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Introduction: Keeping It Catholic includes this article from the July 29, 1999 Wanderer because it is a perfect example of how some homeschoolers think - i.e., that the national homeschooling debates are only differences of opinion that should be kept private. Tragically, some people avoid important issues concerning Church law because they don't want to be made uncomfortable.If we are teaching our own children how to be faithful Catholics, how to defend the faith when necessary, and how to think - we are obligated to know what is happening in the Church, in our parishes, and in the national Catholic homeschooling arena.
All Catholic homeschoolers should care - because what happens today in the national Catholic homeschooling circles will affect our children's homeschooling futures and possibly their adult futures as believing Catholics in the Catholic Church.
In this Wanderer article from July 1999, Mr. Jeff Minick of Saints and Scholars (a homeschool business) "almost" got the story right. However, a close reading of this article clearly shows Mr. Minick did not read the original Mothers Watch article (Homeschoolers: A House Divided), written by Keeping It Catholic founder Marianna Bartold. He also seemed totally oblivious to Fr. John Hardon's role in the NACHE/Seton controversy - wherein Fr. Hardon urged NACHE to invite Seton Home Study School. It's important to note, too, that three other priests read Seton's article and found it sound. Meanwhile, NACHE, while objecting to Seton's explanation about "Authority in the Church," makes no mention of these other priests - their input obviously means nothing to NACHE.
Additionally, Fr. Hardon declared Seton's article to be "free of doctrinal error." An irate Mrs. Hasson and the entire NACHE board decided to dismiss Fr. Hardon's advice, claiming he didn't know the whole story. Nowhere does NACHE ever claim they tried to "enlighten" him. At any rate, rejecting Fr. Hardon's advice is a curious stance for an association like NACHE that pushes the "blind obedience" line. But then again - actions always speak louder than words, and NACHE's consistent actions against anyone who dares to disagree with them speak very loudly.
By Jeff Minick
By now many home-schoolers are aware that NACHE (the National Association of Catholic Home Educators) refused to allow Dr. Mary Kay Clark's Seton Home Study School to participate as a vendor at its most recent home education conference in Manassas, Va. A front-page article in the July 15th Wanderer stressed that this split was caused by differences of opinion in regard to diocesan regulation of religious education and sacramental preparation for homeschoolers.
Recognizing that the absence of Seton would cause a stir among home-schoolers, the NACHE board compiled a packed of letters and columns entitled "Information Regarding Seton's Absence" and distributed it at the convention in the vendor hall. Below are the subjects of the five items contained in this packed (the order is mine and is chronological in terms of events to be discussed).
1) Mary Hasson's May 1998 TORCH column discussing the adversarial attitude of some homeschoolers toward bishops.2) Dr. Mary Kay Clark's July 1998 Seton Newsletter column responding to Mrs. Hasson's column;
3) Mrs. Hasson's July 1998 letter to Dr. Clark requesting corrections and amends for that column;
4) The April 1999 NACHE Board letter explaining Seton's absence.
When I asked Bill Bales, the quiet, affable man who is president of NACHE and who clearly regrets the current situation, about the split between NACHE and Seton, he answered that the packet of letters and columns cited above contained the necessary information.
(KIC NOTE: This is a travesty of justice in and of itself, as Mr. Minick will later admit in this article that the NACHE "packet" did NOT include the Mothers' Watch article that preceded and evoked Mary Hasson's May 1998 TORCH column. The Mothers Watch article, Homeschoolers: A House Divided, was written by Keeping It Catholic's Marianna Bartold. It addressed the growing lines of division within the Catholic homeschool movement, including TORCH and NACHE's developing policies as well as "homeschool" sacramental guidelines. Clearly, then, the NACHE conference packet did not contain all necessary information.)
Let us begin our examination of the material by looking at the letter from NACHE asking Dr. Clark to appear before the board (n. 4 above). Here the NACHE Board states it would like to discuss with Dr. Clark the following three items:
1. the differences in approach and attitude taken by NACHE and Seton regarding specific bishops and certain diocesan statements for sacramental preparation for homeschooled children;2. Dr. Clark's failure to respond to NACHE board member Mary Hasson's letter in which she asked Dr.Clark to retract certain statements made in the Seton Newsletter;
3. The nature of Dr. Clark's continuing association with Marianna Bartold, who attacked NACHE in print in 1998.
The first item above - NACHE said that "it is untenable that you could hold this view (Dr. Clark had apparently criticized NACHE for its support for diocesan guidelines in regard to home-schooling) and yet continue to attend and profit from our convention" - can be thrown on the basis that NACHE never questions any other vendor on its views regarding sacramental preparation or on its opinions of NACHE. There are Protestant vendors as well as Catholic vendors at the conference. They clearly hold radically different views on bishops and sacramental preparation, yet no one has banned them from the book fair.
