Catholic Candle note: Below is part 2 of the article concerning the best type of education, which is a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse this education with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism, nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Previously, in part 1 of this article, we examined the problems we see in modern education. 

➢  Modern colleges do not improve the quality of their students’ minds and their thinking ability much or at all. 

➢  Most “education” is merely job training, fluff courses, and/or leftist indoctrination. 

➢  The students are taught to sound like someone in their field but they do little thinking and more memorizing. 

➢  Grade “inflation” and degree “inflation” is rampant.  Grades and academic degrees do not mean much anymore.

Part 1 of this article can be found here: The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education – Part 1: https://catholiccandle.org/2025/06/28/the-blessings-of-a-true-catholic-liberal-education/

Below is part 2 of this article. 

The Blessing of a True, Catholic Liberal Education

Part 2

By contrast to modern education, a real education should focus on perfecting our intellects – as God created us to do.  We should learn how to think carefully and critically.  A genuine education should improve our minds through learning universal truth, especially the highest truths.  Let us look more deeply into why we should do this.

What is Education?  Let us Consider the Human Soul and Its Perfection

Man has two immaterial powers (faculties) in his soul – the intellect (reason) and the rational appetite (the will).  The will desires and moves the man but is blind except with regard to what reason shows to it.  Thus, the intellect is higher than the will.

These two powers that man has in his soul do not reside in a bodily organ.  For example, they are not in his brain in particular.  By contrast, all other faculties of the soul reside in particular bodily organs.  So, for example, man has the power of sight but that power is an ability of the soul which is located in the eyes (and related specific bodily organs).

But the intellect is not in a bodily organ.  It would be impossible for the intellect to be in a bodily organ because the intellect contains universal (non-individual), immaterial concepts which cannot reside in a bodily organ.  For example, the intellect can understand abstractly (i.e., generally and universally) what a “part” is, without “picturing” a particular image of a part such as half of a red apple.

By contrast, the sense of sight and the other bodily senses can grasp only particular, sensible objects.  So, the sense of sight can apprehend a particular image (such as half of a red apple).  But the sense of sight cannot apprehend universally, i.e., more generally what it means for something to be a “half” or a “part”.

Such universal conception cannot reside in a body.  To take another example: a lump of modeling clay (which is a material object) is capable of receiving an image of various individual shapes in a manner which is similar to how the sense of sight is capable of receiving an individual image like the shape of a particular triangle.  But neither the clay nor a person’s sense of sight can receive the concept of “shape” in general, separate from particular shapes.

The intellect is not like that.  It can comprehend immaterial and abstract concepts.  The intellect can understand the concept of shape without needing to form a specific shape, such as an equilateral triangle.  This high immaterial power places us above the rest of material creation and makes us like God and the angels.

The intellect (unlike the bodily senses) can comprehend not only universals (such as what a “part” is, as abstracted from particular parts), but the intellect can also grasp spiritual realities which are immaterial such as justice, virtue, and happiness.

Summary of What We Have Just Seen About the Soul

So, we see that the intellect is the highest faculty (power) of the human soul.  This highest faculty (which is the one most God-like) is that one according to which God made us to live.  In other words:

In every aspect of our lives, God made us to
live according to reason.

Although God wants us to perfect all of the faculties and talents that He gave to us, He most especially wants us to perfect what is highest in ourselves.

(As we shall see in a later part of this article, the human life which is spent living according to our highest power is the happy life for man, both naturally and supernaturally.)

Truth is the Perfection of this Highest Faculty of the Soul

As we saw above, the intellect is our highest faculty and God created us to especially perfect it.  We do this by acquiring universal, unchangeable truth.  For as St. Thomas teaches, quoting Aristotle:

“The true is the good of the intellect, and the false is its evil”, as stated in [Aristotle’s] Ethics, bk.6, ch.2.[1]

In other words, it is truth which makes our intellect good and which makes a man good to the extent that he has perfected his highest faculty.

There are innumerable such universal, eternal truths.  To take two simple examples:

➢  The whole is greater than its own part; and

➢  4 + 4 = 8.

Both of those statements are always true.

The truths of our Holy Catholic Faith are unchangeable truths which especially perfect our intellects because these truths concern the highest matters, viz., God and the things of God.  Two examples of this are:

➢  God is entirely immaterial and has no body; and

➢  God has only one simple unchanging Act and He Himself is this very Act. In other words, God is entirely immaterial (i.e., without a body) and His very Self is His one Act of Understanding and Love.

Both of those statements are always true.

Errors Concerning Universal Truths are the Evil of the Intellect.

But just as truth is the good of the intellect, likewise, (as St. Thomas and Aristotle  teach above), the false (i.e., error) is the evil of the intellect.  Thus, to hold an error about a particular, universal truth results in a great evil residing in our intellect, our highest faculty.  To take two examples of such error:

1.    A line is an infinite set of points (as many modern math books falsely assert); and

2.    There is a type of number called an “irrational number” (as falsely asserted and described in many modern math books).

Both of these statements are always false.

Just as the highest universal, eternal truths (about God and the things of God) perfect our intellects to the greatest extent, similarly the errors about such highest truths are the greatest evils for our intellect.  To take two examples:

1.    All “religions” lead to God (as Pope Leo XIV and other ecumenists claimed); and

2.    All truth changes and “evolves” (as the modernists claim).

Both of these statements are always false.

Summary Concerning Universal Truth and Error

So, the truth about God (and the things of God) are the most desirable perfections of our intellect and no effort is too great to obtain and to increase our knowledge of such truths.  The chief joy of the blessed in heaven is to know God (in their intellects).  Similarly, here on earth, it is a great joy to marvel at a particular great truth that we have just learned, recognizing that it is “worth more than kingdoms”.

Correspondingly, the errors about those things related to God are most greatly undesirable and no efforts are too great to avoid such errors.  We should understand that nothing can sufficiently compensate for the great evil of holding error on such issues.

Singular Contingent Facts Do Not Perfect Our Minds.

Further, whereas eternal, unchangeable truth perfects our intellect, by contrast singular, contingent facts do not perfect it.  For example, a universal truth is “Dogs are mammals.”  By contrast, an instance of a contingent singular truth is “This dog, Rex, barks very loudly at passing cars.”

Again, individual, changeable facts (truths) do not perfect our intellects.  Here is one way St. Thomas teaches this truth:

It does not pertain to the intellect’s perfection to know the truth of contingent, singular facts in themselves.[2]

There are countless examples of such singular facts.  Here are two examples:

1.    Knowing the names of every street in our city.  (We can see how the street names are singular facts but also that the city can change the names of streets); and

2.    Knowing which sports teams are in the championship game this year.

So, in summary:

❖  Universal truth matters greatly.  We must strive to live the life of truth and to perfect our intellect.  We must consider such truth to be of very great importance.

❖  We must understand the importance of avoiding errors concerning matters of universal truth and to strive greatly to avoid errors on these issues. 

❖  The knowledge of singular, changeable facts does not matter at all and we should not clutter our minds with them unless we have a practical need to take note of them, e.g., remembering the route we need to take in order to arrive at places that we should travel (such as the grocery store or the hardware store).

As we see (above) the importance of perfecting the intellect, we could naturally ask who should perfect his intellect?  In part 3 of this article, we will examine the answer to that question.

To be continued …

Catholic Candle note: The article below concerns the best education, a Catholic Liberal Education.  Do not confuse it with many university programs called “liberal arts” but which are full of fluff, falsehood, and aimless so-called “enrichment” courses and “humanities”. 

A liberal education also does not refer to liberalism nor is a true liberal education an indoctrination into that error of liberalism or political correctness.  In fact, a true Catholic Liberal Education is the best antidote to the errors of liberalism.

Part 1

The Heart of a True Education is Thinking, Not Merely Memorizing

Let us start by reflecting on a problem that has existed for many decades but which is now worse than ever before and continues to get even worse.  This problem to which we refer is how common it is for people to graduate with a university degree without much (or any) real discernable improvement in their minds and thinking ability.  This is true whether the degree is a bachelor’s degree or a doctorate.

In their course work, students primarily learn how to “talk-the-talk” of their field.  An engineer learns engineering jargon.  Accountants learn accounting jargon.  Lawyers learn legal jargon.  Financial analysts learn their field’s jargon.  And so on.   And, usually, they also learn the jargon of political correctness, such as “social justice”, “diversity, equity, and inclusion”, etc.

