Revised 9/28/24  Angels weekend  st michael’s feast day  10/11/24    Feast of St Callistus I, Oct 14 revision  Revised  10/1/2025

All good things come from God”  ~Deacon Rick on St Michael’s Feast day/Sunday

Basic Truth: “EVERY Catholic family homeschools their child from birth. Every parent.”

Cardinal McElroy and other beloved Bishops, Priests and laity:

Here’s my simple offer:

Your excellency, Cardinal McElroy, I offer to help for free should you convene a meeting to get it ALL out on the table.  I’ll bring refreshments, just tell me the expected number. 

I recommend you find ground zero, choose the parish where most of the “tension” is centered and give me a chance to refill the hole you are digging.   Absolutely no arrogance, just humbly offering because unity and peace both need hard work to attain.   Attaining parish, let alone world peace, is more than a beauty pageant line. 

It IS attainable and then maybe more time to address other less important issues of declining parish attendance, 150 Catholic hospitals nationally performing satanic rituals on young daughters, spaying them like junkyard dogs and turning them into suicidal eunuchs who can’t nurse the child she will never see born from her womb.  Minor diocesan issues like that.     In His service,  Len   40 year homeschooling dad of 11

The time is now for candid discussions and dialogue as the Church attempts to  follow Christ’s admonition to Giovanni at San Damiano:  “rebuilt My Church”.  In fact, to “build back better” makes sense.  One anecdotal

Some people I know approached their Orange County parish school recently about enrolling their kindergartener in the school. In their discussions, they found out the school does not have daily Mass, something that makes sense for a Catholic school attached to a parish church. When queried, the administrator said “they don’t because we don’t want to offend our non-Catholic students and their families.”

Let that sink in: the Cardinal doesn’t want “competition” for his parish schools; homeschooling is a different choice but significantly different than a parish based facilities and team, although competition is not an evil thing.

Like the real example above, we open our CATHOLIC schools to other faiths, but don’t want to offend the Shieks or zoroastrians or muslims or jews by being a Catholic institution doing Catholic things.

Needless to say, the mom was not happy and gave words to the administrators they were interviewing.

Cardinal, you’re in need of some serious fact finding and research before you lose more people.

Still hoping “school choice” can be prodded into place in California, because the billions being spent on transgender operations managers, etc is frankly evil at its core.  The money is the people, Catholic and otherwise, and the parents should direct where their funds go.  Even $10,000 of the $26K spent yearly on ANY student claiming to be Californian would do wonders for all schools including Catholic parish, alternatives etc.

 

 

 

=========new material since first publication+++++++==========================

“Following up on the initial announcements (banning homeschoolers from parish property), Cardinal McElroy issued a statement in October suggesting home schooling is providing “a parallel educational model” with Catholic schools that the diocese can’t and shouldn’t endorse.”

Wow, would someone take his XLNC’s giant shovel away from him before he hurts himself and more of his deeply Catholic parishioners.  The ancient canon rule applies: “when you are digging the hole way too deep, stop digging.”

“He expressed concern about home-school cooperatives “seeking to establish programs on parish sites” that include “religious formation or sacramental preparation programs within the parish setting that are dedicated specifically for home-school students.” 

Another oops! Oh my! Catholic parents teaching Catholic faith ON THE SACRED grounds of a San Diego parish. 

Truth IS told: homeschool families DO teach faith, religion, physics, Latin often, French sometimes, analytic geometry, GOOD science  and other core subjects.

  For the misunderstood Cardinal’s edification, when Donna and I were DRE, FFdirs & youth ministry staff at different parishes in the Orange diocese, though our 11 were domicilic schooled in basic Catholic teachings, we registered our kids in the appropriate religious ed levels AT our parish.  We didn’t hide out from the parish because it was OUR parish.  In fact, we worked twice as hard to meld well, and support the other educational alternatives (parish school, Spanish religious ed and our DRE&YM responsibilities at St Anthony Claret, for example).  We looked at the parish as a lot more than education. Most homeschool families today do as well.

“According to the cardinal, this “has become a source of tension within the diocese.”

Tension is something capable adults can deal with, especially if they dialogue with the others with different opinions of what defines a parish. 

Tension is not evil necessarily; without tension, a guitar or piano emits noise not succinct harmonious notes.  Tension, like pain, can signal something else is going on.  When on St Michael’s feast day Sept 29th this year, what I thought was heartburn turned out to be a blessing: I had a rolling mild heart attack.  By 11 o clock Monday, Kaiser’s Dr Ravi Shankar cardiologist and his “cath” lab team spent 30 minutes going up my wrist artery, unblocking (thankfully only one blockage) an artery at the heart, installing a stent and rolling me out for the next angiogram recipient.  I watched the whole thing and Dr Ravi (NOT the Beatles’ sitar player) only once said “Len, shut up”.  I did.  Technology like tension can be a blessing if USED FOR GOOD.

