Priestly vocations are most likely to flourish among the homeschooled, according to a US study.
The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (Cara), a research institute at Georgetown University, found that young American men who had been homeschooled were four times more likely to enter seminaries than those educated in Catholic institutions.
Although the number of home-schooled American Catholics is small – just 100,000 are being homeschooled at the moment, compared to two million in Catholic schools – it was this minority which provided eight per cent of young men on course for ordination.
On average, they had spent seven years being homeschooled. Sixteen was the average age of discerning a vocation to the priesthood.
Full story at Catholic Herald UK.
Reasons:
1. Larger families. It’s not unusual for homeschooling families to have 6-8 children.
2. Catholic faith is taken seriously by parents, and they attend churches where Mass is celebrated reverently. The families are pious and instill personal habits of prayer and devotion in their children as well as morality. They also instruct their children well about the faith.
3. Parents encourage their children to consider whether God is calling them to a religious vocation, and they are proud to have a child say he is called.
4. The kids aren’t corrupted by public school, Catholic school, nor mediocre parishes.
This is very encouraging news. Since many so called Catholic schools no longer proclaim the true Catholic faith in many of these schools where would our Priests and vocations come from. Obviously according to this article the vocations to the Priesthood are coming from home schools. It is vitally important that we encourage more home schooling and we prepare parents and encourage them to home school their children to avoid the diabolical anti catholic graphic sex education which is nothing more than indoctrination. Pray to protect the precious souls of our innocent children by giving families other alternatives like home schooling. Protect your children’s eternal future by home schooling them. Pray America Pray. Pray Pray Pray!
Praise and thanks to the Lord.
This is true!! Wonderfu!!
Would be nice to know when and where photo was taken. Also nice to identify who are women in photo. Some appear to be nuns [second row in white]. The others? Haven’t changed that rule yet, have they??
The photo was taken at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park. Not all the people in the photo are seminarians, but most of them are.
Tells us something is wrong with our Catholic schools.
Robert Lockwood: I believe your
observation is correct. Sad but true.
It will be interesting if/when someone does a study of the “longevity” of the vocations post-ordination for the homeschooled versus others.
This could be good news. I hope it is. The priesthood is a true vocation. Years ago they would pluck the kids after eighth grade and send them to “seminaries” for high school and then move them into the major seminary. It produced a lot of priests who had no experience in the real world and created a sub-culture of highly educated people who could not relate to their parishioners. So, the growth of clericalism. Some were outstanding pastors. I believe you can’t get in the seminary now without a debt free undergraduate degree. I think seminarians should have worked in the real world for three or four years, had a couple of girl friends, done volunteer work, etc. before we lock them up for seven years.
Actually Bob One this is good news,
Amen to what Bob One said!!!!
Admin All I suggested is generally identifying the women in the picture. Also in what year was the photo taken?
I totally agree that seminarians need secular world experience.