Religious Instruction of Children

Parents must instruct their children in their religion at home before they are of age to go to school, as well as during the time they attend school or Sunday school.

Before the children are able to go to school or church for instruction, their parents should teach them from infancy, the name of God, how to make the sign of the cross, and the principal prayers.

Whilst the children attend religious instruction at church or at school, the parents must assist them in learning their catechism or make sure that they do learn it, and that they give satisfaction to their instructors. They dare not leave the task wholly to others, not even to the Priest himself, without any concern on their own part.

Parents are the first instructors of their children by the law of God, and have the first responsibility.

If the children should not have the advantage of a parochial or Sunday school, as in remote country places, the parents must assume the task of instruction themselves, as well as they are able, providing themselves with catechisms and other books of instruction; or intrust the task to others better qualified than themselves, but with their own supervision. They must occasionally, however, present the children to the Priest to be examined and to be prepared to receive the sacraments.

Parents should bring their children with them to church. They should not let them go there, as a rule, unattended, especially if they are very small, as they are liable to disbehave themselves there, not yet realizing the sacredness of the place.

Parents must not be content simply to leave their children in charge of their teachers, whether secular or religious. This will do, for example, at the regular children’s Mass and at Sunday school, when it is impossible and undesirable for the parents to attend. But parents must make it a point to bring their children to church with them at other times.

Teachers may watch over the children in their charge to see that they keep quiet; but as these teachers usually have a large number of children under their care they cannot well attend to their individual conduct and devotion. This the parents must attend to themselves by bringing their children with them when they come to p. 68church; showing them how to conduct themselves in the house of God, how to act at the different parts of the Mass and at other services; correcting them each time that they show the slightest irreverence or want of devotion. Children left to themselves in church or even to the watching of a class-teacher only, rarely learn how to conduct themselves properly in church.

See that your children enter church quietly and respectfully; that they take holy water devoutly on entering; that they do not slam the door. See that they make the genuflection properly. See that they walk up the aisle slowly and reverently, not swinging their arms, or in the case of boys, not chewing their hats. See that they kneel and say a prayer before they sit down. See that they kneel, stand and sit properly, bow and strike their breasts devoutly at the proper times. Show them how to use the prayer-book and the beads, and see that they observe what is going on and explain to them the meaning of the various functions after the services are over.

Persons with a few children, or with only one to instruct in this manner, have all they can do besides attending to their own devotions. One in charge of a great number of children cannot perform these duties satisfactorily.

Thus must parents assist, introduce and supplement the work of training and instructing their children, otherwise carried on by the teachers.

Where there is a regular children’s Mass, parents must not permit their children to go to any other, unless accompanied by themselves or other responsible adults and with the approval of the Pastor. In any other case, they must send them to the teachers or to the Pastor for special orders. They must not permit them to go to any Mass of their own accord contrary to Parish regulations.