“But the new policy goes beyond religious education, barring all home-school programs from parish property.

Cardinal McElroy said the diocese’s presbyteral council (which includes the bishops and several priests of the diocese) voted 13-1 in favor of the new policy banning home-schoolers around mid-September and that he approved it.

My uninformed guess is the presbyters did NOT have any dads and moms with 5, 7 or 11 kids to offer wisdom before the Monty Python pronouncement, to hear their joys AND struggles before the gavel resounded “OFF with their heads”. 

 Do THEY have a clue they are stewards, not landlords, of God’s generous previous generations who built most of the school buildings on parish plots.  In Orange, for example and for 501c3 reasons, the RCBO, Roman Catholic Bishop of Orange, owns the 143 properties throughout the outlined Orange County.  Yet, like the Sistine Chapel& Pope Francis, our beloved Bishop Vann can’t take them to heaven to put adjacent to the mansion God will build for him.

“The Diocese supports the decision of a growing number of parents to choose home schooling for their children.

Really?  Talk seems to be inexpensive these days.  Instead of embracing this successful change paralleling similar changes to our society, we see marginalization as a by-product of ignorance.

“At the same time this support does not include a right for basing integral elements of home-schooling programs in parish settings. Home schooling is not inherently a ministry of the parish,” Cardinal McElroy said his statement. “As a consequence, home-school programs will not be provided designated special access to the parish facilities of the Diocese of San Diego.”

Are homeschooled Catholic families allowed to attend Mass and even put a few coins in the collection basket under this foolish ban?  Does his eminence have a clue how interrelated so many homeschool families already are in parish family life with other parishioners? Is the Knights of Columbus, or alcoholics anonymous, maybe MOMS programs, scouting (if not banned yet) and other excellent groups allowed usage WHEN available.  Why not members of the diocese and/or parish?

“The new statement from Cardinal McElroy follows on the earlier announcement from the diocese that home-school programs are barred from using parish facilities “both because such usage can undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools and lead people to think that the Church is approving and advancing particular alternative schools and programs.”

She told Cardinal McElroy that she offered him her letter in the spirit of what she described as the cardinal’s “many words you have spoken in support of a listening, synodal Church.”

“I know that you are committed to listening to those on the margins, whose voices are not often heard by the leaders of the institutional Church, and that you value the opinions of the women who too often sit silently in the pews,” she wrote. “I feel confident that you will read this message graciously and respond with the loving heart of a good shepherd.”

(Mrs.) Harold told the Register that her letter has gotten about 250 co-signers, most of them women.

“The NCRegister asked a spokesman for the diocese for comment on the letter Thursday morning, but did not hear back by publication. The Register has also asked for an interview with a diocesan official about the new home-schooling policy but has not yet heard back.”  Sadly, as usual.

 

 

 

Previously:=========================================================

It’s time we had this discussion as a Church, not fiefdoms of special interests and moat surrounded programs.

To use an agricultural analogy, stop digging the hole deeper; the better analogous comparison, comes from tennis: stop these unforced errors no one needs, especially your dioceses’ struggling Catholic families trying to eck out a living during hell’s reign in the Obamanation of Desolators’ DC.…Meanwhile with a hierarchy trying to heal from mortal wounds of a small minority of self-inflicted sinfulness.  IF currently, any clerical abuse is happening, OR any lay illicit divorce, STOP IT NOW!! The cost is too high and climbing.  BUT STOP! As if our ETERNITIES depend on it. 

They do!

This dad thinks the Sunday of Medad and Eldad in Moses/Joshua’s time is perfect to follow the firestorm of ignorance started  Thurs.  Cardinal McElroy, please reflect on these words and look in the same mirror we ALL must look in: 

“It’s NOT about me,” popularized in the youth ministry anagram “Forget about Me, I love You”.  The anagram for FAMiLY

“Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp, “
Joshua, son of Nun, who from his youth had been Moses’ aide, said,
“Moses, my lord, stop them.”
But Moses answered him,
“Are you jealous for my sake?
Would that all the people of the LORD were prophets!
Would that the LORD might bestow his spirit on them all!”   

Jesus in the Gospel echoes this sentiment well; others, when they teach Truth should not be denied.  In English, NOT locked out of our parishes because they are the unwashed homeschoolers not fitting the mold of the 1960s thru today.