Their diplomas, and being fluent in their field’s jargon, are the two ways these graduates show themselves to be members of their profession or field.  Even if those people are rather marginal or inadequate for engaging in the work of their field, they are trained to speak the jargon.

So, being a professional in his field often means being someone with a credential in that field and who is skilled at sounding like someone in that field.  Such jargon often might make a member of his field look and sound clever or learned, even when he is neither.  It makes him look like he is a man of understanding when he has merely been taught to parrot the experts’ statements – which have been “drilled into his head” through repetition and memorization.

To take one example: we saw how a great many physicians showed themselves to be unfit to practice medicine during the Covid scare.  They took the comfortable, lazy, conformist path of saying and doing whatever they were told by the medical establishment, even though it was contrary to what the eyes and experience of a thinking physician would show.[1]  These conformist physicians followed evil protocols which harmed their patients.

One reason for the way they acted was because (for many of them) they were too cowardly to exercise their independent judgment for the health of their patients.  That is a sufficient reason why these physicians are unfit for the practice of their profession – they don’t value the truth. 

In addition to physicians like these who are simply cowards, other physicians were ignorant of the harm they did to their patients because they were not accustomed to engaging in the true practice of medicine.  Instead, they slavishly followed the directives of the medical/political establishment, regardless of what those directives required.  These physicians followed the rash and lethal covid protocols and rejected the common, safe, inexpensive, and effective mitigation treatments of prudent doctors.

Based on their medical training, these physicians were conditioned to merely follow the medical establishment’s flow charts, checklists, and handbooks.  They did not use their independent judgment to treat the health of their patients.

They were accustomed to following the standard patterns such as ordering a medical test and then prescribing whatever pill was indicated by the flowcharts/protocols, depending on the test results. 

Although it is true that the treatment for the same health problem tends to take a similar path in many persons, the problem is that those physicians did not use their own professional judgment but merely deferred to whatever the medical/political establishment told them to do, no matter how unreasonable.[2]

It does not take a real physician to simply unthinkingly, uncritically follow the medical establishment’s treatment flowcharts/protocols.[3]  A professional (or someone who is proficient in whatever field) should be someone who uses his own good judgment and knows how to act independently and to practice in his field without anyone needing to tell him what to do.  He should not merely be someone who is trained to follow the rules and flow charts, as the modern “professional” is so often trained to do nowadays by the professional establishment in whichever field he is in.

Learning how to follow the flowcharts does not “make” a physician (or any professional).  Such medical treatment could be as adequately done (if it were legal) by a nurse, by a lab tech, or even, perhaps, by an eighth-grader who had been taught the medical jargon and how to follow the treatment flowcharts.

In this way, many physicians abdicate their responsibility to exercise their independent judgment, to reason carefully about a matter, and take full responsibility for their actions and the results.  So many physicians were (and are) unable to think critically since they never learned how to do so, because critical thinking is no longer taught in most schools.[4]  Instead of teaching students how to think, schools nowadays only teach students what to think – that is, the schools fill the students’ heads with the conclusions presented to those students to memorize.

The example above is about physicians, especially during the covid alarmism.  But a similar situation exists in other fields and disciplines.

An Example in Another Field, of Professional Conformity which Masquerades as Education

Above, we reviewed the incompetence demonstrated by physicians who blindly followed the deadly Covid flow charts and protocols issued by the political and medical establishment.

This conformity, and a lack of careful thinking and of exercising responsible professional judgment, is a much broader problem than merely among medical doctors.

Let us take another of countless examples of credentialed “professionals” who cannot (or do not) think on their own and merely speak the jargon of their field and mimic what the establishment tells them to say and do.

During the housing bubble of the early 2000s, risky, “subprime” mortgages of borrowers with bad credit histories, were packaged into bundles and were sold in the financial markets as AAA-rated securities.  (The “AAA” rating is the highest rating, reflecting the best and safest of all investments.)

Let us look at how this practice resulted in a major financial crisis.

In the search for greater profits, banks made huge numbers of mortgage loans, at higher interest rates, to borrowers with poor credit histories.[5]  The banks lowered their loan underwriting standards in order to originate more mortgage loans and the banks sold these mortgage contracts to investors (so those banks would not have to suffer the consequences of their lax standards).

Because there was a housing “bubble” at the time, housing prices were increasing at an unsustainable rate.  So, at the beginning of this “bubble”, when the subprime borrowers failed to pay their mortgages, the houses were (in the short run) increasing in value fast enough so the lender could sell the loan’s collateral (viz., the house) without suffering a loss after the borrower defaulted.

But this housing bubble (like all such “bubbles”) popped.  When the housing prices did not continue their unsustainable rise and when the economy took a downturn, then these subprime mortgages went into default in large numbers, causing massive losses as the prices of houses went down.

These subprime loans had been bundled into large groups and the three big credit rating agencies (Fitch, Standard & Poor’s, and Moody’s Investors Services) had rated these investments as AAA (the highest investment quality). 

Investors had been told that, although those subprime mortgages were risky investments individually, nonetheless, because they were bundled together, collectively those same mortgages became of the highest investment quality.[6]  The fallacy was that, if you add enough bad investments together, it becomes the best quality investment.

The certified financial analysts and the “whole financial world” parroted this nonsense.  The idea being (as it were) that if you pile enough manure in one heap, it becomes gourmet food.

Writing in hindsight, Investopedia.com stated:

The packaging of mortgage debt into bond-like financial instruments, was a key driver of the 2007-08 global financial crisis … that brought many major financial institutions on Wall Street and around the world to their knees when the U.S. real estate bubble burst.  …

The banks that held these … investments lost tens of billions of dollars which almost caused the US banking system to collapse.[7]

Here is one report from the period shortly before the risky mortgage bundles started to suffer huge losses:

Subprime mortgage bonds carrying the highest, “AAA,” rating have not eroded in quality despite price declines in the securities in recent days, Fitch Ratings said on Wednesday [August 8, 2007].

"We continue to be confident that “AAA” ratings reflect the high credit quality of those bonds ….”[8]

In this foolishness, “everyone” went along with the herd.  “No one” thought for himself, and “everyone” accepted the AAA credit rating for these bundles of junk mortgages because the “experts” told them they were ultra-safe.

While this foolishness was going on (and before the crash which later came), only a very few thinking people remarked that “this is nuts”!

Where did the Financial Analysts Go Wrong?

The financial analysts and other “professionals” who followed the herd on these mortgage investments had the academic degrees, spoke the industry jargon and could read spread sheets and charts.  But they did not use their own independent judgment and think clearly about the assertions being made that risky junk mortgages became ultra safe (we would say “magically”) if there were enough of them bundled together.

This results from the “institutions of higher learning” lowering academic standards and not teaching students how to think.  Instead, these students and graduates merely do what everyone else does in that field without exercising independent judgment in their work.

Such bachelor and doctoral degrees have much less value than they appear.  These considerations remind us that we cannot be sure of the competence of a person by merely confirming that he has the “correct” credential and sounds like he knows his field.

As we will see below, academic institutions have degraded their standards to lure more students (to gain students’ tuition dollars which are subsidized by federal government handouts – given either as grants or as subsidized loans).

When the overall number of students greatly increases (as it has in the last seventy years), this necessarily includes those students who are less qualified/unqualified because the more qualified students would generally already be college-bound (or entering graduate school).   Those underqualified students would not enroll at the particular school (or would not stay), if the universities did not greatly water-down their academic standards.

So, with diluted standards, academia pushes those students through the courses by teaching the students the jargon of their field and teaching them how to follow the flow charts and protocols of what they should do in their future work in their field, without really teaching the students how to think and without equipping them to act proficiently as independent professionals who practice in their field by exercising their own good judgment and acting on this judgment.

The Problem of Degree Inflation in Modern Academia

Not only do universities admit many, many, unqualified people in order to expand the class sizes and increase their tuition inflow, but this watering down also fits in other ways with the universities’ goals, since those institutions are captured by the leftists and promote leftist goals.

The leftists seek to eliminate meritocracy, which is the recognition and rewarding of superior objective performance.  Meritocracy is the opposite of the modern leftist idea that “everyone wins” and “everyone gets a prize”.  Obviously, this unrealistic mentality (viz., that “everyone wins”) deceives the students about the real world, which has real winners and real losers.  Thus, students are deprived of life-lessons which would foster in them resiliency of character and help them learn how to handle disappointments in life.

