Read This Before the “Back-to-School” Rush Begins!

Back-to-school season will begin soon.

And when it does, parents will be bombarded with information regarding how their children should be educated. While providing adequate education is of utmost importance to every parent, the education of Catholic children presents additional barriers since this will impact not only this life, but also the next. 

In 2003 Pope Saint John Paul II named Archbishop J. Michael Miller, CSB, Secretary of Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education.

In a talk in 2005, Archbishop Miller distilled the Church’s teachings on parental rights and obligations in education, and the government’s proper role, as well. This talk became a small book which my husband (as a Catholic high school teacher) is reading this summer.

It’s a wonderful little book!

Archbishop Miller provides an overview on the mission of Catholic Schools, the five hallmarks of all truly Catholic schools, and how schools should (and can) strive to adequately equip children to fulfill God’s role for their lives.

Most importantly, he states that Catholic Schools alone cannot adequately address the educational needs of the child. Rather: 

The Church’s clear teaching, constantly reiterated by the Holy See, affirms that parents are the first educators of their children. Parents have the original, primary, and inalienable right to educate their offspring in conformity with the family’s moral and religious convictions. They are educators because they are parents…In a true sense, schools are extensions of the home. Parents–and not schools either of the state or the Church– have the primary moral responsibility of educating children to adulthood. 

Archbishop Miller continues with a quote from Saint Pope John Paul II’s Letter to Families in which he stated:

All other participants in the process of education are only able to carry out their responsibilities in the name of the parents, with their consent, and, to a certain degree, with their authorization.

These are hefty responsibilities that the authors place on Catholic parents in regards to the education of their children. Archbishop Miller reiterates that regardless of the choice of school (be it parochial, public, charter, or at home), parents must assume the ultimate responsibility in ensuring that their child’s schooling upholds the Catholic Church’s view of education.

Namely:

The specific purpose of a Catholic education is the formation of boys and girls who will be good citizens of this world, loving God and neighbor and enriching society with the leaven of the Gospel, and who will also be citizens of the world to come,

thus fulfilling their destiny to become saints. 

The Church continues to uphold that necessity of educating the whole person–mind, body, and spirit—in order to fully equip Catholic children to stand against an increasingly anti-Christian culture.

Archbishop Miller cites Saint John Paul II again: 

The greatest challenge to Catholic education in the United States today, and the greatest contribution that authentically Catholic education can make to American culture, is to restore to that culture the conviction that human beings can grasp the truth of things, and, in grasping that truth, can know their duties to God, to themselves and their neighbors.

 

As your children begin school again this fall, reflect on how you as a parent are fulfilling your God-given responsibility of educating your children for the Kingdom of God. 

You can find the entire book by Archbishop Miller here. 

For help in teaching your children (of all ages and education levels) the wonder and joy of our Faith, see the variety of resources we recommend here and here. All are “child-tested” by me and my siblings and “mother-and-father-approved.”