THERE IS ROOM FOR ALL OF OUR CHILDREN IN THE 3D PARISH BOUNDARIES; WE JUST NEED ROOM IN THE HEARTS OF THE PRELATES AND PAROCHIAL PARENTS.

At that time, John said to Jesus,
“Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name,
and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us.”
Jesus replied, “Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.
Anyone who gives you a cup of water to drink
because you belong to Christ,
amen, I say to you, will surely not lose his reward.

“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,
it would be better for him if a great millstone
were put around his neck
and he were thrown into the sea.

Your excellency, I forgive your misunderstanding what the rejuvenated homeschooling movement of the last decades is all about.  I believe you have been steered by others who ARE ignorant.  Homeschooling was blossoming already and just accelerated via Covid, the Lock Outs of the 2020s and the turning away from solid Catholic teaching

Jesus continued to call for a return to purity, precision and truth telling:

“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.
It is better for you to enter into life maimed
than with two hands to go into Gehenna,
into the unquenchable fire.
And if your foot causes you to sin, cut if off.
It is better for you to enter into life crippled
than with two feet to be thrown into Gehenna.
And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
Better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye
than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna,
where ‘their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.'”

Gehenna, just south of Jerusalem, was dedicated to Moloch and had become the trash and sewage valley derided by the Jews in Jesus’ time; and our Savior wasn’t kidding: it would be better, if your hands are dangerous, become like my friend and brother Tony Melendez harmless and armless and have them surgically removed.  You could even cut a deal with those demonic gender affirming changeologist surgeons public schools refer students to,  to remove both limbs, as well as the breasts and vaginas, as a side job.

Time IS short and we have plenty of souls to save by the Body and Blood of the Lamb with the Spirit’s inspiration.  Jesus could “tarry” another millennia or two, should the Father be patient with our declining multiplication of new borns (2/3) and abortions (1/3 the US population dead). Or come back to earth physically in God~human form He left one Ascension Thursday.

After all, the Father did/have build/built a monument to His Beloved Eucharistic Son just a few miles from where the Holy Family was forced to emigrate to, near Cairo, 4600 years ago.  Whether bishops or laity, understand its significance as of yet, I can’t say; but soon maybe as our scholars & researchers focus on the Center of the World.

By the way, fellow Catholic, please pray for my #4 of 11 homeschooled offspring, Larissa who is destined for open heart surgery for valve replacement unless the miracle arrives before the cardiologist opens her up.  I am eternally grateful.

We all should agree this decade has had its share of unforced errors in Church ministry and decisions, not in the least emulating Pentecost 0033’s LOCK IN, like a popular youth ministry activity from the past; this decade’s, involved locking OUT faithful Catholics on Pentecost 2020&2021 under the authority of the godless, pseudoscientific crowd.  Let’s not add “banish the homeschooling unwashed” to the pile, please.   Simple truths make it simpler to solve.  Let’s reason together, ordained and lay, to better understand each other

My credentials are easily shared:  as a dad of 11 and being PapaLen to 22 grandkids so far, we have also Catholic homeschooled for 40+ years; still helping today at a local homeschooling coop (my #11 just turned 21) and acting as an ambassador to help non homeschoolers, priests and bishops better understand there really is no conflict except that self administered.

Frankly, in my home diocese of Orange, we are blessed with tremendous cooperation with parish and diocesan leadership.  But, like other things in life, that can change on a widow’s mite.

Dr Erin, the Catholic parish based schools super, has seen and is trying to do her best; I have offered to sit down and make suggestions; we will do this when SHE not thee is ready.

Harmony is possible; chaos doesn’t need to reign, beloved bishops and cardinals!! And truth be told, this decade’s explosion of families choosing the LIFESTYLE of home based Catholic ed is a blessing to the greater Church, the Grand Commissioning to spread the Gospel.

AND, once parish schools families understand homeschoolers are not evil, AND VICE VERSA, they are more prone not to complain should an occasional coop or HS family ask to use the chem lab or less used multi purpose room.  God forbid!

By the way, looking at unforced errors, my homeschooling and parish staff credentials, at least, cannot be dismissed like my NEC credentials were on July 19th in Indianapolis’ at the National Eucharistic Congress at high noon.

Things happen as we serve the Church: I was threatened with arrest if I did not let them escort me directly to the streets.  The so-called Hugs N Roses acts of Catholic Kindness scenario. Truth for another time but symptomatic of a Church that has lost some of its moorings; yet, I believe, as enough do, that a Renaissance of Love, Joy and Hope is coming.  There are enough of us in the Church to rededicate ourselves to actually, actively becoming fearless and bold yet again, to help as many people as St Therese wants in heaven.  ALL!

Laws of the Church.

