DIOCESAN NEWS:

Position Paper

or More Homeschooling Policies?

Seven Torch/NACHE members are currently collaborating with the Arlington, Virginia diocese in writing a "position paper" on Catholic homeschooling. Records from the Diocese of Arlington's chancery office confirmed that the main participants (who were called members of the "committee") at an early December 2000 meeting are affiliated with a local chapter of TORCH.

 

A spokesman for the diocese defined TORCH as "the" (not "a") support group for Roman Catholic homeschoolers." The TORCH/diocesan committee members are Bill and Lisanne Bales (also NACHE board members), Mary Hasson (NACHE board, previously TORCH national board), Patrick and Joann Mooney (TORCH leaders and past NACHE fair organizers), and Bruce and Marsha Jacobeen (TORCH).

 

One of the suggestions from the TORCH committee included a request for various forms of assistance from the Catholic schools. These requests are very similar to the outlines propagated by the early 1996 'study group' meetings in the diocese of Pittsburgh, which included Kimberly Hahn (now a NACHE board member).

 

Suggestions at that time included access to "Family Life Centers, networking homeschoolers at a diocesan level; teacher-in-service days for parents by religious educators; learning centers; options for ministry from home-schoolers in the diocese." (See Mothers Watch, April 1998 article: A House Divided article.)

 

As reported in the spring of 1998 in the House Divided article: "These groups {TORCH and NACHE] have put themselves in positions of authority, deciding what is best for homeschooling families and working covertly with dioceses to construct guidelines which will affect others." As of February 2001, none of the recent TORCH or NACHE newsletters have mentioned the work of TORCH/NACHE members in the Arlington Diocese.

 

 The Arlington committee agreed that the first point of business should be communications between the diocese and Catholic homeschooling families. To initiate this objective, the Superintendent of Catholic Schools as well as a priest plan to draft a position paper on Catholic homeschooling. They will be consulting homeschool policy statements written by other archdioceses. The first draft was to be presented to the committee in February; after revisions are made to the draft, it will be submitted to the committee some time afterward for a final review. It is only after the final draft is completed that the committee plans to ask others for their commentary. There was no specific information as to who the others might be.

 

The committee is especially looking to the 1998 Archdiocese of Baltimore booklet, "Homeschooling - A Gift to the Church," which claims it is "pastoral in natural rather than a compilation of policies." The Baltimore diocese is under the auspices of William Cardinal Keeler with whom NACHE board members Mary Hasson and Kimberly Hahn are working closely. It is NACHE's intention to pursue status as a Church-recognized "lay organization of the faithful" for homeschoolers. NACHE's actions were reported by KIC months before NACHE itself made the announcement. In 1998, NACHE's pursuit of such status became a foundation of serious debate among Catholic homeschoolers nationwide.