St. Carlo Acutis: A Role Model for Today's Catholic Youth
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In a September 2024 pastoral letter, Bishop James Conley of Lincoln, Nebraska, wrote about the importance of a Catholic education, saying it should help students “see the world through a sacramental lens—a lens that sees connections, integrates knowledge, discerns the ultimate meaning, destiny, and purpose of the human person, and understands how we fit into the big picture.” He continued, “When students awaken to truth, goodness, and beauty, their lives are changed.”
Changing lives and awakening students to the beauty and truth of our Catholic faith is one of the missions of the Culture of Life Studies Program.
At CLSP, we have seen an awakening to the reality of the culture of death over the past several years. Parents are scared—scared for their children’s future and scared for their souls. That’s probably why we have fielded so many questions recently about our program, about why parents should implement pro-life education into their home lives, and how they then go about it.
We joyfully respond that it’s easy and that it’s so necessary.
Let’s face it. Threats to the culture of life bombard our children no matter where they go. The home is a place where kids should learn about and grow to love the Catholic faith. With CLSP, it’s easy to make pro-life education a part of our daily lives.
But, you say, we have sports, school clubs, and other activities that take up our time. Or we work so much that we want to relax and not teach when we get home. We get it! But CLSP lessons aren’t drudgery. In fact, they are lots of fun! You will likely learn right along with your kids. And the conversations they will engender will bring you closer as a family.
Knowing that families today are frequently moving in different directions and may believe that they are too busy to integrate pro-life lessons into the home, we want to share some facts about CLSP that you may not know.
Our lessons can be easily taught at home, in CCE classrooms, and in homeschool co-ops!
You don’t need a theology background to teach our lessons. All of the instructions are included. Plus, we even include discussion questions and answers and other fun ways to explore the faith!
We create every day’s lesson to be no longer than 50 minutes, but they can easily be broken down into two or three days, if that’s what your schedule requires. That means you can begin after dinner and finish on the weekends. It’s so easy!
Bishop Conley wrote that “a truly catholic (or universal) curriculum is integrated, interdisciplinary, historically aligned, and aimed at developing the whole person.” CLSP lessons are all of these things! Here are some of the topics our lessons cover:
No one is ever too old or young to learn how to build a culture of life. Our lessons begin in pre-K and go through 12th grade.
In his pastoral letter, Bishop Conley wrote, “Education can be work for children, but it also ought to be fun!” Indeed! Learning is extra fun when it involves games or activities, so we include them in nearly all of our lessons! These can all be done as a family, with a group, or even alone.
As Catholic parents, we must prioritize Catholic education, for as the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains: “Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child’s earliest years. . . . Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God.”
Catholic education is one of the most important gifts we can give our children. Why? Because the loss of their souls is an unspeakable tragedy. Bishop Conley wrote that “it is our duty as Catholics to evangelize, and a genuinely Catholic education directs young souls to Christ.” Let us take his words to heart and open our homes and our hearts to the Lord and to His teachings by integrating pro-life education with CLSP into our days.
Find all of CLSP’s lessons at shop.all.org/clsp.
Susan Lochner Ciancio has a BA in psychology and a BA in sociology from the University of Notre Dame and an MLS from Indiana University. She has worked as a writer and editor since 2003; nearly 17 of those years have been in the pro-life sector. Currently, she is the editor of American Life League’s Celebrate Life Magazine—the nation’s premier Catholic pro-life magazine. She is also the director and executive editor of ALL’s Culture of Life Studies Program—a pre-K-12 Catholic pro-life education organization. Susan has written hundreds of Catholic and secular articles and has edited nearly two dozen books.
