Find more on Catholic homeschooling by clicking on the sections below. Following the Index you’ll find more on what the Catholic Church teaches about homeschooling.

Every Catholic home schooling family is making a statement that we are going to take the responsibility given to us by God and we are going to take it seriously.

The Catholic Church holds the teaching that marriage was raised to the level of a Sacrament by Jesus Christ:

MATTHEW 19: 4-7 and 13-14
“Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one’?[a] 6 So they are no longer two but one.[b] What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder.”

13 Then children were brought to him that he might lay his hands on them and pray. The disciples rebuked the people; 14 but Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

Clark notes that both Matthew and Mark (Mk 10:2-12) include the little children gathering around Jesus after he talks about marriage, the disciples rebuking those kids, and Jesus settling the matter and telling them to let the children come to him. These stories show how important children are to the Church despite of the lengths that some in the Church go to keep them from knowing Christ and their faith. This, she argues, is why it’s fundamental that parents become their children’s primary educators.

The vocation of parents to educate

As Clark puts it, “Not only do the Scriptures and the Catholic teachings support home schooling, in many situations they seem to command [it]. Historically, traditionally, and doctrinally, the Catholic Church strongly promotes, not just supports, parents teaching their own children” (p45).

She then includes the Vatican’s “instructions” to the bishops re:Catholic children attending public schools that she states also apply to them attending Catholic schools (because “Catholic Schools are in many ways very similar to public schools [as] they have no Catholic textbooks).

In sum, parents who allow their children to frequent schools where it is impossible to avoid the loss of souls… according to Catholic moral teaching, cannot receive absolution in the Sacrament of Penance.

Read more from the Instructions set in that Encyclical:

This method (of public education) has appeared intrinsically dangerous and absolutely contrary to Catholicism. Indeed because the special program adapted by these schools excludes all religious instruction, the pupils cannot grasp the elements of the faith, nor are they instructed in the precepts of the Church, and therefore they are deprived of that which is most essential for man to know and without which it is impossible to live in a Christian manner.

The fact that in these schools, or at least in the majority of them, the adolescents of both sexes are grouped together in the same classrooms to attend lessons, and boys and girls must sit together on the same benches, exposes them to corruption to a certain extent. The result of all of this is that youth is unfortunately in danger of losing its faith, while its good morals are threatened.

This instruction and this necessary Christian education of their children is often neglected by those parents who allow their children to frequent schools where it is impossible to avoid the loss of souls or who, notwithstanding the existence of a well-organized neighborhood Catholic school ..., entrust them to the public schools without sufficient reason and without having taken the necessary precautions to avoid the danger of perversion; it is a well-known fact that, according to Catholic moral teaching, such parents, should they persist in their attitude, cannot receive in the Sacrament of Penance.

Clark clarifies that the Catholic Church has “always opposed co-education in the schools.”

“The total curriculum must be Godly” and “All their teaching should occur in an atmosphere of Christian piety”:

15. That is why We strongly encourage you to keep the schools in the fullness of the faith or to restore this fullness if necessary, and to bestow your cares on old as well as new schools, not only on primary schools but also on secondary schools and on colleges. As for the rest of the Catholics in your country, they should strive to preserve safe and intact the rights of the parents and those of the Church in the teaching of youth.

16. These are the things to ensure on this point. First, Catholics should not choose mixed schools but have their own schools especially for children. They should choose excellent and reputable teachers for them. For an education in which religion is altered or non-existent is a very dangerous education. We often see both cases occurring in mixed schools. No one should be ready to believe that instruction and piety can be separated with impunity. In effect, if it is true that We cannot exempt ourselves from the duty of religion at any period of life, in private or public affairs, so much the less should this duty be omitted at any age which is thoughtless, in which the spirit is ardent and exposed to so many inducements to evil.

17. To organize teaching in such a way as to remove it from all contact with religion is therefore to corrupt the very seeds of beauty and honor in the soul. It is to prepare, not defenders of the nation, but a plague and a scourge for the human race. Once God is suppressed, what can keep young people dutiful or recall them when they have strayed from the path of virtue and fall into the abyss of vice?