Important, is understanding what Church tradition and the CCCatechism tells us: per CatholicVote article: “The Catechism of the Catholic Church states in paragraph 2223 that “Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children” and later in 2226 that “Parental catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches other forms of instruction in the faith,” adding that the parish is “the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families.” 

But I prefer the original words IN the CCC:

CCC 2223 Parents have the first responsibility for the education of their children. They bear witness to this responsibility first by creating a home where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. The home is well suited for education in the virtues. This requires an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery – the preconditions of all true freedom.

Parents should teach their children to subordinate the “material and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones.”¹ Parents have a grave responsibility to give good example to their children. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them:
He who loves his son will not spare the rod. .. He who disciplines his son will profit by him.²
Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.³

Incredibly succinct as to roles of parents and bishops.  Trust me, this 40yr Catholic homeschooling dad of 11 now in decade #8 HAS failed at times; ask any of my kids!  But, as I try and gain some of the fearlessness and boldness a la St Paul, I never give up, I get up and try to do better.  You might be perfect, but I can’t claim that. However, there is a truth few in the Church family grasp and embrace today:

First truths #1:  EVERY Catholic family/parent(s) homeschools from birth…

…It must continue no matter what educational choices are made at age 3 or 5. Education is not a K-12 or similar experience.  And homeschooling sees the children as part of a family growth, healthy maturation and learning experience.  In English, a LIFESTYLE worth pursuing that can lead to heaven.

Cardinal McElroy, please understand this never mentioned truism.  Seems obvious, as if it answers “first responsibility”?

Even though the public ed system, while most districts in Calif. are failing, is moving/creeping closer to having a chute from the delivery rooms at public and private hospitals into their brick & mortar buildings, already sucking in 40% off the California general budget for their efforts, it belies the fact: kids are born being homeschooled in secular, atheistic, protestant, Catholic.

What happens post birth, in two, three or ? years is the CHOICE of the parents.  And with the decay the Church is trying to pull herself out of, at least this realistic optimist believes,  it is even more important not to alienate your devoted faithful that are growing in numbers. We’ve done a number on seasoned senior faithful, 80 year old widows adorned with veiled armor and grasping their brass knuckle rosaries from the front pews of emptier churches, by banning Latin as if it is an infection.  I’ve heard the discussions, and the rationale, but no one answers WHY? the intensity to alienate those adherents when those parishes that have it are doing, in the aggregate, better than others.  Especially with the undeniable 3.5 years of hell rained on family financials, with those we employ/elected carpet bombing moms in the kill mills, grooming the rest of the young for breast and vaginal replacement surgeries while we ditter about the fraudulent dysphoric beliefs that God failed in not creating more than male and female.  Silly even.

Cardinal and friends: Homeschooling is NOT competition for parish based Catholic education here in California, parish based schools  compete with themselves, but they too are in a most unfair battleground: the godless axis of Newsom, Bonta & Thurmond triumvirate of monopolied education money that robs private schoolers of their taxes, including home schoolers with little or no benefit.  AND “invests” it in the culture of death’s ideologies.

The good news and tragedy, is I believe we’ve hit rock bottom: it’s the place someone hits when they run out of others to blame.  Time to be honest with ourselves…but still instilling hope for the future.

I know, this “homeschooling begins at birth” isn’t written in the CCC but it, like so much in life, is basic common sense: teaching values and truths starts at the nursing stage before the rug rat becomes a curtain climber then asks for the car keys.

Education doesn’t need concrete and steel to begin in a Domestic Church’s life when Johnny or Faustina comes home after birth.  On the Thursday bombshell of the Sept 1 policy change, calling homeschoolers unwelcome and unwashed, there is/was glimmers of hope.

Same day the Card. McElroy edict hit the airwaves, a beloved pastor shaded by an 149 year old tree blessed and welcomed homeschooling families at his Mass midday (to prevent reprisals, I will say somewhere in SoCal)

Mother Church MUST for her very survival, understand the new paradigm YIELDS priests at an alarmingly higher percentage than non homeschooled Catholic families.   I know because I converse and support a healthy number of them

This is something to rejoice over, noting Buffalo diocese is consolidating half its 118 churches for lack of people AND priests.  Yes, due in part to the LockOuts but the loss of practiced faith MUST be reversed.

Homeschooling aids two of the three legs of the three legged stool.  Cardinal McElroy, you have been the lightening rod and helped, IF WE SEE with Christ like eyes, to help other bishops realize this is no different than the neocanonical, rise in Marian devotions, the Renaissance of devotion to the Center of the World, the Center of Life, the real and true presence of Christ IN the monstrance and ciboria, no different than other positive and innovative movements in the greater Church.