Further, the “everyone wins” mentality results in students not trying as hard as they should have – or would have – if they had not received good grades with little effort.  This discourages superior accomplishment and striving for excellence.

One of the reasons there is so much protesting (on college campuses) about political causes (such as related to the Gaza war in 2024) is because colleges are full of persons who are unfit for learning deeply and reflecting carefully – which are the activities of a true education.  Thus, many of these students are instead looking to live the life of action (not reflection).  They are not looking to improve their minds but to “make a difference” in society, as that phrase would be defined by “political correctness”.  Such students and faculty often demand that their college commits itself to social and political action in lieu of the life of education and knowledge.

There are many organizations in society (some good, some bad) which are dedicated to organizing and engaging in political action, promoting social causes, and focusing on practical pursuits.  Such “students” really belong (temperamentally) in those organizations.  If they are unwilling to postpone their life of action, then they do not belong at an institution of reflection and deep study (as a college should be).

Faculties should be largely communities of scholars, and the students should be apprentice-scholars.  But modern students are so often not docile disciples of wise teachers but instead are “change agents”[9] for social and political causes, often egged on by their leftist professors who do not belong at a real institution of learning any more than these students do.

The universities are inundated with frivolous sham “degrees” awarded for successfully memorizing sufficient leftist indoctrination – fields such as “black studies”, “women’s studies”, “ecological studies”, “sociology”, “psychology”[10], etc. 

The universities compete against each other for the same tuition dollars and so they offer students a curriculum which is attractive, easy, and “relevant” to them instead of offering a true scholarly education perfecting their minds through the pursuit of the highest universal truth.  Instead of a real education, students can elect to study  “theater arts”, “casino management”, “jazz performance”, “film production”, etc.  Through these activities and “relevant” courses, students and faculties can flatter their self-image and “check the boxes” which result in a four-year degree.

Instead of a college producing careful, reflective, wise, and analytical thinkers whose minds are perfected by the highest truths, colleges produce graduates who can superficially talk the jargon of the field and function by following the protocols of the particular industry.

What should happen is that colleges would enroll only those who can learn (and who are committed to learning) what colleges must teach – viz., the higher truths and wisdom.  THIS would make colleges truly institutions of higher learning and would make their students truly educated.  This curriculum would be a true Catholic Liberal Education (the elements of which we will examine in a later part of this article). 

But instead, colleges enroll those who are neither prepared for a true education nor are interested in true knowledge and wisdom.  So, the colleges give students what they want: functional, practical, “relevant” and (largely) shallow courses which are job training and social activism.

The Problem of Grade Inflation in Modern Academia

Grade inflation increasingly is widespread and a grade of “A” often really should mean “average”.  For example, roughly 79 percent of the grades awarded at the prestigious Yale University in the 2022–23 academic year were A’s or A-minuses.[11]  Likewise, almost 80% of Harvard students get an A, A-, or A+.[12] 

With such grade inflation one could say that everyone (more or less) is at the top of his class.  This means that the cum laude designation often deserves little praise and those who graduate with distinction are often distinctly average.

The watering down of academic standards is shown to be even worse when we consider that the average student coming into college can read at only the 7th grade level.[13]  Thus, if we were to assume that the student will make four years of reading improvement in the four years of college, then he would read at approximately an 11^th grade level (junior in high school) when he graduates from college.  This means that this average student would graduate from college still unable to read at the grade level of a high school senior.

Misunderstanding What True Education Is

We should perfect our intellects (as God created us to do).  This is done through genuine education in universal truth, especially the highest truths.  (We will see more about this in a later part of this series.)  But in our perverse and carnal times, few people do that, or want to do that, or even know that this should be their goal.

Most people go to college to get job training and to memorize what they are told to memorize, not to genuinely perfect their minds.  Because the college life is no longer about the truth and no longer about developing the mind, it has become political and involves the concealing of racial and other types of performance disparities.  The focus is on money, power, prestige, and self-interest. 

Instead, without ever learning how to think carefully and critically, the students imbibe the politically correct conclusions and learn to become “social justice warriors” without ever learning how to evaluate the leftist garbage that is crammed into their minds.  Such students neither are capable of, nor interested in, leading the life of a scholar, pursuing the truth, and perfecting their minds.

Whereas universities should be offering a student precious years in which to gain wisdom and learn deep truths, instead those institutions compete for students by offering the cheapest and quickest road to an “academic” degree to be used as a tool with which to get a “good job”.  Thus, degrees nowadays are largely mere job training – which is not real education.  The idea is that with a degree, they can command a higher income in the job market.

A big part of the problem is that the government subsidizes education (including taxpayer subsidized state schools).  When something is subsidized, more people “buy” it – including many people who would not value it enough to “buy” the item if it were not subsidized.  So often students go to universities (at least in part) in order to grab government tuition freebees/handouts, have “fun”, and delay the time at which they must support themselves. 

Thus, it would help reduce degree “inflation” if the government stopped pumping money (subsidies and freebees) into the universities.  If that happened, there would be fewer students and more real education.  (There would also be other benefits such as a reduction of the injustices that society suffers, through the elimination of this socialist wealth-redistribution which occurs by such government subsidies).

Whereas, for hundreds of years, until recent decades, an academic degree indicated that a person had a somewhat exclusive intellectual formation, now those credentials have been so debased by a proliferation of low-standard college credentials that they often mean little else besides marking a period of four years of leftist indoctrination.  Moreover, during those four years, the focus is increasingly on “student experience” rather than on student learning.  In other words, the focus is on the “student as customer and consumer” rather than as a seeker of the highest knowledge and wisdom.

As we will see in a later part of this article, this highest knowledge and wisdom is truly beyond all price and should be valued “more than kingdoms”!

To be continued

Catholic Candle note: In these times of great apostasy, we suffer many things.  All of society is arrayed against God and the Church Militant.  We need great and frequent Crosses which are the hammer blows through which God chisels our souls to form the image of Our Lord Jesus Christ.[1]

We should use the strategies which our generous Lord has given us for carrying our Crosses better and lightening them in the way He wishes.[2]

Below, is an article especially focused on one Cross which Catholic parents frequently must carry in our troubled times, when it can seem that their children are attacked by the devil from all sides.

All through the course of human history there have been parents grieving for their wayward and confused children.  When Cain killed Abel, Adam and Eve must have been so heartbroken that the first murder on earth had taken place—as a consequence of original sin!  This fact doubly hurt them because they knew that if Adam had not sinned, death would not have come into the world.  Eve knew that she influenced Adam and he chose to sin, choosing her over God (!) and because of false human respect in regard to her.  Furthermore, they knew that the human nature of all mankind was weakened because of Adam’s Fall.   

Why does God allow parents to suffer the cross of having a wayward/confused child?

For one or more of the following reasons:

1.    To teach/warn the parents that they were too lax with their children or to show the parents that they are currently raising their children in a worldly manner.

We see how Heli in the Old Testament was punished with wicked sons because he did not teach them fear of the Lord.  1 Kings, ch.3.  We see how in Proverbs (13:24) it says, “He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes” and “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, and the rod of correction shall drive it away.”  Proverbs, 22:15.

2.    To humble the parents and teach them that they are not perfect parents and that they must be compassionate towards other parents who have wayward children.

3.    To purify the souls of the parents and test their hearts.

4.    To give parents the opportunity to practice the virtues of courage and trust in God

5.    To have the parents count their blessings— the Faith, God’s insights, etc.,

What can parents do when they have wayward/confused children?

1.    Fight the temptation, which will no doubt come, to have self-pity.  Remember, God uses Crosses like this to humble parents.

2.    Thank God for this Cross and pray for guidance on how to handle the child, and of course, pray for the salvation of the child.  Remember that all things, including this tribulation, “work together unto the good, for those who love God”.  Romans, 8:28.

3.    Do not condone the bad behavior and ill-will of the child.

4.    Send the message that you are always ready for the child to come to you and always ready to help him get on the right path.

