Homeschoolers vs. Goliath

What is interesting about the recent statement in the San Diego diocese banning homeschoolers from using parish facilities is that it opens with, “parents are the first teachers of their children,” yet it concludes with, “homeschooling is not inherently a ministry of the parish.” If parents are the first teachers of their children, shouldn’t that all-important and sacred duty be a ministry of the parish?

Perhaps I am confused about what “ministry” means. We are all aware of the usual sacramental ministries, the Knights of Columbus, and the traditional spiritual ministries, but what are the others? I went to the websites of a few parishes in San Diego. I’ll list a few of my findings here to give you an idea of what the parishes in that diocese do support as ministries.

At the beautiful, historic Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcalá, I found the “Care for Our Common Home ministry.” This is an environmentalist group that ties itself to the papal encyclical Laudato Si’. The website says that it seeks to carry out the steps of the Diocese of San Diego’s 2021 “Creation Care Action Plan,” a 55-page document that, in various ways, takes up the cause of “environmental justice.” It claims to “respond to the cry of the poor and the cry of the earth” by outlining ways to reduce energy, conserve water, recycle, buy and share food and reduce food waste, support “clean energy,” protect watersheds and wildlife, and is dedicated to “advocating for the earth and the poor,” among other things. 

At Our Lady of Guadalupe, a Jesuit parish, is a “migrant ministry” that serves “Spanish-speaking migrant men” for up to 30 days. At this same church is the “Faith that Does Justice ministry,” “an ecumenical group” in which “speakers from other faiths have made presentations about their religions and what their religion says about social justice.” That was not in the fine print, either, but right up top in the first paragraph describing the ministry. 

At this same parish is a “Faith in Action Project” which was formed by “around 15 members, who want to put our faith into action” and has 

the support of our priests and office staff and the San Diego Organizing Project (SDOP). SDOP is a 21-congregation, non-partisan, multi-faith, faith-based organization that elevates the prophetic power of the people, to promote social and environmental justice in San Diego County.

In addition, I found various ethnic ministries, from Spanish-speaking outreaches to Filipino and Vietnamese cultural organizations. 

There are certain groups that are allowed as ministries and certain groups that are not allowed. We all know which category the homeschooling group falls into.

“Social justice,” migrant, and environmental ministries all fall under the heading of Catholic materialism and therefore constitute a protected class. They do not undermine the ideological goals of the Vatican. Rather, they all work toward the same material goal—making sure everyone has more stuff and better stuff, and, importantly, that we focus on stuff of the material kind. Works of corporal mercy, to be sure, have their place. Christ showed us that. But these ministries are exclusively about the material, giving the impression that we are, foremost, material beings, which we as Catholics know to be false.

The Catholic homeschoolers represent a different side of the Catholic Church, which is precisely why they have been banned from using church property, even though migrant meet-ups and LGBTQ+ groups can reserve parish space weekly.  The Catholic homeschoolers represent a different side of the Catholic Church, which is precisely why they have been banned from using church property, even though migrant meet-ups and LGBTQ+ groups can reserve parish space weekly. Tweet This

The “Cardinal’s Statement on Home School Use of Parish Buildings” reveals that the first and most sacred duty of parents—all parents, not just parents that belong to this or that ethnic or cultural group—cannot be supported by the parish except insofar as parents hand over that duty to the experts (for a good picture of who these experts are and what they have been doing with their authority for the last 60 years, see Fr. Perricone’s recent article).

Let’s return to the “Cardinal’s Statement.” The second of four points states that allowing homeschoolers the use of parish facilities would “create the impression that the Church is endorsing a parallel educational model without the in-depth educational oversight that the Church carries out in its parochial school program.”

That’s right, folks, those in charge of the Church are afraid that these parents who take seriously the idea that they are the “first teachers of their children” are not qualified actually to teach their children. Clearly, His Eminence Robert McElroy has not met any of these homeschoolers; if he had, he would know that by the third grade many of them could identify countries on a map that I didn’t know existed until I was in my thirties—and homeschooling!

But maybe that’s not quite right. Maybe it’s that these churchmen have met the homeschoolers and their parents and they are aware of the power of this countercultural education, which cuts against the modern “faith in action” type of grain. Perhaps they know exactly what is going on in the homeschool communities—that these children are brought up in the old Catholic faith, the one that takes seriously the traditional Church teachings and rejects the ideological claptrap of the secular Church.

Which brings me to the third point of the document, the assertion that 

the parish should provide an integrated faith formation program which is normative for sacramental preparation in the parish. All students within the parish should participate in the same program together as a sign of the integrity of the community of faith.

What’s interesting about this statement, as with the previous statement, is the concern over appearances. Students together in catechism is “a sign” of togetherness; students being educated outside of the parish school would “give the impression” of division. Well, is there real and genuine division within the Church? If so, we should be concerned about the substance of that division rather than its appearance. If these differences are merely on the surface, then why worry about what hypothetical “impression” it gives? And to whom? To parishioners? That they see that they have two good options for educating their children—at home, with the support of the parish, or at the parish school?

There is something deeper going on, that much is clear. 

It is apparent to all with eyes to see that there is real division in the Church right now, and to try to hide it is futile. Banning the homeschoolers from church property has revealed that division far more than allowing them to use the space ever could have. Forbidding homeschoolers from using parish space for catechetical formation in the name of unity and “the integrity of the community of faith” reveals that there must be two different forms of sacramental preparation. 

And indeed, there are. The sacramental preparation required for children who attend the traditional Latin Mass is different from the preparation required for children who attend the Novus Ordo. It has to be because the two Masses are very different, as are the liturgical calendars. Children at the Latin Mass have not been exposed to the idea of “ordinary time,” and Communion is received kneeling and on the tongue, exclusively. It seems appropriate that there be sacramental preparation fitting for each form of the rite. Why the parish would not allow such different preparation could only be chalked up to ideological reasons, given that in every other circumstance such disparities are celebrated as “diversity” rather than attacked as divisive.

The truth is that homeschooling does pose a threat to the status quo.

Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Bartholet came to this conclusion in 2020. Bartholet created a firestorm among homeschoolers with her recommendation for a “presumptive ban on homeschooling, with the burden on parents to demonstrate justification for permission to homeschool.” In her 80-page screed, Bartholet warns of homeschooling mother “activists” with the ability to “overwhelm legislators with aggressive advocacy.” She laughably presents David as if he were Goliath.  

But Bartholet recognizes the not insignificant threat to the mainstream secular culture—aka “democracy”—that homeschooling plays. Homeschooling parents, Bartholet complains, “want to isolate their children from ideas and values central to our democracy.”

Exactly. 

Much of the Church hierarchy is afraid of a similar thing. Without “educational oversight,” these homeschooling parents might teach their children the magisterium of the Catholic Church. 

Challenges to the liberal (and rear guard “conservative”) elite consensus, inside and outside of the Church, on ideas about sexuality, the family, pornography, LGBTQ+ ideology, etc. come almost exclusively from those educated at home or at certain private, independent schools.

Catholic homeschooling, specifically, is a highly effective inoculation against the political ideology that colors both Bartholet’s thinking and that of the current Vatican. 

The homeschooling community is a small, albeit very sharp, thorn in the side of the sentimental humanitarian Church overclass. They remind this guitar-strumming, migrant-worshipping boomer generation that there still exists a segment of the Catholic Church that refuses to get on the bandwagon of liberal Catholic materialism. To give shelter to these homeschooling retrogrades would be to support the opposition. A house divided against itself cannot stand. This, the Church hierarchy knows.