With current finances and conditions, you have a bonanza in your parishioners practicing the homeschooling/cooperative/etc lifestyle that fits your role AS the chief religious educator overseer of the state’s St James county but are listening to spiteful voices that are not helping the greater mission. Why cause more grief for yourself: you can’t please EVERYONE.

Honestly, having been a parish staffer for decades WHILE homeschooling our brood of diapers over 40 years, I am uniquely poised, humbly, to help you take off your real estate goggles and see the faithful as MORE important that the classrooms you think you are protecting. 

How about a deal, your excellency, leave real estate to me, which I feed my fam with for 33 years and you focus on the homeschool families your ‘team’  just insulted. And the GREATER MISSION of the Church in a dying world.

You want families that choose not public but Catholic education on different platforms to COME to Our Lady of Perpetual Recreation but at the same time, don’t want them turning lights on in classrooms and occupying for short periods, with or without parish schools attached to the churches.

There is ROOM for both, and training the congregation that we need each other, that envy and jealousy for one’s fiefdom is contrary to what Jesus calls us to, that unity IS possible if we don’t look at the homeschooled as the unwashed interlopers.

Sunday’s amazing timing at the Gospel

“Do not prevent him.
There is no one who performs a mighty deed in my name
who can at the same time speak ill of me.
For whoever is not against us is for us.”

The Name above all names, of course is Jesus: the Proud GodFather’s favored Eucharistic Son born just 270 miles to the Northeast from the Center of the World.  The same area soon after birth the Holy Family returned, instantly from Joseph’s visionill return, in flight, to a Jewish enclave near Cairo, Egypt.   (Sorry folks, Len never knows when to quit.)

Just because the society, like Pope Saint John Paul the Great called it, is trending to culture of death, we MUST stop majoring in the minors (baseball analogy) and focus on what’s important.  It’s NOT easy homeschooling; it’s easier dumping the kids in schools.  Let me be clear bishops: you have excellent parish based school parents AND homeschooling parents as well.

San Diego, you have win-win at your fingertips but you are starting 2024-5 pulling defeat out of the jaws of victory.

All need to be following what your conference and pope developed, the CCC definition as if it matters.  Because it does.

The Beckman ranch has homeschooled from early 1980s, starting at Magnolia Baptist when no Catholic home schooling association (like SCCHE today) existed but Christian Home Educators Assoc…we took on other iterations over four decades.

Today, many dedicated homeschooling Catholics gravitate to the last Baptist Catholic church in the Orange diocese: St. John, the Baptist Catholic Church.  As it says on its north wall, missing the well place comma.  OK, a little tension defusing humor, but success should not be ignored.  “What gets rewarded, gets repeated”.  EVERY parish can benefit from homeschoolers, as well as the more prominently displayed parish school kids.  EVERY body wins.

I woke early on Sept 26th morning on the twins feast day, Drs. Cosmos & Damian, and noted that Relevant Radio’s Cale Clark was subbing in for Dr. Patrick Madrid, the eminent Harvard Biotacologist;  the first thing our healthy dose of Canadian Cale and wisdom shared was about a novel idea out of San Diego.  I had just called in to the beautiful Randi ready to dialogue with Cale, just before he lowered this bombshell.

“The Diocese of San Diego has banned homeschooling groups from meeting on its properties, according to a September 1 policy in the diocesan handbook.  (I guess it’s so much easier to quietly print it instead of convening sessions at the diocese or parish level.)

The policy states, “The use of parish facilities by charter schools, home school programs, or private school programs is prohibited, both because such usage can undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools and lead people to think that the Church is approving and advancing particular alternative schools and programs.”   I noticed the yoga and pickle ball sessions would still go on.  WHAT a HORRIBLE unforced error, prelates, priests and peeps.

Frankly, you excellency, homeschoolers don’t “undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools” and trust me on this, no one thinks you are approving nor advancing particular alternative schools/programs. I’ve yet to see homeschoolers putting pipe bombs in the classrooms, or writing satanic symbols on the walls or even leaving gender dysphoric materials denying God’s simple design of male and female.

Yes, Cardinal McElroy, we don’t want homeschoolers to teach error in violation of the Magisterium; we all get that.

But sadly, your birdies in the ear may not have told you, it’s not uncommon for Catholic error to be taught in our parish schools.  Not viciously, not necessarily on purpose, but because you have humans teaching, whether at home or 100 feet away from the sacristy at the school, error occurs.  Thus, continued vigilance is warranted.

This may come as a surprise, but you have the power AND authority to dig holes and pick up the tennis racket, but please reconsider this: we NEED each other IF your goal is unity and EDUCATING the San Diego Catholic kids.