The third item above - Dr. Clark's continuing association with Mrs. Bartold - also has no bearing whatsoever on whether Seton should be able to attend the conference. Will the NACHE Board begin questioning other vendors about their associations?
We've had vendors who belong to chapels associated with the Society of St. Pius X, vendors who are Baptists or Methodists; heck, we've probably had vendors who are atheists for all anyone knows. I once put an advertisement in Mrs. Bartold's defunct Magnificat: Does that make me an associate? Dr. Clark doesn't own anyone information about her associations with anyone else unless those associations are made in a public forum.
The second item above - Dr. Clark's failure to respond to Mrs. Hasson's letter gets us close to the real problem. Allow me to review quickly the background to this item. First, in May of 1998, Mrs. Hasson replied in the TORCH newsletter to an eight-page article written in Mothers' Watch, a home-schooling newsletter, that attacked other homeschooling leaders, TORCH, NACHE and some bishops. The Mother's Watch article is not included in the NACHE packet, but it was apparently a strongly worded assault on certain positions held by other groups, opposing, apparently, any guidelines from the bishops regarding home-schoolers and religious education. (KIC NOTE: Pay attention to the word "attacked" and the word "apparently." It is here that Mr. Minick leaves no doubt that he did NOT read the Mothers Watch article before writing this article. A report is not an attack. Therefore, he doesn't know the whole background.). Mrs. Hasson's reply to that article is concise, clear, and angry - perhaps justifiably so. She favors working with the bishops and describes the Mothers Watch article as "riddled with factual errors" and "sheer fantasy." She goes on to write that "all the good motives in the world…don't justify slandering or imputing bad motives to those with whom we disagree." (KIC NOTE: In the year that followed, Mrs. Hasson herself made it very clear she doesn't hold to her self-proclaimed axiom, as, through her, NACHE publicly made accusations against Seton and Marianna Bartold of "collaborating" against TORCH and/or NACHE, and other distressing allegations.)
This TORCH article by Mrs. Hasson prompted a response by Dr. Clark in her Seton Newsletter. In this response, Dr. Clark states that "in reading Mary Hasson's article, one cannot find the slightest hint that parents are the primary educators of their children."
She chides Mrs. Hasson for her seemingly soft stance in regard to home-schooling, parental rights, and diocesan guidelines for sacramental preparation.
Dr. Clark's column subsequently stung Mrs. Hasson into writing a letter directly to Dr. Clark, asking for explanations and amends. She states in her lengthy letter that the Seton article "…damages my reputation and the reputation of NACHE." After explaining again her original position, she asks Dr. Clark to make amends "…and I believe that charity and justice require you to do so." (KIC NOTE: There is absolutely no mention of Fr. Hardon's stance that NACHE's actions were misguided, his intial advice to Dr. Clark to "remain silent and pray," and his May 1999 attempt to intercede with NACHE on behalf of Seton Home Study School and Dr. Clark. How is it that NACHE did NOT include Fr. Hardon's letter urging them to invite Seton? Could they really forget such an imperative piece of "necessary" information when it compiled its information packet?)
So how does this controversy strike me - a teaching home-school dad for 12 years, a Catholic convert for seven years, a book-seller for 22 years, a home-school bookseller for 11 years. How does it look to me? (KIC NOTE: Mr. Minick, with all due respect, the NACHE packet you received did not include all information and that accounts for your personal interpretation of the issue. )
First, let me say that both Mrs. Hasson and Dr. Clark are strong women. Both are the mothers of large families. Both are committed to the faith. Both have established reputations in different field - Mrs. Hasson as an attorney and an educator. Dr. Clark as an entrepeneur and an educator. Both have apparently experienced health problems with their families. In short, both are remarkably similar women of grit with strong opinions.
