Atmosphere of Faith

For the past two years I have been in charge of the Religious Education and Sacramental preparation programs at my parish. Everybody knows of the dire state of Catholic religious education in this country (and presumably around the world) - kids making their First Communion with no idea as to what the Eucharist is, coming to Confirmation interviews without the slightest idea as to the identity of the Holy Spirit, parents showing up to get their kids baptized who have only been to Church once or twice in the past twelve months, and in general ignorance and laziness in the religious upbringing of the children. Parents seem to come with a "checklist" mentality: "Okay, got my kid's First Communion (check), Confirmation (check) and now we can wash our hands of religious education altogether." I think we all know that this is the case, and I'm not going to spend anymore time trying to convince anybody of this obvious fact.

I just got done with another round of such interviews, and while the kids at our parish were a lot better prepared than kids I have heard about at other parishes, there were still some unpleasant interviews with kids that could have been a lot better prepared. And those that were ill prepared were told so by our pastor. But what is especially interesting to me is how my attitude towards this phenomenon has changed in the past two years.

When I first arrived here, I thought that the reason kids were coming through ignorant was because of very pragmatic reasons: the text-books were not orthodox enough, the catechists themselves were spotty on their practice and knowledge of the faith, there was not enough testing and feedback, etc. Over the past two years, I made the changes in these areas that I thought were best for the program. I staffed my Religious Ed program with people who were solid in their faith and who zealously prayed for their kids. We went to the Ignatius Press Faith & Life series, which is what most homeschool families around here use, and implemented weekly quizzes to gauge the comprehension of the kids. I personally went into the classes many times to answer questions and give talks on important subjects. Interviews for admission to sacraments were made into real interviews in which kids actually had to demonstrate retained knowledge. Everything that was possible to improve from a practical standpoint was improved, under myself and under Anselm (who preceded me at this post).

And yet after now four years of tweeking the program (under first Anselm then myself), nothing has changed. They are still coming through ignorant. Still coming to Confirmation not knowing who the Holy Spirit is. Still saying Holy Communion is a symbol. Still looking at the floor ignorantly during their meetings and still having parents admitting that they don't go to Mass. Still in the same spot they were before, as if very little at all had changed. The only real change is that less people have signed up for our program, perhaps content to go to the more wishy-washy one at a nearby parish that doesn't ask as much. But as for positive improvement, there has been but little. What did I do wrong?

I have come to conclusion that Anselm, myself and our pastor have been doing everything right, and that the solution to this problem is not in better textbooks or catechists, as I once thought. It is in the families, pure and simple. My pastor and I have both noticed how time and again the homeschool candidates for sacraments do excellent on their interviews. They can name all seven Gifts of the Spirit. They can tell you what Transubstantiation is. They know what sanctifying grace is. They earnestly desire to know and love God better. They have a regular Mass attendance and devotional life. The division between the poor religious ed student and the well-prepared one falls evenly along the division between public school and homeschool. Without much qualification, I can say that public schoolers almost uniformally do poorly on their interviews for sacraments and homeschoolers do exceedingly well. This is despite the fact that in many cases, the public schoolers have been through four years of orthodox, solid Catholic catechesis in the parish religious education classes.

But as all homeschoolers know, the home is the domestic Church, where faith is first taught, and it is parents who are responsible for the religious upbringing of their children. The simple fact is this: public school students tend to do poorly in religious ed because, despite the fact that they may get good catechesis for the one hour a week of class, religious vocabulary is not part of their life at public school and consequently religious topics always seem foreign and strange to them. Most public-school parents who enroll their kids in CCD do so by way of abdication, that is, hire us to teach their kids so they don't have to. So there is very little discussion of faith at home and very little modeling of its practice.

Therefore, as I am coming to see, despite sound catechesis at the parochial level (which is of course necessary), a child cannot come to a full sense of the faith without being immersed in an atmosphere of faith at the familial and social level. Why do we expect kids to know what the Holy Spirit is when religion is never talked about either at home or at school? If CCD class is the only place they hear about the faith, it will always seem like a strange topic to them - all the talk about getting closer to God, growing in faith, prayer and so forth will be superficial because they have never seen it modeled. As I have said before, it really does take a village to raise a child, and this is true in matters of faith as well as morals. It takes a whole Catholic community, where faith is the norm and not the exception, to inculcate in a child the reality that faith and trust in God is the normative way to live. How can that seem normative if it is restricted to what a stranger tells them one hour a week on Sunday? And especially when what the stranger tells them is contradicted by the lifestyle of their parents and peers, who often live as if God did not exist?

Is there a solution? Not withint the current diocesan framework in this country, which encourages admitting as many people to the sacraments as possible for the purpose of (a) not offending anybody and causing them to leave the Church, and (b) to make their numbers look as high as possible. I think the best thing would be perhaps to abandon altogether any kind of parish run religious education programs (which were instituted in a vastly different time and culture and have outstayed their usefulness) and replace them with a type of guided home preparation, in which any parent who want their kids admitted to the sacraments would have to do the footwork themself, receiving guidance and encouragement from the parish while not being allowed to simply cede this duty to the parish entirely.

Furthermore, the spiritual good of the child has to take precedent at the diocesan level over statistical and demographical concerns. This statistical and demographic focus is a real problem in the philosophical outlook of many diocesan bureaucracies. Until this changes, parishes will not be permitted to implement the kinds of changes that are necessary to get kids truly prepared for the sacraments.

Great public school families are out there as well; I personally know a few of them and can say that this generalization doesn't apply universally, so don't be offended if you are the thankful exception to the rule. I am just calling it like I see it.