5.    Reach out to instruct the child or admonish the child (as prudent, depending on the circumstances).

6.    Show patience towards the child.

7.    Show love for the child in a way that does not send the wrong message of approval for bad conduct.

8.    Let us be patient with God’s timing.  Let God work according to His Own “schedule”.  When a child is in a morally dangerous situation and there is great uncertainty, it is very human for us to wish for immediate clarity and certainty regarding that child’s situation.  But sometimes, the heaviest part of that God-given Cross is that we remain in an unresolved position of insecurity and the fact that we must calmly wait while He works on the child’s soul.[3]

9.    Avoid the temptation to be bitter towards the child. 

10. Parents should make sure they examine their consciences on how worldly they have been or are in raising their children, and of course amend

themselves immediately so their children can see their current better example.

11. Unite with Christ Who knows exactly what such parents are suffering.  What He suffered from ingratitude was the greatest possible suffering of this type.[4]  Reflect on Our Lord’s sorrows of this sort that He expresses in Psalm 87:19: “Friend and neighbor thou hast put far from me”. 

Compassionate Our Lord’s suffering of this variety when He spoke these words through the prophet Job:

He hath put my brethren far from me, and my acquaintances, like strangers, have departed from me.  My kinsmen have forsaken me, and they that knew me, have forgotten me.  They that dwelt in my house … have counted me a stranger, and I have been like an alien in their eyes.  …  He whom I love most is turned against me.  Job 19: 13-15, 19

12. Ponder on the words that Simeon spoke to Our Lady, “Thy own soul a sword shall pierce so that out of the hearts of many, thoughts may be revealed.”

God was preparing Our Sorrowful and tender Mother to be ready to listen to the heartache of her spiritual children and console them.  She had more anguish and suffering than all human parents put together.  Remember, she really cares about her children of the Mystical Body who were given to her by Our Lord on the Cross.

Be consoled, too, that St. Joseph and Our Lady suffered greatly when Our Lord stayed behind in Jerusalem when He was twelve.  God sent them this choice cross so they could merit abundantly when suffering it.  Likewise, so we could learn from them on what to do with our children and how to suffer such a heartache well for God’s glory.  

God is infinite Goodness.  He created creatures, not because He needed them or gains anything from them[1] but because He is goodness Itself and goodness is self-diffusive.[2]

Creatures are good because God put into them all the good that they have.  We see them diffuse this goodness to other creatures.  When creatures imitate God by diffusing good in the world, they are doing what good does and are reflecting the good that their Creator put in them and which He diffuses in the world.

For example, we see the sun – which is good – shining forth good into the world for the good of other creatures.

We see plants – which are good – spreading the good of their lives through production of seeds and promotion of further plant life.

We see animals (including Man) – being good in their nature and spreading this good by fostering offspring. 

Although none of the world’s creatures – except Man – can think and reflect, nonetheless they all diffuse the goodness God put in them, by following their natures. 

Among the world’s creatures, Man is special because God gave Man the dignity of being conscious and being a voluntary tool for God’s diffusion of goodness throughout the world. 

Man’s ability to voluntarily cooperate with God’s Plan, makes this cooperation an act of much greater worth, just as the voluntary declaration “I love you” from a dear friend (who really means those words) is of much more value than the same words from a parrot which has been taught this phrase.

But the necessary consequence of Man’s ability to serve God freely, is his ability to choose to say “no” to God and to refuse to be His instrument in the diffusion of God’s goodness to other creatures.  That saying “no” to God can come in many forms, e.g., cooperating in the murder of innocent babies, or frustrating the primary end of marriage.

Even if we were to leave aside the mortal sins of refusing to follow God’s laws on these matters of procreation, what a terrible, shriveled-up stinginess it is for spouses to refuse to be generously diffusive of the good of human life, as God wants them to be, and instead to choose to be “un-God-like” and refuse to do what goodness does, viz., to generously diffuse itself so that “good multiplies goodness” (as St. Thomas says above).

A Catholic Candle “corollary” to this article: After considering the above article about good being self-diffusive, we can see that there is similarly a terrible, shriveled-up stinginess in Catholics who have received the supernatural life from God (which is a much greater good than natural life) and yet they fail to do everything they can to diffuse this even-greater good, through seeking to bring other souls to this same spiritual life.  

Catholics can diffuse this great spiritual good through prayer, sacrifices, the apostolate, and the good example of their own holy life. 

Our life is short!  Let us make great efforts to diffuse good – especially spiritual good – wherever we can!

What a long and sad and unfortunate road we have traveled to arrive at this profligate state of mind today, regarding modesty in women’s clothes.  Our Blessed Mother warned us of this danger when she appeared at Fatima and said unambiguously that more souls go to hell because of sins of the flesh than any other sin.

The standards of modesty in women’s clothes have been challenged for many decades, in the beginning by a relatively few filmmakers and other exploiters.  However, people in those arguably simpler times recognized these challenges for what they were – deliberate titillation by evil people.  And this defiance of traditional norms was always (rightfully) considered as sinful and unacceptable to public morality.

The entertainment industry was possibly the greatest promoter of the slide into public immodesty.  The shockingly revealing gowns that actresses wore were viewed with a wink and a nod; but of course, no decent woman would have thought of wearing them.

Possibly as a sop to mild disapproval of this trend, Hollywood created a Censor’s department, called the Hays Office, which was charged with overseeing costumes and dialogues and situations that might offend public decency.  It would be hard to pinpoint exactly when the Hays Office gave up on enforcing its mandate, but the standards of modesty were relaxed, probably in the ‘40s and ‘50s, and then all but done away with in the following decades.

The Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency held on and held out a little longer.  This organization was responsible for directing Catholics to avoid certain movies, whether for immodest costumes or for plots that contained issues contrary to Catholic doctrine, e.g., approval of divorce, suicide, abortion.

At this point, there were still some who were trying to stem the tide of liberalism.  For example, in the early ‘50s, the good nuns in the Catholic high schools were trying to hold the line and protect young girls from veering off the road of virtue by wearing more revealing prom dresses.  The nuns actually stood at the doorways of gyms decorated for proms and checked the girls as they entered with their dates.  If a dress was too bare, they were given a little (frilly or lacy) jacket to wear.  Or at least a stole.

But sensitivity to virtue and morality was allowed to fade out of existence, presumably because the conciliar church itself was less interested in holding the line against the rising tide of immorality.  As our society, in general, became more licentious, it was easier for the church to relax its vigilance than to have to fight the popular trend – toward more daring women’s clothes, for example. 

This disturbing trend persisted into the ‘60s (roughly the onset of Vatican II), when those standards began to nose-dive.  Women were encouraged to “express themselves” and taught that short skirts and abbreviated clothing were the best way to get men’s attention, and a short-cut to a date, a job, or whatever.  (And the “whatever” was not necessarily a stroll through the park.)

In today’s world these aberrations occur at every turn, not only in the media, the entertainment industry, the fashion world, and advertising in general, but also in the grocery store, the high school football game, the girl next door walking to the mailbox, the waitress in the restaurant, the teller at the bank – pretty much everywhere.  A person is hard pressed to avoid it.  That is a sad indication of how far society has left commonsense and moral standards behind. 

Another major player in furthering this disintegration of morality has been the media.  In its many diverse forms, the media reaches into the homes and minds of millions of people every day, not the least of which are the young people who tried to emulate what they saw on the old MTV shows, or Dancing With the Stars, or even the pretend “athletes’ competitions” (which are mere excuses to show the scantily-clads).

The advertising industry, too, must share the blame for its creating more and more explicit ads, with clever ways to attract people, particularly young impressionable teens.  They have no shame when it comes to appealing to prurient interests.  (Many years ago, I walked in the door of a Penney’s store and was faced with a manikin dressed only in skimpy bikini underwear.  [Is there any other kind of bikini?].  I thought sadly of any young boys [or worse, older ones!] who would unavoidably face this model when merely trying to buy some athletic socks.  I went to the Manager and told him how strongly I objected to this – it wasn’t even as if it were in the Lingerie Dept.—but money speaks louder than morals, and it accomplished nothing.  However, we must try, right?)

Another point to be considered is that our society has been brainwashed in so many ways that beliefs held not so long ago have softened to the point that people no longer object to things that our common sense tells us are of course wrong, (read immoral).  For example: People generally understood that there was a direct correlation between how you were dressed and how you were treated. If you were dressed like a tramp, you might be treated like a tramp.  But along came the Feminists who stridently insist that women have a right to dress as they want, and are not to blame if men see their tight, low-cut dresses as a come-on.  They demanded that foolish men who succumb to their temptations be held to account for acting on these weaknesses and be subject to the law.  Well, of course they must be accountable to the law!  But oh, what hypocrisy to pretend that women are innocent in this little charade!

