You Are an Educator Because You Are a Parent

Do you have any children? Then you are an educator, because you are a parent, Pope St. John Paul II reminded everyone in his 1994 Letter to Families. Pope St. Paul VI identified an inalienable right children have to receive an education, by virtue of their human dignity (Gravissimum Educationis [The Gravity of Education], 1). In fact, for children baptized into the Christian faith, they thereby gain a right to a Christian education (GE, 2). The formation a child receives ought to help him to “develop into perfect manhood, to the mature measure of the fullness of Christ” (GE, 2). Pope Pius XI puts it this way: “The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian” (Divini Illius Magistri [On the Christian Education of Youth], 94)

Whose responsibility is it to provide children with a solid Christian training? “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2223). We all recognize this as a matter of the natural law. We know that those who procreate children therein assume the responsibility to care for the needs of the resulting offspring. But it is not enough just to provide for their physical needs, such as food, clothing, and shelter.

            Parental duties do not end at merely procreation, “but must extend to their [children’s] moral education and spiritual formation. ‘The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute.’ The right and duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable” (CCC 2221).  

            This serious duty parents have to provide a solid Christian education to their children remains a part of not only natural law, but divine law, as well. The current Code of Canon Law states, "Parents have the most serious duty and the primary right to do all in their power to see to the physical, social, cultural, moral, and religious upbringing of their children” (1136). How does a parent fulfill this “serious duty?” “They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery. . . . Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children” (CCC 2223).

            "Before all others, parents are bound by the obligation of forming their children in the practice of Christian life" (CIC 774.2). Pope Pius XI gives this ominous warning: “It is therefore as important to make no mistake in education, as it is to make no mistake in the pursuit of the last end, with which the whole work of education is intimately and necessarily connected” (DIM, 7). St. Alphonsus Liguori, the Doctor of the Church in Moral Theology, warns parents, they will be answerable to God upon their particular judgement for the education they provided their progeny. If any child fell away due to negligence, each parent will answer to God for that (On the Education of Children).  

St. Alphonsus adds that parents cannot use the excuse of being ignorant of the Catholic faith for not ensuring their children are properly formed. Such parents are obliged to learn the mysteries of the faith and afterward to teach them to their children. In the meantime, parents must ensure their children learn their Catechism through other teachers. St. Alphonsus teaches that every Catholic upon entering adulthood is bound to learn the Creed, the Our Father, and the Hail Mary under the pain of mortal sin.

Reasons to Homeschool

            The motivations vary for each homeschooling family, and they remain a long list. Still, taking seriously this duty to educate children serves as a chief reason for most homeschooling parents. These parents often realize remaining within the bosom of the home keeps children the safest. Pope Pius XI explains, “This necessary vigilance does not demand that young people be removed from the society in which they must live to save their souls; but that today more than ever they should be forewarned and forearmed as Christians against the seductions and the errors of the world” (DIM, 92).

            Pope Paul VI states, “Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs” (GE, 3).

            Besides, the family is the first, natural, and necessary environment God ordained children to be educated within, explains Pope Pius XI. A well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family provides the most effective and longest lasting education anyone can ever receive (DIM, 71). Since the family is the primary space for children to learn virtues, why not keep them at home to receive the best education for as long as possible?

            All this positive formation is possible through the grace received in the sacrament of holy matrimony. “In Christian marriage the spouses are by a special sacrament strengthened and, as it were, consecrated for the duties and the dignity of their state [in life]” (CIC 1134). The Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, a division within the Roman Curia, reassures parents, “In granting married persons the privilege and great responsibility of becoming parents, God gives them the grace to carry out their mission adequately.” God enlightens parents in the task of educating their children, sustaining them each day by spiritual empowerment, says the Congregation. The sacrament of holy matrimony “enriches them with wisdom, counsel, fortitude and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to help the children in their growth as human beings and as Christians" (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality: Guidelines for Education within the Family, 37).

What If Homeschooling is Not Possible?

All this said, homeschooling is not possible for every family. Parents have a duty and a right to choose the means and institutions by which their children will be educated (CIC 793.1). “The Christian faithful are to hold schools in esteem; schools are the principal assistance to parents in fulfilling the function of education,” reads Canon 796.1. The Catholic Church sees itself as having a duty to educate the youth because she has the good news of the gospel to share with the world, so as to win souls to Christ. The Church is especially equipped to help young people to become perfect, so they can become contributors in society (GE, 3). The Catholic Church runs a great many schools around the world, serving as the leader in providing a Christian education.

            Parents need to be diligent to ensure their child’s Catholic school provides a sounds education. “For the mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted), does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students,” laments Pope Pius XI (DIM, 80). “Instruction and education in a Catholic school must be based on the principles of Catholic doctrine, and the teachers must be outstanding in true doctrine and uprightness of life” (CIC 803.2).

            If private, Catholic schooling is not feasible for a family, parents can have recourse to public education for their children, as a tolerable exception granted by their local bishop, according to Pope Pius XI (DIM, 79). Remember any school, even public schools, must recognize the principle of subsidiary by following the wishes of the parents, as they fill in the gap of providing education to children when parents cannot (GE, 13). Society shares a duty to educate the youth, per the natural law, which the public school system seeks to fulfill. Still, Pope Pius XI warns that any secular school that excludes religion as a subject in its teaching inevitably becomes irreligious in its practices, as well (DIM, 79). As a result, parents in these situations are obliged to provide their children suitable Catholic education outside of school (CIC 798).

            Pope Leo XIII describes the stakes this way: “It is, then, incumbent on parents to strain every nerve to ward off such an outrage, and to strive manfully to have and to hold exclusive authority to direct the education of their offspring . . . and first and foremost to keep them away from schools where there is risk of their drinking in the poison of impiety. Where the right education of youth is concerned, no amount of trouble or labor can be [too great]” (Sapientiae Christianae [On Christian Wisdom], 42).