And this is what we have here: a conflict of opinions and personalities. It is conflict based on hurt feelings and, I suspect, not a little misunderstanding. (KIC NOTE: This is where Mr. Minick himself misunderstands because he was not fully informed. The conflict is not about opinions and strong personalities. It has to do with Church teaching.) The trouble with this conflict is that it has become public. Since it is now public, and since several other people have jumped into the fray, I thought I might offer a few humble injunctions of my own:
To Mrs. Hasson: The Seton article contains nothing damaging to your reputation or to the reputation of NACHE. You are a writer, the coauthor of a fine book, so you are surely aware that by publishing your article in TORCH, you were bringing an issue into the public arena which might be met with a public response. Further, you stated that we should not slander or impute bad motives to those with whom we disagree, so why impute a bad motive to Dr. Clark? (KIC NOTE: Very good observation, Mr. Minick.) People who write public columns should possess thick hides. I urge you to call Dr. Clark personally, invite her out for coffee, and then agree to disagree.
To Dr. Clark: You might have avoided this unfortunate episode, which distressed so many homeschoolers, simply by answering Mrs. Hasson's letter (judging by NACHE's own information packet, it was clearly she who pushed the NACHE Board to act on this matter). You might also have responded more promptly to the letter from NACHE. I urge you to call Mrs. Hasson, get together for coffee, and agree to disagree. (KIC NOTE: Again, be aware there is no mention of Dr. Clark's actions which were to approach NACHE's spiritual advisor, Fr. John Hardon, S.J. Obviously, Mr. Minick did not know about it, because he wrote his article based on information supplied by NACHE...and there were gaping holes in that information.)
To all who claim to be "homeschool leaders": Stop the public bickering and your criticism of one another. Write letters to one another all you wish, but please leave the rest of us out of it. (KIC NOTE: There never was an argument until NACHE itself began attacking those who critiqued their actions in regard to many issues. Before that, there was simply observation and then reporting on issues so as to set them on the table and discuss them. But one cannot discuss anything with NACHE, a group that construes such observation and fraternal concern as a "personal attack.")
To NACHE in particular: Invite all Catholic home-school curricula providers - Our Lady of the Rosary, Our Lady of Victory, Seton Home Study, Kolbe Academy, Our Mother of Grace - to next year's conference. Start over again from there. (KIC NOTE: Good advice, but is it possible this might be a case of "too little, too late"? Is is probable that NACHE, which proved itself so reprehensible in its one year hounding of Seton, its three year refusal to retract calumny against Our Lady of Victory, and its habit of allowing Protestant vendors while trashing fellow Catholics, would possibly have a change of heart now?)
To those curricula providers: If you come to the conference, either keep your complaints to yourself or air them privately with the board members of NACHE. Why come to a conference, make a good amount of money, and then attack those who put the conference together? (KIC NOTE: Where was it ever reported that curricula providers complained to NACHE at a conference? Why is an article defending Catholic Church teaching considered an "attack"? Whatever happened to the spiritual works of mercy - under which fraternal correction falls? And why doesn't NACHE have the humility to accept advice from its own spiritual advisor?)
Finally, to all my fellow Catholic home-schoolers: You are the true leaders of the home-school movement. You are supervisors, principals, and teachers all in one. (KIC NOTE: Very true, which is why Keeping It Catholic founder has always networked with other homeschoolers.) With the possible exception of the Home School Defense League, Protestant and secular groups don't' have national homeschool "leaders"; they have statewide and local support group leaders, guides, writers, and opinion shapers, but no one who claims to speak for all home-schoolers. (KIC NOTE: Yes, Protestants have their own leaders - Mary Pride and Greg Harris, to name only two, and they definitely shape trends in Protestant homeschooling. Here is where Mr. Minick could have pointed out the fundamental difference between Protestants and Catholics --- the Magisterium, which teaches eternal truth to all Catholics, including homeschoolers.) I am not sure how we Catholics came to think that we needed home-school "leaders." (KIC NOTE: Mr. Minick, that is the problem. Nobody thought about it - it just happened.) Too often at my table at conferences, I see some of you quoting a Catholic home-school author and/or a prominent home educator, as if they wielded some enormous authority. Don't be misled; you who start a support group, who devise a new curriculum, who encourage home-schooling in your parish, you are the leaders of home-schooling. Work with your bishops and priests if there is need of such work, attend or help form local support groups, but beware of unelected leaders who claim to speak for you. (KIC NOTE: Here we are in complete agreement with Mr. Minick.)
The Holy Father believes that the new millenium will bring a springtime to the Church. Let's all of us start the big thaw as we head toward that springtime.
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