One of the saddest parts of this is that society has allowed itself to be bullied into accepting this situation.  By loudly demanding the “right” to wear what they want to wear, the Feminists shout down anyone who objects, and the mainstream media tamely goes along with this.  And worse, the conciliar church fails to mount any sort of effective opposition.

So, it is clear that Catholic parents can no longer look to society’s fading standards to help instill the virtue of modesty in their children, nor to the human element of the Church for forceful support in inculcating purity into their sons’ and daughters’ hearts and minds.  Even the N-SSPX is not very vigilant in insisting on modest skirt lengths on their girls’ uniforms.  The idea of uniforms is a good one, but the Society fails to demand that hems be universally set at a modest length.

Short skirts can easily lead to other compromises with modesty; for example: skirts that seem to be at a modest length but that ride up when the girl is seated.  Or skirts that might be long enough but that are too tight.  These can be a step toward off-the-shoulder and see-through blouses, low necklines, and too-tight knits. 

These styles are so common and our senses so dulled that people must be reminded that they are sinful styles.  People have become so conditioned by television and movies and the print media to accept them.  And almost nobody is stressing to women and girls that whether or not they are affected by what they are wearing, males definitely are.  Which leads to the unavoidable point that such immodesty may be a mortal sin not only for the girl/woman, but may be responsible for mortal sins of any and all boys/men who succumb to impure thoughts or actions because of them.

So, we can see that immoral dressing is sinful on multiple levels:

➢  It leads to other sins, e.g., pride, vanity.

➢  It could very likely be the cause of sin for boys who witness her sinful dress.

➢  It most certainly can cause scandal.

➢  It sets a very bad example for others, particularly younger siblings and/or classmates.

Often a girl begins to dress immodestly because she thinks everyone is dressing like that, and she wants to be popular.   Her parents must help her to understand that no matter how other girls dress, and no matter what other people do, she must be true to her Faith and to herself.  She couldn’t do better than to model herself after Our Blessed Mother.

If parents are consistent in their rules and requirements, and these are presented with obvious love and the best intentions, children are much more apt to accept them.  Resignedly perhaps, but trusting that their parents know better.

 One of the most important words in that paragraph is the word consistent.  It cannot be stressed enough that parents must be consistent.  They must be true to the directions, rules, and restrictions that they have laid down for the family.  They can’t discipline a son for missing his deadline one time and then let it slide the next. 

They can’t guide a daughter to modesty by letting her buy the shorter skirt “just this one time” because “it’s such a cute pattern and it looks so cute on her.”  Children aren’t ignorant; they can easily see through the inconsistency in the rules, and it merely sets the stage for next time getting away with it.  This, not so incidentally, will eventually lead to the demise of family rules.   It is merely the first step into the liberal quicksand.

Children aren’t ignorant; they can easily see through the inconsistency in the rules, and it merely sets the stage for next time getting away with it.  This, not so incidentally, will eventually lead to the demise of family rules.   It is merely the first step into the liberal quicksand.

Therefore, the single most important point of this article is that parents must re-claim the role of defender of modesty, arbiter of “fashion,” and guardian of purity.  

Educating your Children – Part 4

Catholic Candle note: This is the Fourth Part in a series on EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN during the current crisis in the Church.  There can be no more important concern for traditional Catholic parents today than how to best educate their children since it is so intrinsically connected to helping them save their precious souls.

     Part I:  Reflects on how one traditional Catholic family approached the gargantuan responsibility of this formidable task.  Part I can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/06/01/approaching-the-responsibility-of-homeschooling/

     Part II:  Investigates what choices were available to the next generation of our family, and how they met the challenge.  Part II can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/07/01/educating-your-children-part-2/

     Part III:  Examines what is involved in Home Schooling.  Part III can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/08/01/educating-your-children-part-3/

     Part IV (this present article): Looks at some of the Benefits of educating your children at home.

What are the benefits of Home Schooling?  There must be some, right?  Well, it turns out there are countless extraordinary benefits, and we will examine some of them in this last installment of the Educating Your Children series.

But first, let’s take a quick look at the elephant in the school room.  You know, the parent who is quick to say that she/he never taught before, doesn’t have a college degree, and isn’t sure she can handle it.  How valid is that concern?  If you find yourself assailed by that doubt, remember that God intended parents to be the primary educators of their children.  He will help, for sure.

Practically speaking, with the pitiful condition of schools today, it would be hard not to have your Home School be an improvement over them.  And if you think that you couldn’t teach everything that your children need to know, remember that the “outside” schools can’t do that either.  The key here is that your teaching can give them the tools they need in order to succeed in life, but more importantly, to get to heaven.

One of the small points often overlooked is that the Home School teacher can and does (re)learn a great deal as she goes along.  It was probably some years earlier that she mastered compound fractions and the provisions of the Bill of Rights, etc., and refreshing her memory with the daily school assignments might sometimes seem like re-connecting with old friends.

In Part III we talked about how it can be a means for developing a greater family unity.  Once you get your Home School up and running, it tends to promote a closeness within your family.  Not an us-against-the-world mentality, but a feeling that you can count on each other.

Let me digress a bit to enhance that point.  Once when visiting the rural home of one of our daughters in another state, her two boys, about 7 and 9, took their younger sisters for a walk in the woods (on their property).  They didn’t know I was watching, but I saw them help the girls over logs and tangled brush, and just generally make it safer and easier for them.  You could easily see that it was the most natural thing in the world to them.  I marveled what good brothers they were, and my daughter said, “Do you know why?  It’s because they’re home-schooled.  They don’t have anyone from school looking over their shoulders and whining, “How come you have to take your little sisters with you?”

Now this doesn’t mean, of course, that squabbling siblings will never disagree or argue, but it does mean that they tend to get along with each other; after all, these are their closest companions and friends.  As a matter of fact, I have been greatly impressed over the years with how well the homeschoolers treat each other – with kindness and more like a friend than a sibling.

This brings up another subject.  Some of your friends and acquaintances, well-meaning or not, will inevitably bring up the subject of “socializing” your children, meaning how will they learn to interact with other children if they don’t attend “outside” schools?  There are several answers to this.  First, is that they have family to socialize with, as mentioned above.  And this includes cousins, good old (traditional Catholic) cousins.  Our families were fortunate in having dozens of that precious commodity.  There was hardly a week went by that some of them didn’t “exchange” children after Stations of the Cross on a Friday, for example, and “reclaim” them after Mass on Sunday.  (Of course, that was when we could still attend the SSPX under Archbishop Lefebvre.)

(Now it’s true that not every family has “dozens” of traditional Catholic cousins, or for that matter, can devote one room in their house to “the school room,” or can fly off to a foreign country to check out their schools/churches, but if you’re trying your best to educate your children to be truly “children of God,” the good Lord will send you other methods of accomplishing this.  For example, instead of flying off to Portugal or Ireland to learn the truth about the status of the Church, you have The Catholic Candle!  Something that did not exist in those earlier days.)

Another means of socializing is sports.  Playing Little League baseball or football (if so inclined) is generally feasible.  Music, hiking, and chess club are also potential activities.  Or a Science Club with other home schoolers.  Of course, the corruption of bad companions can come from any direction, so potential companions should be thoroughly scrutinized these days.  (This is not a “home school issue” as such.)

Another HUGE benefit of teaching your children at home is that you get to control the flow of information that finds its way into their minds.  Thus, instead of learning about evolution and global warming, they will learn about God’s creation of the world and His control over the weather for these thousands of years.  And you can see that your children learn American History and Geography, and they won’t think New Mexico is a foreign country.

One more substantial benefit is that your children are being taught by people who love them and are totally invested not only in their temporal welfare but, more importantly, in the salvation of their souls and their happiness. 

However, as important as it is to see how your children can benefit from homeschooling, there is another benefit to consider.  Grandparents make pretty good adjunct teachers in many home schools, so they are a good resource for the teacher-parents.  But an additional advantage to homeschooling must not be overlooked.  It is to the grandparents themselves!  I have been helping to homeschool my grandchildren for many years, and I can’t stress enough how much benefit I have received from this.  You get to know them wonderfully well.  You build a loving relationship with them, a true closeness that can remain even after they are no longer “your” students.

