Sunday, December 17, 2006

Vatican to Catholic Homeschoolers - Good Job!

H/T to Easter and Me Monk, Meander

As a Catholic homeschooling mom, I could take the opportunity to tell homeschooling naysayers, "I told you so" But I won't :-) The following article speaks for itself.

Vatican to Catholic Homeschoolers: "I truly admire parents, who take on this great commitment"

VATICAN CITY, December 13, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Three veterans of the United States Catholic home school movement spent Thanksgiving week in Vatican City meeting with officials of various congregations and councils of the Holy See to discuss the positive results of Catholic home schooling. Dr. Mary Kay Clark, Director of Seton Home Study School, as well as Dr. Catherine Moran,
President of the Catholic Home School Network of America, and Mrs. Virginia Seuffert, home schooling mother of 12 and a frequent speaker at Catholic Home Schooling conferences, were encouraged by the positive response of the Vatican prelates.

Many of the prelates were already familiar with Seton Home
Study School, a Catholic home study program in the diocese of Arlington, Virginia, which has been operating for the past twenty-five years, with a current enrollment of approximately 11,000 students. Officials were presented with textbooks from Seton Press, the publishing arm of the school, and the largest publisher of Catholic schoolbooks in North America with over 100 titles
and hundreds of thousands of books sold. Students are enrolled primarily in the United States, but also from many countries from around the world, such as Canada, Australia, England, Ireland, Mexico, the Philippines, Japan, the Czech Republic, Germany, Colombia, and India.

The home school envoys emphasized to the Vatican cardinals and bishops the primary importance of the Faith in Catholic home schooling. They explained that when parents teach the Faith to their children on a daily basis, teaching not only with textbooks but through the daily practice of prayer, good example, and frequent reception of the Sacraments, children will develop a love for the Faith and vocations will increase. They quoted one Midwest bishop who says that over a five-year period, 23 percent of young men graduating from one home school cooperative in his diocese entered the seminary. They pointed out that Justin Ferguson, the seminarian who gave the first reading at Pope Benedict's papal installation mass, is an alumnus of Seton Home Study School.
Click title above for the entire article.

1 comment:

Leticia said...

I linked to the article too. It's nice to have all your hard work noticed by the boss!
What got my parents off my back about home schooling was a speech by a priest representing EWTN, who had come to my diocese to promote the network. Hesaid, "homeschooling will be salvation of the Church in this country". I thought, back then, in 1994, that this was an exaggeration, but when you look at the fruits of homeschooling, particularly the vocations to religious life, he was on the mark!