18. Secondly, it is necessary to teach religion to children, but not only at specified times. All their teaching should occur in an atmosphere of Christian piety. If it is otherwise, if this sacred inspiration does not penetrate the spirits of the teachers and of the students, the instruction will produce only little fruit and will often even have seriously harmful consequences. Every discipline has its own dangers and the young people will not know how to avoid them unless certain divine restraints are imposed on their intelligence and their heart. So We must beware that the essential thing, the practice of justice and piety, not be relegated to second place .... The knowledge of many subjects should always go hand in hand with the care of the spirit. Religion should give shape and direction to all branches of knowledge. Its majesty and sweetness should strike home and inspire the souls of the young.

On the Christian education of young people

34. The wisdom of the Church in this matter is expressed with precision and clearness in the Codex of Canon Law, can. 1113: "Parents are under a grave obligation to see to the religious and moral education of their children, as well as to their physical and civic training, as far as they can, and moreover to provide for their temporal well-being." [23]

The 1929 Encyclical Christian Education of Youth (Divini Illius Magistri) is, according to Clark, “the most powerful Catholic Church document commanding parental responsibility in the education of their children:

On the family’s education, also from the Christian Education of Youth

We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education. The offices and professions of a transitory and earthly life, which are certainly of far less importance, are prepared for by long and careful study; whereas for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children, many parents have little or no preparation, immersed as they are in temporal cares. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency, prevalent almost everywhere today, which, under one pretext or another, for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics, causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years. And there is a country where the children are actually being torn from the bosom of the family, to be formed (or, to speak more accurately, to be deformed and depraved) in godless schools and associations, to irreligion and hatred, according to the theories of advanced socialism; and thus is renewed in a real and more terrible manner the slaughter of the Innocents.

Only Christian education is perfect:

7. It is therefore as important to make no mistake in education, as it is to make no mistake in the pursuit of the last end, with which the whole work of education is intimately and necessarily connected. In fact, since education consists essentially in preparing man for what he must be and for what he must do here below, in order to attain the sublime end for which he was created, it is clear that there can be no true education which is not wholly directed to man's last end, and that in the present order of Providence, since God has revealed Himself to us in the Person of His Only Begotten Son, who alone is "the way, the truth and the life," there can be no ideally perfect education which is not Christian education.

Family rights in education cannot be violated:

32. The family therefore holds directly from the Creator the mission and hence the right to educate the offspring, a right inalienable because inseparably joined to the strict obligation, a right anterior to any right whatever of civil society and of the State, and therefore inviolable on the part of any power on earth.

33. That this right is inviolable St. Thomas proves as follows: The child is naturally something of the father . . . so by natural right the child, before reaching the use of reason, is under the father's care. Hence it would be contrary to natural justice if the child, before the use of reason, were removed from the care of its parents, or if any disposition were made concerning him against the will of the parents. [21]

And as this duty on the part of the parents continues up to the time when the child is in a position to provide for itself, this same inviolable parental right of education also endures. "Nature intends not merely the generation of the offspring, but also its development and advance to the perfection of man considered as man, that is, to the state of virtue" [22] says the same St. Thomas. (Emphasis my own.)

Pastors are to warn parents of their obligations to their children’s education:

74. For the love of Our Savior Jesus Christ, therefore, we implore pastors of souls, by every means in their power, by instructions and catechisms, by word of mouth and written articles widely distributed, to warn Christian parents of their grave obligations. And this should be done not in a merely theoretical and general way, but with practical and specific application to the various responsibilities of parents touching the religious, moral and civil training of their children, and with indication of the methods best adapted to make their training effective, supposing always the influence of their own exemplary lives.

The school is COMPLEMENTARY to family and Church:

77. Since however the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society, and since the family of itself is unequal to this task, it was necessary to create that social institution, the school. But let it be borne in mind that this institution owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church, long before it was undertaken by the State. Hence considered in its historical origin, the school is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to, but in positive accord with those other two elements, and form with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church....