Now it is an unfortunate truism that many parents may not be able to call on their parents to give them a hand in this most important endeavor for a variety of reasons, e.g., a job, poor health, or distance.  But to those who are able, I can guarantee that the time and the effort could not be better spent.

A further benefit that probably might not be appreciated until you’re knee-deep in homeschooling is the satisfaction it brings to you, knowing you are doing your best.  The peace of mind alone is incalculable.

Home-schooling is challenging and rewarding labor.  Is it easy?  Not so much.  But is it worthwhile?  You bet!

With God’s help it has worked for our family and others, and it will work for you if you will not settle for less than a solid traditional Catholic education for your children.

Should you choose to take this path, please know that you will be in our prayers every day. 

Catholic Candle note: To assist parents in homeschooling, we call your attention to a new Traditional Catholic homeschool which is now accessible worldwide.  Here is some information from this homeschool:

Angelic Doctor Academy

We would like to introduce Angelic Doctor Academy, a Traditional Catholic homeschool for grades 9 – 12 (lower grades coming soon).  We think careful Catholics will appreciate our solid Traditional Catholic high school curriculum, which contains many new textbooks written across the subjects because we have had enough of problematic books.  But even more, busy Catholic parents – especially mothers! – will appreciate our unique grading system which corrects everything – even the daily / weekly coursework – for the parents, so they can concentrate on teaching, explaining, and keeping order.   Please visit https://www.ada.school to learn more.

Yours in St. Thomas,

The Angelic Doctor Academy Staff

Catholic Candle note: This is the Third Part in a series on EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN during the crisis in the Church.  There can be no more important concern for traditional Catholic parents today than how to best educate their children since it is so intrinsically connected to helping them save their precious souls.

     Part I:  Reflects on how one traditional Catholic family approached the gargantuan responsibility of this formidable task.  Part I can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/06/01/approaching-the-responsibility-of-homeschooling/

     Part II:  Investigates what choices were available to the next generation of our family, and how they met the challenge.  Part II can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/07/01/educating-your-children-part-2/

     Part III (this present article):  Examines what is involved in Home Schooling.

     Part IV:  Looks at some of the Benefits of educating your children at home.

Years ago, we heard the principal of a good school give a fine talk on educating your children.  He titled it “Education – It Happens Only Once.”  If nobody remembered anything of what he said except the title, it’d have been worth the time they spent listening to him because it said it all in a nutshell: We only have one opportunity to see that our children receive a good (traditional Catholic) education , the inference being that we’d better do it right the first time because we won’t get a second chance.

By default, the job falls now to Home Schools.  Therefore, it is more than appropriate to ask the following question:

What Does It Take to Home School?

Let’s examine the idea of home-schooling.  You’ve probably thought of some of the reasons why people do it, and you maybe even have considered how they do it.  But now you might be wondering What does it really take to home school? 

The quick answer is:

A.   You must be convinced it’s necessary.

B.   You must be willing to make the Commitment (with a capital C).

C.   You must have perseverance.

D.   You must have confidence in God.

E.   You must have discipline in your home.

F.   You must have patience, patience, and more patience.  (Okay, so all of us run short of that sometimes, but let’s talk about that later.)

___________________________

A.   Convinced it’s necessary

This is arguably the easiest item on the list.  The easiest to come by.  Any traditional Catholic parent who has half an eye open as to what’s going on in the schools today ought to find this an easy decision to make.  Easy to make, but admittedly not so easy to carry out.

B.   Commitment

It’s one thing to attend a home-school conference and be suffused with a rosy feeling of enthusiasm for beginning the grand adventure of teaching your own children.  It’s quite another to commit to seeing the job through to the end.

As was said in Part II, it’s probably a mercy that you don’t know at the beginning just how long the “long haul” is.  But it’s important not to view it as you’ll-put-up-with-it-as-long-as-you-can.  View it as a special calling, which it is.  The good Lord is making you a partner in educating your children and preparing them to survive in a world that seeks to tear them away from their Faith and compromise any vestige of principles.

A Home School mom I know put it this way: You must be a Home School family, not just a family that home schools.

C.   Perseverance

Deciding to educate your children at home is not a frivolous choice made lightly.  You cannot do it grudgingly or resenting that other parents send their children off to school and have the whole day to themselves.  Every day.  You’re in it for the whole 9 yards because you’re building an exceptional team and that team needs you.  You must approach it joyfully and with a generous heart.

D.   Confidence in God

We know that God cannot be outdone in generosity.  Whatever you do for Him is returned a hundredfold.  By His design, parents are the prime educators of their offspring.  Therefore, your efforts on behalf of your children, your willingness to put His plan before yours, and to instill in them a love for their Creator and a greater knowledge of their Faith will be generously rewarded.

E.     Discipline

Discipline in the home – in the past freewheeling decades of do-your-own-thing and the child’s-spirit-must-not-be-suppressed – the idea of actually expecting self-control from children has been all but abandoned.  It was instead overshadowed by insisting that the child be “given” self-respect.  Whether earned or not.  This is one of the principal reasons for the destruction of the schools.  In the (arguably) 70 years that discipline has been withering away under the cult of the child, obedience has sadly become a bitter joke in far too many families.

If your family (hopefully) cannot be included in this category, good for you.  It will make your job less difficult.

If yours is one of the families that did not make discipline a priority, it’s not too late now.  Harder, but possible.  And there are helps to get you there.  It is important to start with a family meeting, including all who have reached the age of reason, to explain very clearly exactly what your family goal is, and what is necessary to achieve it.  (We discuss more about Family Meetings below.)

Another huge help is to “demote” your television and other electronic devices – or better yet, get rid of the TV.  If your children are addicted to texting, Facebook, etc., it will be difficult to rein in their time-wasting habits.  But there again, doable.  It “just” takes patience, firmness, and being consistent.

Some of the fruits of this new family policy will be having more time to spend on developing new interests and more wholesome pastimes.  With more hours to fill, the children will be forced to look to other diversions, such as sports, hobbies, music, photography, etc.  Also, spending time with the family will slowly increase, which will foster a beneficial closeness.  All in God’s good time.  You are building a great team, but it doesn’t happen overnight.

You probably already say a family rosary together, morning and night, and this is a must.  Saying the rosary on-the-way-somewhere is sometimes a necessity, but the family that gathers nightly (or daily) together in one place, on its knees, is accomplishing several things at once.  Among them are showing the children the importance of prayer, and also nourishing a sense of family unity.

A word might be said here about the desirability of designating one room in your home as "the school room."  This might not always be practical or feasible, but where possible, it is a help in setting up your Home School, and having the same room set aside exclusively for school work.

One of the greatest helps will be that Family Meeting (as mentioned above).  Frequent sit-down meetings will be a great aid to building family unity and family harmony.  They need not turn into dragged-out marathon encounters, dreaded by everyone.  Hopefully run by the father, the chief “business” of the meetings is to make sure the children understand why the family has chosen this course of action (homeschooling).  If they do, it will be much easier for them to accept your decision.

Also, these family meetings help parents to understand their children’s worries or concerns, which might easily be ameliorated if brought out into the light of day during a casual family discussion.

It can’t be stressed enough how important it is for your children to know WHY you’re doing what you’re doing.  It is solely for their benefit, in order to save their souls, safeguard their Faith, and not so incidentally to give them a superior education.  And even if they can’t fully comprehend the reasons now, hopefully they will have enough confidence in you, their parents, to trust your judgment.

F.   Patience

Easier said than practiced, right?  A Home School mother I know confided in me that there were a few times when she was overwhelmed with the enormity of the task she was undertaking.  To the point that occasionally, at the end of the day, when the family was asleep, she, exhausted, would sit at her kitchen table correcting papers, planning the next day’s schedule, and … crying.  She questioned whether she had what it takes to do the job.  To be sure, this didn’t happen often, but when it did, the saving grace was to re-focus her mind on why she was doing it:

➢   For the greater honor and glory of God,

➢   To fulfill God’s plan to help one’s children get to heaven,

➢   To give the children the essential tools they must have to survive in a pagan world.

In next month’s Catholic Candle, we will discuss The Benefits of Home Schooling, in Part IV.

