EPISTLES

Catholic homeschooling could be the answer to the moral and family crisis caused by so-called Catholic schools that often undermine faith and unity. To support my point, here is a story of two traditional Catholic families.

A groundbreaking longitudinal study titled “Wait, Where Did the Grandkids Go?” has sent shockwaves through the world of Catholic academia. The study followed two sets of twelve brothers—the O’Malley clan and the Sterling clan—who began their journeys as identical “blank slates” of robust, altar-serving Catholic boys.

The results suggest that fifteen years of higher education in Catholic schools can be the difference between a flourishing dynasty and a very expensive, highly credentialed dead end.

The O’Malley Dozen: The “Retrograde” Success Story

The twelve O’Malley brothers attended St. Jude’s Institute of Unapologetic Orthodoxy, a school where the cafeteria serves “Meatless Friday Fish” year-round and the most popular extracurricular activity is arguing about the Summa Theologica in the original Latin.

The Metrics:

• Education: All twelve graduated; two hold advanced degrees in Civil Engineering and Bioethics.
• Career: High-functioning members of society, ranging from high-court judges to master carpenters.
• Family: Every brother is married to a woman. Each household averages 4.2 children, resulting in a small army of O’Malleys that currently requires three chartered buses for Thanksgiving dinner.
• Lifestyle: They report high levels of “contentment,” though they admit to being perpetually tired from waking up for 6:00 AM Daily Mass.

“It’s a simple life,” said Thaddeus O’Malley, eldest of the twelve. “We work, we pray the Rosary, we do the Holy Hour on Thursdays, and we try to feed the poor without making a TikTok about it. The school taught us that man was made for God. It turns out, when you believe that, you actually like being a man.”

The Sterling Dozen: The “Enlightened” Collapse

The twelve Sterling brothers, by contrast, were sent to The University of St. Vague-Inspiration, a “progressive” Catholic institution where the crucifixes have been replaced by abstract driftwood and the Theology department focuses primarily on “The Christology of the Kelp Forest.”

The Metrics:

• Education: All twelve hold PhDs in fields ranging from Post-Colonial Interpretive Dance to Gender Fluidity in Medieval Bee-Keeping.
• Career: They are all “highly successful” consultants for non-profits that specialize in writing manifestos about other manifestos.
• The “New” Family Tree: Four of the brothers have transitioned and now go by names like Serafina and Moon-Unit.
• Four are married to men, citing a “sacramental bond of shared skincare routines.”
• The Fertility Crisis: Only four have attempted traditional families; of those, only one managed to produce two children. The rest have settled for “Plant Parenthood” or highly neurotic rescue greyhounds.

“Our education was transformative,” whispered Dr. Julianne (formerly Justin) Sterling, while adjusting a silk scarf. “St. Vague’s taught us that the ‘nature of man’ is a colonial construct. We were cured of the ‘poison’ of our upbringing. Sure, the family line ends with us, and we spend $400 a week on therapy to figure out why we’re miserable, but at least we aren’t bigots who think Sunday is for church instead of bottomless mimosas.”

The study concludes that while both families entered college with the same values, the University of St. Vague-Inspiration successfully “deconstructed” the Sterling boys until there was nothing left to build a life upon.

While the O’Malleys are busy building houses, raising the next generation, and performing works of mercy, the Sterlings are busy checking their privilege and wondering why their $200,000 degrees didn’t come with a sense of purpose.

As Dr. Victor Veritas, lead researcher of the study, noted: “It appears that if you tell a man he is a cosmic accident with no inherent nature for four years, he eventually starts acting like one, while those rooted in tradition consistently outperform their peers in every metric of human survival—it’s almost as if the ‘old way’ actually works.”

Click here to shop for books about Catholic Homeschooling on Amazon.

Dr. Veritas goes on to note that choosing a school today requires extreme vigilance, as a “Catholic” label is no longer a guarantee that a child’s faith will remain intact. Many modern Catholic institutions have been compromised by liberal faculties and woke donors who prioritize secular trends over the Perennial Magisterium, effectively poisoning young minds with ideologies contrary to the nature of man.

“To truly safeguard the souls and future of Catholic children,” he concludes, “Parents must look past the name on the building and demand uncompromising doctrinal fidelity; if such an environment cannot be found, the most effective solution is to homeschool, reclaiming their role as the primary educator to shield the “Domestic Church” from modern confusion by so-called “Catholic establishments”, and ensure a formation rooted deeply in the Sacred Deposit of Faith.”

Why I Am Turning to Catholic Homeschooling

I write this not merely as an observer, but as a father who has been forced to reflect deeply on the future of his own children. After seeing countless families gradually weakened—if not outright broken—by the ideological confusion present in many modern schools, I can no longer treat education as a neutral or purely academic concern. What a child is taught about truth, identity, and purpose will shape not only his mind, but his entire life. That reality has led me to seriously reconsider the path we are taking as a family.

We have three children, and our eldest has mild autism. We initially tried placing him in a regular public school, hoping he would adapt and thrive. Unfortunately, it did not work out. During moments of distress or tantrums, the entire class would be disrupted, and it became clear that the environment was not suited to his needs—or to the learning of others. Private schooling, while potentially more accommodating, is simply not financially viable for us. Faced with these limitations, we made the decision to homeschool him, and it has since become a deeply personal and necessary commitment.

Our two younger children are still enrolled in traditional public schools. For now, at least here in the Philippines, primary education has not yet been overtaken by the more aggressive ideological trends seen elsewhere. However, we are not naïve. We are already planning to homeschool them once they reach secondary level. From what I have observed, that is often where more harmful ideas begin to take root. If I am serious about safeguarding my children—not just academically, but morally and spiritually—then I cannot simply leave their formation to chance.

It is becoming increasingly rare to find truly faithful Catholic schools. Many institutions that bear the Catholic name have, in practice, embraced liberalism—by which I mean an ideology that prioritizes individual autonomy over objective truth, rejects fixed human nature, and reinterprets morality according to shifting cultural trends rather than enduring principles. This stands in direct contrast to what the Church has always taught: that parents are the primary educators of their children. It is our duty to guide their intellectual growth, form their moral conscience, and instruct them in the faith. Schools and society are meant to assist in this mission, not replace us. This is the responsibility my wife and I are striving to reclaim, inspired by the example of families like the O’Malleys, and cautious of the path taken by the Sterlings.

Click here to shop for books about Catholic Homeschooling on Amazon.