We MUST “improve our serve”.   The homeschoolers I’ve known for 4 decades are resilient, loving, respectful, giving, involved in parish life; you should get to know some of them before this becomes cast in stone the evil one throws a party over in hell.

National facts #1: priest vocations, and religious vocations are answered more often from homeschooling homes…

…today than generally from private, parochial and  public educational institutions. I’m not saying homeschool families get more vocations than parish based, but stats show accepting the calls are up in those living the lifestyle of good Catholic home based education.

Check out the stats, yourself: this is helping repair one leg of the 3 legged stool: the other two legs, bringing people back INTO the altar and Eucharist room (parish churches) since the lockouts (#2) and leg #3 we will save for the end.

The(your) policy also states that part of the purpose of parish facilities is to serve the Church’s teaching mission, adding, “Parish run schools and religious education programs are the primary means by which the Church accomplishes its teaching mission for children and young people.”  (hat tip Catholicvote).  Really?  So bypassing the roles of the Domestic Church parents, in other words, your excellency, you just need moms and dads to get pregnant, in or out of wedlock, deliver junior or a beautiful little girl, and drop them off for education at your divinely anointed real estate locations.

Do you realize the incredible growth in hybrid, alternative curricula, opportunities of recent decades that Catholics who continue to homeschool after rug rat, curtain climber, toddler etc stages?

Please understand, non Catholics seek out Catholic education institutions, especially high schools due to discipline and higher academics than in the public ed arena.  A good thing, but instead of 100% Catholic, the mixed bag necessary for financial survival means when they become freshmen and freshwomen in most colleges (excluding examples like bicoastal Thomas Aquinas College, Benedictine, UofMary, John Paul U, Steubenville, Ave Maria, Cristendom), our Catholic kids become fodder for everything hell and the loons unleash.

I recall a homily at a Life Teen mass on the beach; the priest

Let’s parse this using real world examples and analysis.

Happy to copy you on my curriculum vitae, Latin for “course of life”. Basically, my beloved Donna and I were the youth ministers, directors of religious ed, Faith Formation directors, RCIA and sometimes janitors from 1981 thru early 2012 at three Orange diocese parishes.  Since her death and my going off staff from Holy Family Cathedral when my pastor oddly flinched after the real estate acquisition of Reverend Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral, we continued to homeschool the kids apparently with success.

Our family has 12 degrees so far today, an Ohio son headmaster at one of those alternative Catholic institutions you worry about instead of embracing;  springing up known as Chesterton Academy in Dayton, one of 60 so far. Also, a few master’s degrees.

The blessing is ALL (I pray dearly they stay Catholic) the 11 kids remain faithful to the Church now in dioceses of Houston-Galveston, Ohio, Orange, LA and I almost forgot, diocese of San Diego.  I’m no Pollyanna; i’ve been a son of the Church since 1952 and continue on despite the occasional mysteries and bumps like NEC’s threats and banishment, program/job endings (two due to parish based school costs) etc.   Time IS short and hell is busy..

I don’t know about you, Cardinal McElroy, with whatever respect IS due, this Church is the only Church I got! Point is, you believe in error the absolute blessings your, yes your homeschool charges, tho unwashed, are to your diocese AND the greater Church and world.

With mics turned off, “candid” the cue card, you can get most Catholic leaders, including myself if you must, to admit that the Church has undergone decay over recent decades but being a realistic optimist, I truly believe the Eucharistic Jesus revival (NEC1941 and NEC2024) is maturing into a much needed Renaissance of Love, Truth and more.

I beg all of you:  let’s not lose the momentum with good alternatives already in existence for using parish real estate… homeschooling is exploding, relatively so, in the Diocese of St Didacus and believe it or not, they, homeschooling families (all your families at birth) are your sheep and will be friendly if Church leadership wakes up and smells the dirty diapers, good coffee and the generosity of their existence.  

The Father’s pride in His Eucharistic Son, as most bishops agree, is something He has pointed to for millennia (or at least can be shown) with a little exposition.  Jesus remains the Center of Worship, Source and Summit of our Faith, Focus of the Constellations and Stars (ever see OLGuadalupe’s Mantle Star Chart?), Center of Faith, and even geographically, represented at the exact Center of the World.

The last thing we need is to torpedo this healthy explosion of dedication to true Catholic doctrine, due to jealousy, misunderstandings, envy or more empire building, including moats around the parish boundaries of SoCal parishes.  My dad Paul’s family are from Buffalo and the recent news about lack of people and priests, leading to less funds is leading to consolidation of 118 parishes; I hope this is rumor but on different scales, it is  happening in all too many Church ordinaries.