Catholic Candle note: To assist parents in homeschooling, we call your attention to a new Traditional Catholic homeschool which is now accessible worldwide.  Here is some information about this homeschool:

Angelic Doctor Academy

We would like to introduce Angelic Doctor Academy, a Traditional Catholic homeschool for grades 9 – 12 (lower grades coming soon).  We think careful Catholics will appreciate our solid Traditional Catholic high school curriculum, which contains many new textbooks written across the subjects because we have had enough of problematic books.  But even more, busy Catholic parents – especially mothers! – will appreciate our unique grading system which corrects everything – even the daily / weekly coursework – for the parents, so they can concentrate on teaching, explaining, and keeping order.   Please visit  https://www.ada.school  to learn more.

Yours in St. Thomas,

The Angelic Doctor Academy Staff

Catholic Candle note: This is the Second Part in a series on EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN during the crisis in the Church.  There can be no more important concern for traditional Catholic parents today than how to best educate their children since it is so intrinsically connected to helping them save their precious souls.

     Part I:  Reflects on how one traditional Catholic family approached the gargantuan responsibility of this formidable task.  Part I can be found here: https://catholiccandle.org/2020/06/01/approaching-the-responsibility-of-homeschooling/

     Part II (this present article):  Investigates what choices were available to the next generation of our family, and how they met the challenge.

     Part III:  Examines what is involved in Home Schooling.

     Part IV:  Looks at some of the Benefits of educating your children at home.

What Are the Choices?

Homeschooling didn’t really enter our lives until our children began their families and were seriously looking at how they were to educate them.  It was clear to all of them that if they were to raise good Catholic children, they could not expose them to the poisons in the schools.  And by poisons is meant not only the drugs and alcohol.  Unfortunately, it includes bad companions, disrespect for authority, a left-wing agenda, no discipline, strange ideas/beliefs that you have no idea where they came from, etc.  And this doesn’t even include the knifings, brawls, assaults, etc. in the public schools that threaten their physical safety.

It has become a world in which you send a nice, obedient little child off to school and get back a snarly teenager who questions everything you say.  (And that can’t be conveniently attributed to “just being a teenager” as parents today are led to believe.)

Almost lost in the shuffle is the education factor.  Figures that have only recently been reluctantly released testify that public schools, and even many private schools, have horrendous results educating their charges.  Over 40% of public-school students cannot read at their grade level!

So, the next generation of our family were all independently on board with the knowledge that they could not send their children to the public schools, nor to the local Novus Ordo school, nor to any private school (like the N-SSPX) and “hope for the best”.

This brought them inexorably to Home Schooling.  (To parents who have fought the good fight – educating their children at home – Home Schooling deserves capital letters.)

Our children began the long trek of Home Schooling about 25 years ago.  Since they all have large families, they truly were in it for the long haul.  (It’s probably a mercy that you don’t know at that point how long a haul it’s going to be.)

I recall asking one of our daughters early on how it was going, and casually asking her if there was anything I could do to help.  When she took me up on it, I confess I was a tad surprised, naively wondering what I could actually contribute.

Well … time, effort, presence to begin with.  For over 20 years I went to their Home School three days a week.  (If I had it to do over again, I would have gone five.)  I helped a little one (a different little one each year) master the intricacies of reading about David and Joan helping Mother with the twins.  And how it was to live in the Little House on the Prairie.  And how a larva transforms into a pupa.  And why we need to learn about fractions and common denominators.

And while I was having all the fun with the little ones, their mother was in a different area of the house handling the “tough” stuff with the older students.

As it turned out, another of our children moved back into the area, and with his large family, had a lively, flourishing Home School of their own.

Flourishing?  Yes, but as any homeschool mom (or dad) knows, there aren’t enough hours in the day, and she can always use another pair of hands and another brain and another red pencil wielder.

So, I lost one day at one house and gained two more at the other.

Fine, but how does that help you?

The first question you need to consider is: “How can you as a traditional Catholic – in today’s pagan world – fulfill your responsibility to educate your children?”  You must begin by realizing that it is totally your responsibility.  There is no question of being able to pass it off to any school system or religious society.  Because Vatican II has so infected today’s world, finding a brick-and-mortar school is nigh impossible.  Nor is it possible to send your children to a Novus Ordo school nor an N-SSPX school and, as said before, “hope for the best.”

Let’s discuss these three non-possibilities.

The public schools are obviously out of the question.  The police presence in these schools attests to the almost daily violence that is commonplace, and which students are hard-pressed to avoid.  They may have the latest in audio-visual equipment, computers, perhaps, and a first-rate football field, but these can’t begin to outweigh the damage they do with their left-wing agendas of evolution, global warming, birth control, etc.  And these subjects are taught at the expense of the traditional educational building blocks of American History, Geography, Literature, etc., and even something as innocuous as Handwriting.  (They are proposing to eliminate the teaching of cursive writing; soon today’s graduates will be unable to write their own names.  And teaching of spelling, punctuation, and grammar is ignored, downplayed, and all but eradicated.)

So, that, along with the lack of discipline and order in the schools, and immodest dress, there should be enough to convince any good parent that public schools are not a viable choice.

These are very good reasons why NOT to send your children to a public school; so that would seem to leave Novus Ordo or N-SSPX schools.  Assuming you as a traditional Catholic would never send your children to a Novus Ordo school, you may be interested anyway in seeing this example of what some of them have devolved into.

In Part I of this series, I mentioned Diocesan Directives and Guidelines.  Two years ago, the Archbishop of Milwaukee, Wis., announced that the local Catholic schools would no longer be diocesan schools, but would instead be members of an “association” called Siena.  (“Poor” St. Catherine of Siena must be “fuming” at this outrageous preempting of her name.)  However, the schools would be expected to follow his “Guidelines,” which included these directives (quoted verbatim):

❖  Teachers will not determine grades based on the mathematical average of scores earned over time.

❖  Teachers will not consider behavior, effort, attendance, class participation, missing work, or credit when determining academic grades.[1]

This is lunacy! …  as any experienced educator or parent with common sense would recognize.  The irony of this is that several weeks previous to this announcement, the chairman of the Board of Directors for this Siena Catholic Schools received a (presumably) prestigious award from the archbishop for his “dedication to ensuring quality Catholic education.”[2]

Another nail in the coffin of a traditional Catholic’s hope that he might find a singularly conservative Novus Ordo school (if it existed), is the fact that they all use a bad conciliar catechism, The Catechism of the Catholic Church, put out after Vatican II.

It might seem tempting, then, to consider whether you could “get by with” sending them to an N-SSPX school.  The trusting traditional Catholic parent who might look at a Society school as a viable alternative to Novus Ordo and public schools ought to scrutinize more carefully what the N-SSPX is offering.

First of all, you need to consider that the Society has said that it accepts 95% of Vatican II.  This is much more significant than a mere troublesome statistic.  The N-SSPX claims there is no doubt that “… many of the texts are traditional,”[3] yet all 13 texts are thoroughly infested with error.[4]  The Society minimizes the evils of VC II, saying that it contains “no direct heresy and few errors”—whereas it is full of direct heresies.[5]

Archbishop Lefebvre taught that the whole of Vatican II contradicts what the popes have taught for centuries.  He said: “We have to choose.  Either we choose what the popes have taught for centuries and we choose the Church (i.e., Catholic tradition), or we choose what was said by the Council.  BUT WE CANNOT CHOOSE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME SINCE THEY ARE CONTRADICTORY.”[6]  (Emphasis added)

Pretty clear admonition.

Several other strictures to keep in mind:  The N-SSPX has been working toward a hybrid mass, an unholy blend of a Latin Tridentine Mass and a Novus Ordo mass.[7]  That ought to give you pause.  Plus, there are many other beyond-troublesome facts to jar you.  Such as Bishop Fellay’s statement that he is “…very happy with a lot of what Pope Francis teaches.”[8]  And that he “…hopes that Vatican II belongs to tradition.”[9] 

But the overwhelming reason to not entrust your children to a Society school is that you can expect them to be slowly but inexorably indoctrinated into the conciliar church.

So, after much soul-searching and interminable discussions, you may be considering schooling your children at home.  Gradually, you come to grips with the realization that that is the only solution to living up to your responsibility to educate your children.

In Part III, in next month’s Catholic Candle, we will look at the question: WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO HOME SCHOOL?