The Code of Canon Law has strong words vindicating parents who want to educate their children

The following are key canon statements on parents’ rights and responsibilities in their kids’ education in all subjects, incl. in their Sacramental prep:

Canon 226.2
§2. Since they have given life to their children, parents have a most grave obligation and possess the right to educate them. Therefore, it is for Christian parents particularly to take care of the Christian education of their children according to the doctrine handed on by the Church.

Canon 774.2
§2. Parents above others are obliged to form their children by word and example in faith and in the practice of Christian life; sponsors and those who take the place of parents are bound by an equal obligation.

-AND-

Canon 776
By virtue of his function, a pastor is bound to take care of the catechetical formation of adults, youth, and children, to which purpose he is to use the help of the clerics attached to the parish, of members of institutes of consecrated life and of societies of apostolic life, taking into account the character of each institute, and of lay members of the Christian faithful, especially of catechists. None of these are to refuse to offer their help willingly unless they are legitimately impeded. The pastor is to promote and foster the function of parents in the family catechesis mentioned in can. 774, §2.

Canon 793.1
§1. Parents and those who take their place are bound by the obligation and possess the right of educating their offspring. Catholic parents also have the duty and right of choosing those means and institutions through which they can provide more suitably for the Catholic education of their children, according to local circumstances.

Canon 835.4
... Parents share in a particular way in this function by leading a conjugal life in a Christian spirit and by seeing to the Christian education of their children.

Canon 1134
... Moreover, a special sacrament strengthens and, as it were, consecrates the spouses in a Christian marriage for the duties and dignity of their state.

Canon 1136
Can. 1136 Parents have the most grave duty and the primary right to take care as best they can for the physical, social, cultural, moral, and religious education of their offspring.

St. Pope John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio

“Perhaps the most important modern document for home schooling families,” Clark writes, “is the apostolic exhortation The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World, or Familiaris Consortio, published in 1981.

She continues: “This encyclical should serve as a basis for greater study by Catholic home schooling parents as we grow in a deeper understanding of the Sacrament of Matrimony and the graces and duties of the married state.”

He proclaims that:

36. The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married couples to participate in God's creative activity: by begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled, "since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs."[99].

The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; and it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others.

In addition to these characteristics, it cannot be forgotten that the most basic element, so basic that it qualifies the educational role of parents, is parental love, which finds fulfillment in the task of education as it completes and perfects its service of life: as well as being a source, the parents' love is also the animating principle and therefore the norm inspiring and guiding all concrete educational activity, enriching it with the values of kindness, constancy, goodness, service, disinterestedness and self-sacrifice that are the most precious fruit of love. 

It is obvious that home schooling parents need to be sure that they themselves are developing these Christian virtues, and that their children are developing them also [so that] we can bring them to our society. Pope JPII continued in this encyclical to emphasize the educational priority of the parents by calling it a “mission”:

38. For Christian parents the mission to educate, a mission rooted, as we have said, in their participation in God's creating activity, has a new specific source in the sacrament of marriage, which consecrates them for the strictly Christian education of their children: that is to say, it calls upon them to share in the very authority and love of God the Father and Christ the Shepherd, and in the motherly love of the Church, and it enriches them with wisdom, counsel, fortitude and all the other gifts of the Holy Spirit in order to help the children in their growth as human beings and as Christians.

The sacrament of marriage gives to the educational role the dignity and vocation of being really and truly a "ministry" of the Church at the service of the building up of her members. So great and splendid is the educational ministry of Christian parents that Saint Thomas has no hesitation in comparing it with the ministry of priests. ...

A vivid and attentive awareness of the mission that they have received with the sacrament of marriage will help Christian parents to place themselves at the service of their children's education with great serenity and trustfulness, and also with a sense of responsibility before God, who calls them and gives them the mission of building up the Church in their children....