In Orange, thanks in part to the Vietnam War, St Michael’s Abbey and homeschooling answered vocations, we have a healthy number of priests in our geographic boundaries.  The Abbey serves at 60 parishes in Orange and LA counties on most weekends. I have a little bias, since two of my children are married to two siblings of a Norbertine/Premonstratensian priest at the Abbey.  It is easy for me to be honest, not hold grudges, speak the truth in joy, surprise by joy the world around us, since I am overly blessed.

And yes, we have good Orange parish schools, those remaining open, like St Norbert’s.

Schools superintendent  Dr Erin is trying to answer this change, open to better understandings of this homeschool lifestyle movement that is having good impact:  the closings are not the well to do parishes in the main, but less wealthy (exceptions should be studied) ones.  For example, she is trying to consolidate 5 empty parish schools into one for a hybrid educational scope and sequence platform.

Cardinal McElroy: we are IN THIS TOGETHER! And the timing of Sunday’s readings is a true Godincidence. 

I support parish schools believe it or not, in different ways, trying for two years even with roses to sit down with Dr Erin; I am NOT the enemy.

I do an annual scholarship program honoring my dead wife, who was sent off from Holy Family Cathedral (proto) with 1400 funeral  attendees after 900 prayed the rosary days before at St Anthony Claret.   Your excellency, you have the resources in your diocese to accomplish peace but it will take diplomacy and love to repair this unforced error.

And we can’t ignore the golden rule: he who has the gold, rules.  Look at our gender fluids cinematic sillies producing Newsom Twosome: Jan 15, 2024:  Prop 98 K-12 per-pupil funding. The governor’s state budget states that 2024-25 funding per student in attendance will be $17,653 Proposition 98 General Fund and $23,519 per pupil when the contribution of all sources including property taxes are included

Cardinal, I don’t believe your preferred CAtholic students’ parents get $23,519 per year per kid, nor your schools see a $million per classroom.

Some states are “allowing”, as if they own the kids and budgets, some funds (school choice, something too many fight off due to fear) for parents to direct for education.  So kind of those state wide bureaucrats!  Another day?

First, we must agree that every Catholic student between 6-18 needs to be catechized and educated, NOT indoctrinated in each ordinary (diocese).  This is in keeping with each bishop’s charge by the Pontiff to provide solid religious education by the most appropriate means possible for EVERY child and teen to “build up the greater Church”.  Innovation is okay too!  When we shuttered schools and Churches this decade, unlike the Spanish Flu, the Black Plague etc, it left a mortal (though curable) wound that will take years maybe a generation to recover from.   So, why alienate YOUR students while success is occurring.

Yes, I’m one of those never jabbed Dr Pfaucinstein detractors since basic research showed the godless Mao Tse Xi’s (pronounced Say Cheese) incubated the escaped virus in his 11 millionWuhan human incubators before unleashing to the world.  I can’t force my Church to practice good science and research via Covid Chronicles, much less end this silly “Man can overheat the planet climate change heresy.  Some day someone will rise to the occasion and shout “the Algorean heresy is dangerous and evil.”  Just watch.

By Godincidence, I knew one of the first Covid California vics who died on Feb 16, 2020; he was a professor who taught Wuhan students here in SoCal.  And confession, at dyslexic 27, I am still on a solid regimen of Hydroxychloroquine/Ivermectin/D3/Quercetin/Zinc and other supplements with much success.  We see no myocardia induced by Pfaucinstein’s potions.

  I know, I know, I will die from that fish tank cleaning horse parasite tubed medicines that your medical suppressionist government mRNA pushers foisted on a world of “Sunday Sunday” taking African and C/Sinai Dr Wallace HCQ users impervious to the SARS/Covid disease.

Off my soap box.

I know financial times are tough, in the wake of sexual abuse settlements and Covid reaction.  But San Diego parishes apparently welcome non homeschooling outside groups, a line item profit center issue, to supersede CAtholic St Didacus/James student needs.  i am hoping, when cooler heads convene to discuss, this will be shown as a typo.

2nd Truths: understand the problem has been decades in the making. we have gone from low parish teachers’ salaries in the 60s -80s & last century, due to teaching sisters at most elementary and high schools; as this changed to lay humans filling the teaching rolls, and since they need higher income than squat sisterhood stipends to buy luxuries like food, shelter and gas, the cost of education at parish based schools rose. With 17.8% hyperinflation with a fallen away Catholic puppet in the white house, PRECIPITOUSLY.   As well as at parochial high schools.

How can ANY Catholic vote for the most rabid prebirth baby killers (the Kill Mill Jill & Obamanational Kamaleon and Timmy Tampon).  If it wasn’t for 501c3, maybe the pulpit could explain this dilemma as if we were black AME churches. 