Catholic Candle note: This is the First Part in a new series on EDUCATING YOUR CHILDREN during the crisis in the Church.  There can be no more important concern for traditional Catholic parents today than how to best educate their children since it is so intrinsically connected to helping them save their precious souls.

     Part I:  Reflects on how one traditional Catholic family approached the gargantuan responsibility of this formidable task.

     Part II:  Investigates what choices were available to the next generation, and how they met the challenge.

     Part III:  Examines what is involved in Home Schooling.

     Part IV:  Looks at some of the Benefits of educating your children at home.

How one Traditional Catholic family approached the gargantuan responsibility of homeschooling

Parents have always been recognized as the primary educators of their children (under the aegis of the Catholic Church).  But in the “old days” (before Vatican II) Catholic parents could confidently send their children off to their local parish school in the knowledge that they would learn more about their Faith and also get a decent education.  Which they did.

However, when our children were growing up in the aftermath of VC II, it was a very different situation.  We began to realize very soon that we could no longer assume that sending them to the parish school would automatically get them a good Catholic education.  It was a painful realization, and with it came the question of what other choices there might be.  However credible or doubtful, we felt constrained to check them out.

Thinking of our Blessed Mother’s promise that the flame of the Faith would always burn in Portugal, we left our children in the capable hands of a generous grandmother and flew to Lisbon to view firsthand the religious-educational situation.  We investigated all aspects, including employment for my husband.  (A job was not possible because there wasn’t even enough work for Portuguese citizens, let alone foreigners.)  All things considered, it became clear that moving to Portugal was not the answer.  Our Lady did promise that the true Faith would be kept alive, there, but that could conceivably mean in some remote corner of the country, not necessarily a guarantee that the Catholic schools would be free of the effects of Vatican II.

Our next stop was Ireland, which at first glance seemed a distinct possibility.  However, it might have been Our Lady who sent us to a restaurant where we were seated next to two young women who were teachers at a Catholic grade school.  They were almost giddy telling us how wonderful it would be teaching the new religion coming from Vatican II.  That, and other considerations, left Ireland out completely.  So we headed home satisfied that we tried, and that we would have to do our best at home to raise our family in the traditional Catholic Faith.

Now the only answer was to keep our eyes focused on finding a good school.  And finding a good school was always a top priority.

We bought our first house across town and joined our new parish.  Our oldest was making her First Communion, and we were learning to be cautious about what was being taught in parish schools.  Our new parish had a new pastor, and we invited him to dinner to hear in what direction he intended to lead his flock.

Well, it turned out he didn’t particularly plan to do much leading.  He made it clear he was “letting Sister” decide what catechisms and classroom subjects, etc., she would use.  (This was in the days when the sisters were beginning to “speak up” and wanted a greater voice in the Church.)  I recall that as Father left the house that evening, my husband turned to me and said it was clear we couldn’t leave our children in that school.  And we didn’t.

Next came several years at our “good ol’ neighborhood” (public) school, until they began the disastrous “drug education” and “sex education” programs, which under the pretense of warning children about drugs and sex, actually accomplished the opposite: piqued their curiosity.  Scratch school #2.

You know the old saying about God never closing a door on you without opening a window.  The good Lord directed us to a parish in a run-down part of town that was operated by a stubborn priest who ran the school his way.  And his obstinacy was what allowed us to send our children to his grade school.  He threw out the Diocesan directives and guidelines and hired his own good teachers, used the good Baltimore catechisms, and engaged nuns who wore the full habits.  (A word about those Diocesan guidelines in Part II.)

The school wasn’t in the best neighborhood and was located next to a large rough public school.  There were a number of issues we had to deal with, including letting the pastor know we wouldn’t allow our children to attend the daily Novus Ordo mass.  This prompted a recurring reminder from him every month when we paid for five tuitions that we wouldn’t have to pay if we were members of the parish.  (But, of course, we weren’t and couldn’t be.)  The implied “bribery” notwithstanding, the school accomplished what we needed it to: it got our children safely through the grades.

Safely, yes, but not without a small price to pay along the way, especially for our oldest daughter.  She attended five different schools in those eight years, which was not easy.  And sometimes she had to listen to catty classmates whine: “Why do you have to wear your skirts so long?”  One night, after the rosary, we were reading about St. Joan of Arc being burned at the stake, and she said in a burst of fervor, “Oh, I would be willing to do that for Our Lord!”  I recall answering her that God was not asking her to die a fiery death, but He did ask her to put up with the occasional churlish question about her dresses.

So that brought us to high school.  For several years before our oldest graduated from grade school, we had begun looking around for a good high school for them.

Both my husband and I had attended our local Catholic high school, but it was a no-brainer that we wouldn’t be able to send our children there.  Its curriculum had transformed into an unrecognizably liberal stew of modernism.  So that was a non-starter.

The choices were very limited.  There was a traditional boarding school in a nearby state, but you hate to send a 13-year-old homebody away from home (unless there is absolutely no alternative.)  There was also a correspondence school, and we listened to what their representative had to say.  (Nobody we ever heard of talked of Home Schooling in those days.)  And the purportedly “conservative” Franciscan seminary/boys’ school in the area was just for “he”s, and we were starting with a “she”.  (Which turned out to be Providential since the school proved to be only a tad behind in its swerve into modernism.)

However, we heard of another “conservative” Catholic high school in a different city fairly close by, and we looked into that.  This appeared a definite possibility, and we visited it one Sunday.  The nun-principal told us that there was a waiting list to get in, but she took us on a tour of the school nevertheless.  She gave us all the particulars about tuition costs and where our daughter could get her uniform, books, etc.  The sister looked a bit non-plussed when we said firmly that our daughter would not be attending the daily Novus Ordo mass, but she rallied to tell us that they had a protestant girl and an Egyptian boy at the school who similarly did not attend the service.  The upshot was that she decided she would allow her to by-pass the waiting list because she was a good student and would be coming from a distance.  (Since our daughter did not have a driver’s license, the commute would be two daily round trips – 120 miles a day.)

So it appeared all set.  That is, until we got a phone call from her the next day saying she was very sorry that they didn’t have room in the school for our daughter after all.

But as before, when that door closed, another window opened.  Testimony to that is our discovery of a private high school that was started up a handful of years earlier by a small group of conservative industrialists-businessmen.  They, too, had been looking for a decent school for their children, but had given up and started their own.  Long story short, it was nearly as good as we expected, even though it necessitated a 100-mile round trip daily.  (The headmaster of the school told us at the graduation of our last child that they had been figuring how many miles our family had traveled in those nine years, and they concluded it’d been over 300,000 miles.)

The next obvious challenge was going to be finding a good traditional Catholic college.  An important point to make here is that parents must realize that high schoolers do not have the intellect, wisdom, or experience to select the correct college that will determine their success in life, and more importantly, their salvation.  THAT IS THE JOB FOR THE PARENTS.

My husband investigated lead-after-lead all across the country from well-meaning people who thought they knew just what we were looking for.  Invariably, these small Catholic colleges used to be good, but every one of them proved to be liberal.  He always talked to the Dean of Students, and he got to be quite good at recognizing the signs of problems and asking the right questions, e.g., What did they do when a student used drugs?  Did they have single sex or coed dorms?  What kind of dress code did they have?  What curriculum did they use?  Etc.  He didn’t even have to discuss curriculum and textbooks with many of them because they disqualified themselves after the first three questions.

Unfortunately, it appeared there was no such thing as a solid, good Catholic college anymore.  Until …

Another window opened.  Deo gratias!  He found a gem, even if it proved to be a great distance away.  Here it must be stressed that the most important point in settling on a college is to visit it beforehand to confirm what the Dean has told you.  He did visit the campus, and again, it was nearly as good as we’d hoped.  Granted, it was thousands of miles from home, but that’s what it took to find the right school.  It was worth the numberless hours and time and effort it took to locate it.  It was well worth avoiding many of the problems of young adults.

I might mention that while my husband and I did not homeschool our family, it was only because we were able to find the last of the good schools to send them to.  And even then, it took considerable effort to research and locate the schools, pay the tuitions, and find a way to get them there.

However, if we weren’t compelled to homeschool the first time around, we got the chance to do so in Round 2, with our grandchildren.  Which will be discussed in Part II, in the next Catholic Candle.