educational reasons and for religious reasons. You should just be the religious people who thought the world was gonna end in 1998. I was homeschooled with many of those people. One guy said, we moved out to the country because we believe the world's gonna end any day now where stockpiling food. And I said to him, do you think your stockpile is gonna survive the end of the world? And he said, I didn't think about that. And I said, well, your parents, your parents maybe should start to think about that. The big thing for us is to realize that the procreation and education of children is a divine and natural right given to us as parents. The church as a perfect society is meant to participate in assist the church's own language. Parents in fulfilling that. When parents are unable to fulfill it, then the use of the school of other teachers, tutors, institutions, the diocese, we can actually dream of a world where homeschooling hybrid schools, parochial schools can come together and mutually support one another. It doesn't have to be antagonistic. It doesn't have to be us or them. It's silly that we even have that mentality. All right, I'm gonna go have a coughing fit and take a steamy shower. God bless you all. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)