Houston, What About Religious Education?

At Sunday's mass, we had a pep talk from a certified catechist at our parish, urging parents to sign their children up for the religious education program in preparation for confirmation next Pentecost. He made the point that caring for children includes taking their Catholic formation seriously, and he noted how thankful he is to his own parents for doing this.

I grew up in different times, raised Presbyterian in a confirmation class that said we're not saved by works. I do think that had I had the opportunity to grow up in a conscientious Catholic family with good religious education, I might have responded differently to influences I encountered when I was young, but that would be in an alternate universe, and I have the life I had -- but I can't underestimate in hindsight the value of good catechesis.

But I keep coming back to the pictures of all the children being confirmed at Holy Martyrs Murrieta. Houston has no program for forming and certifying catechists. In our archdiocese, formation for catechists is a three-year program. Where does the North American ordinariate get its catechists? I have an uneasy feeling that at places like Holy Martyrs, the catechist is Mrs Schmidlap, who studied Jane Austen.

But the girls wear chapel veils, so I guess that makes it all OK. I was listening to a recent talk by Jordan Peterson on home schooling. He said he saw more of a point to home schooling than he would have seen 15 years ago, but the real issue is that parents need to communicate with their children and find out what they're actually being taught, and then determine what other options are available if they're needed. This seems like a good general appraisal of parental responsibility in all areas of education.

The question I have is whether the Catholic parents who take their families out of a diocesan parish and have their children confirmed at an ordinariate parish -- and it's hard to avoid thinking this is what happened at Holy Martyrs -- have given any thought to the quality of religious education their children are getting. If they think Mrs Schmidlap, who studied Jane Austen, is an adequate substitute for a certified diocesan catechist, they're neglecting their actual duties as Catholic parents.

And is anyone in Houston paying any attention to the issue of religious education for ordinariate children? Isn't this an area where parents should be getting serious guidance from clergy? Shouldn't the ordinariate be looking at how to provide adequate resources for this duty? This might go as far as suggesting parents send their children to catechism at a nearby diocesan parish, but that, of course, raises the question of what need the ordinariate parish actually fulfills for them.