Schoharie parents are teachers, too

Colin, Madaline and Jack don't call their religious education teacher at St. Joseph's parish in Schoharie "Mrs. Kenyon."

They call her "Mom."

For the past six years, St. Joseph's has been training parents to be the primary catechists for their own children. Families get together at the parish once a month so that children can get a group lesson from a catechist and parents can hear from a guest speaker. The other three weeks, the parents teach their kids at home, using a program that is based Bible readings.

Parents first

"We're a small parish," said faith formation director Pat Clancy. "We recognized that it was difficult to get catechists on a weekly basis. We thought that we needed to do something to reach the kids and the parents."

Besides, she said, parents agree to be their children's primary catechists when the children are baptized into the Church, promising to raise them in the Catholic faith.

The parish program formalizes that promise.

Increases

When the program first began, Mrs. Clancy recalled, some of the parents protested.

"There were some adults who said, 'I don't need to be educated any more.' But over time, [interest] has grown -- and one thing that has grown is love of the Church," she said.

Though the program started with 22 families, 35 families now participate, with 75 children from kindergarten through 11th grade.

Involvement

Mrs. Clancy said that nearly all of those families are now involved in other parish ministries, as well.

"This has brought younger adults into the Church in a new way," she stated. Parents who are catechists feel they need to lead by example, so they volunteer to be Eucharistic ministers, sing in the choir or pitch in at a pasta dinner.

"I'm not sure this sort of atmosphere would have occurred if there was somebody teaching our kids for ten weeks a year," Mrs. Clancy said of traditional religious ed programs. "This builds a religious and a family life."

Taking charge

Terry Kenyon, mother of Jack (13), Madaline (10) and Colin (8), noted that when she was growing up, religious education "was done for me."

Being responsible for catechizing her own children, she said, "made me sit down and make sure they understand what we're doing every week: getting them to think about what the readings were about and connecting that to real-life things."

Now, she wouldn't have it any other way. In fact, the Kenyons live in Duanesburg but travel to Schoharie because they prefer the family-centered approach.

"We all come together," she explained, "so it's not like [religious ed] being done to them. We're participating."

Family together

Mrs. Clancy has seen similar results in her own family. When her 11-year-old daughter, Taylor, recently had to answer a homework question on "Who in your family gives you religious guidance?" Taylor could proudly answer that both her parents do. Her father, Colm Kennedy, also attends the family religious ed sessions.

"We see a lot of that -- both parents coming to faith formation," Mrs. Clancy noted. In addition, "a lot of families [catechize] as a family, so you have an older sibling saying to a younger one, 'I know what this means, so I can help.'"

Mrs. Kenyon's children sometimes resist the idea of being taught by their mother, but she tells them, "You have a responsibility to the Church, and this is part of it."

Faith "is not just one hour a week; it's your whole life," she added. "I think that getting that message across is most important."

("This [format] gives me an opportunity to touch my child about my belief in God," says Pat Clancy. "I haven't heard from anyone, 'I can't teach my child.'" When the clergy sexual abuse crisis hit the news, Terry Kenyon was happy to be the one educating her children about it through a family discussion during religious ed at home. "That's my responsibility," she said. "I don't want anyone else doing that. I want them to understand what the Church is saying.")

(11/3/05) [[In-content Ad]]