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Sacramental
Guideline Examples
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Excerpts
from Boise, ID Guidelines with Commentary
Parents
Are Not Denying Rights of the Church
Cardinal
Gagnon on Catechesis
Authentic
Doctrine
Keeping It
Catholic
wishes to provide
just two guideline examples
(Boise and Chicago) so that
parents may compare them (and similar guidelines) against
Church documents. The excerpted examples (i.e., the
guidelines are not presented in their entirety) and our
commentaries follow:
From Boise, ID:
Be active in your
parish religious education program. Home schoolers may
include religious education programs with materials
approved by the diocese but should not isolate themselves
from their parish programs. Sacramental preparation must
be done through parish programs.
2. Utilize Catholic religious
education programs approved by our Bishop for home
religious instruction. All parish religious education
programs have this approved list.
3. Please note that our bishops
have not endorsed a Catholic home schooling program.
The
issue of an official home schooling
program based on
Vatican II and the new Catechism of the Catholic Church is
currently being addressed at the national
level.
Keeping
It Catholic Commentary:
In reference to Boise, ID
guideline number 1
above: Parents are
not
required to enroll their children in any parish religious
education program. Children are
not
required to prepare for the sacraments via parish programs.
It is true to say that while
parents retain their natural rights to teach their children,
they must follow the authentic doctrinal teachings provided
by the Magisterium of the Church.
Guidelines, policy statements, and
procedures in and of themselves
do not fall into
the category of the infallible Magisterium.
The Charter of the Rights of the Family
(Article 5 a and 5 b) states:
"Parents have the
right to educate their children in conformity with their
moral and religious conviction...parents have the right
to freely choose schools or other means necessary to
educate their children in keeping with their
convictions."
In fact, Canon
799 demands that education be
available "in accord with the conscience of
the parents." Also,
Canon 791.3
recognizes that parental duty
to teach extends to "...the right to select
those means and institutions suitable for
Catholic education."
The means are the books;
the institution would be the homeschool if the parents so
choose. As long as the books used for catechesis
contain authentic
Catholic doctrine,
neither the books nor the
institution (in this case, the home school) can be opposed
or burdened by extraordinary guidelines.
Further, marriage itself
in an institution. The
Catechism of the
Catholic Church
proclaims:
1639 The
consent by which the spouses mutually give and receive
one another is sealed by God himself. From their
convenent arises "an
institution,
confirmed by the divine law...even in the eyes of
society." (Note: the reference within the catechism
refers to GS 48 s.1) The covenant between the spouses
is integrated into God's covenant with man: "Authentic
married love is caught up into divine love." (Note:
reference to GS 48 s.2)
1641 By
reason of their state in life and of their order,
[Christian spouses] have their own special gifts
in the People of God. This grace proper to the sacrament
of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and
to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace
they can "help one another to attain holiness in their
married life and in
welcoming and educating
their children."
Parents are
not trying to deny the Church her rights. They understand
that religious education is subject to
legitimate Church
supervision. The question now is what is and
what is not a legitimate form of supervision.
Catechesi Trandendae (Nos. 67 and 68), written
by Pope John Paul II, says,
"...that the parish community must
continue to be the prime move and pre-eminent place for
catechesis" and then continues,
"In short,
without monopolizing or enforcing
uniformity, the parish
remains, as I have said, the pre-eminent place for
catechesis."
This means the Church may assist parents without
monopolizing or enforcing uniformity. This does not
give the parish the right to put burdens on parents or to
usurp parental rights, especially in the name of
"community." To suggest homeschoolers are not members of the
Catholic community is grossly unfair and unjust. To
sacrifice individual needs or refer those rights in the name
of the community is also wrong. The law of subsidiarity
still applies.
Even further,
Edouard Cardinal Gagnon, while President of the Pontifical
Council for the Family, said:
But while the Canon
states that the Pastor should judge about the fitness of
a child's preparation for the reception of Confirmation
and Eucharist (Canons 890, 914), it also requires that
the pastor's judgement be made
together with the
parents. This
judgement is to be based not on the arbitrary criteria of
the pastor but upon the truths of the Faith and
legitimately
established norms."
The role of the pastor,
therefore, is to give a service of assistance by
providing the parents with the means for form their
child. The parents,
however, are not
obliged to accept
this assistance if
they prefer to exercise exclusively their obligation and
right to educate their own children. (Note:
This is a natural right and is not altered by the rights
of the Church, e.g., Canons 793 and 794, 914)
Cardinal Gagnon continued:
In times past, parents
were only too happy to be assisted by the Catholic school
system in the formation of their children. Now, however,
it is no longer the case
in many a diocese
where Catholic
schools are permitted
to use certain catechetical
texts, which though
bearing an imprimatur,
are gravely deficient
in following the Magisterium.
To continue in reference to
Boise, ID guideline #2: Again, any
catechetical books that contain the Catholic Church's
authentic doctrine are acceptable. If such religious text
meets this criteria of containing Church doctrine, they
cannot be rejected (as some do to the Baltimore
Catechism, for example) by making the claim they are
"not in the spirit of Vatican II" or "not on the diocese's
approved list."
Authentic
doctrine is that which is approved under the authority of
the Pope. Books that contain watered-down
doctrine, or - even worse - hardly address matters of faith
and morals are not acceptable for either the parish or the
home for catechetical use. As Cardinal Gagnon claimed, there
are
catechetical texts which are gravely deficient in following
the Magisterium.
Some dioceses either suggest or
outright claim that all catechisms prior to the new
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) are
defective.
This is the same as proclaiming that the Church erred when
it allowed any catechism before the new CCC to be
promulgated. To suggest the Church could err in in her
doctrines and defined dogmas at any time is wrong.
Therefore, it still remains true that parents have the right
to choose those means they find suitable, and this includes
any catechisms
promulgated by the
Church at
any
time in
history.
It is also wrong to suggest that
the Church did not exist before Vatican II. Neither should
it be implied that any catechisms before Vatican II were not
orthodox, sound or doctrinal. The Church existed
before
and
after
any councils, including the Council of Trent!
In addition, many Vatican II
documents themselves (and those that followed Vatican II)
consistently address
and
affirm
the rights of parents to
educate their children religiously, civilly, morally,
academically, etc. Such documents include The Charter of
the Rights of the Family, Letter to Families, the Code of
Canon Law, Catechesi Tradendae, and Familiaris
Consortio.
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