Thursday, August 13, 2009

Pope Calls Parents to Educate Children


The World Conference for Families began in Amsterdam today, under the theme, “Modern Families: Traditional Values.” In his augural address, the under secretary of the Pontifical Council for the Family, Bishop Carlos Simon Vasquez, said only the family “can guarantee an authentic education in values.” The conference encouraged families to take active roles in education and ensure fundamental morals were at the core of their children’s education. The bishop read passages from Pope Benedict XVI’s recent encyclical “Caritas in Veritate,” underscoring that only the family “can guarantee an authentic education in human values, because it ensures altruism and temporal continuity, which are essential in education.” Then Bishop Vasquez added “Only the vocation to paternity and maternity can transmit a responsible education in responsible procreation, which brings with it the necessary union between personal and social ethics through a harmonious existence that only the family can offer.”CNA World Net

Catholic Femina Speaks: After hearing these words from Bishop Vasquez and the Holy Father I examined a recent release from the Home School Legal Defense League. They reveal that Home Education only costs 5% of the total cost of public education, and that home schooled students score on average 40 points above public school students in standardized tests. Home Schooled Students comprise 4% of the total students educated at present and the number grows by 7% annually. So the Catholic Church is calling parents to be “the first educators of their children;” and home schooling is a viable option. For many Catholics home schooling is the only option. With the homosexual agenda of the elementary education in Massachusetts to the Stem-Cell Research plan in California Catholics cannot sit by and watch the state steal their children’s souls. I know that for many families parochial schools are too expensive and are not a viable option. Home education is an answer to the Pope’s call to educate. It protects children from the Culture of Death in the Obama Administration education centers, and does not destroy the child’s ordered view of family. Parents cannot blindly claim they do not know what their children are exposed to in school; the Holy Father has reminded us of parental accountability. I hope that the public schools will change, but I will not be fooled into allowing them to indoctrinate my children.


1 comment:

  1. It would be helpful if the Church encouraged home school groups to meet at the parishes, and if the Catholic schools found teachers in sympathy with home school who could act as resources to parents who choose to home school.

    Although as a Catholic home school parent, I didn't have much difficulty finding some great Catholic curriculum packages by searching online.

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