Costs ARE up!  My ten siblings and I had 126 years of Catholic elementary and high school education (StAnthony Claret, Servite and Rosary) at nominal cost: I started, as the oldest, at $200/yr which doubled by graduation in 1970 (put the calculators down, smarties!) to $400.  Now, it is much higher.

The evil during this time is we in the Church are second class financial citizens to the property tax/40% of the general fund confiscation for California Ed Dept controlled by the UTLA and Calif Teachers Union.  And Catholic schools have a much better “product/service” to offer year in year out.  EG: A governor paid a million to go Hollywood for Mrs. Gender Fluidics Newsom’s documentaries.

Currently, $25,000 allocated to each child and teen; a 40 desk room means one million dollars is available per classroom; using LA as example, the results for all this cash, is 78 teens graduate per 100 seniors and at a math and English core subject proficiency of 35%.   The second largest public school district in America; and they want MORE without improvement  This is OUTRAGEOUS.  Catholics pay property taxes too, governor!

School choice SHOULD be pushed by our Church, even if only $10,000 per student to choose with, leaving $15,000 more in spoils for the Axis of Education Newsoms, Bonta and Tony Thurmond to spread around.  Why?  It’s just!  Reasonable! and Fair!  At least think about it.

Cardinals, bishops, priests and laity: everyone can win IF we come humbly with the facts.  And you want to compete with homeschooling?  $10k per student infusion will push the marginally budgeted parish schools into the blackest black.  Think about that one! Inner city excuses no more.  Families would choose their parishes knowing their vouchers can be cashed at ST. xxx’s offices after 

What IS critical, is the public sector government schools are NOT improving despite ample cash; with abortion at higher than pandemic Covid levels, public schools have enrollments declining as well…in some forced immigrant/alien infusion cities, you have 20year old non English speakers registering for freshmen high school  And it is easier to squeeze a buck out of a mango than from the UTLA/CTA owned California Teachers Association.  But it MUST happen.

Cardinal McE. et al: have you seen why encouraging both parish based and home based CAtholic education is critical mass and a win-win? Go to a public school board and open your eyes why we must RETHINK how we see our catechetical responsibilities and fight over real estate usage, with or without empty classrooms.

Leg#3: IF we want to be Catholic parish educators, teach Catholic.  At least, Catholic homeschooling schools are usually 100% Catholic and focused on teaching the Magisterium and solid Catholic values.

Parishes are thriving across America that teach Catholicism instead of the latest ideological pablum.

If only you understood the righteous power the laity AND hierarchy have in advancing the Gospel IN the marketplace of ideas and real world…

Cardinal McElroy, I bet you don’t even know the percentage of Catholic/non Catholic students ratio in your diocese’s schools.  In God’s eyes, you have actual Catholic families trying to break the parish glass ceilings and UP the percentage of Catholic kids educated using parish facilities.

I know the source of this Sept 1 policy edict came, not from homeschoolers but a Catholic parish parent or a misinformed priest.

Your excellency, you’ve had at least one well healed,wealthy Catholic parish school parent complain, as well as teachers, about the unwashed Catholic homeschool element.

This is no different than Donna and I’s decades as DREs: in the last century, Donna and I put up and joyfully solved the complaints of Catholic school teachers and parents that those “unwashed” CCD/Religious Ed/Catechism kids who move our desks and pencils around on Tuesday nights or over the weekend.

Smart DREs today, photograph (films a lot cheaper these days with iPhones)and make sure the desks and pencils are all aligned, out of respect for the parents’ kids coming Monday or Wed morn. It really is basic boy scout “leave the place better or same than when you first came.” But, desks don’t mind being shared: it’s the human race that has difficulty.

But as chief catechist of the Diocese of St James, Cardinal McElroy, you might have to be bold and tell the current Catholic parents who complained, that they don’t “own” the classrooms (they were paid for by previous alums and families), any more than selling the Sistine chapel will satisfy the critics the Catholic Church is too wealthy.   Complainers will complain; take the wisdom and implement but don’t spite your nose to do cosmetic facials: be the Leader God has called you too.  The Holy Spirit imparts wisdom, like Solomon’s first gifts last Testament were wisdom NOT wealth.

We ALL know, in our heart of hearts, where the real Church treasure is.  Ask St Lawrence!  When he produced the “wealth of the church” to the emperor, it wasn’t golden Ciboria but the poor, the lame, the disabled and on Cosmos and Damien day, for your edification your excellency, I present the unwashed homeschoolers who want to be treated as equals.  No more, certainly not less.

It took courage for St Lawrence to show the truth, show the real Catholic treasures and all he got was the BBQ.  Like other Church heroes, his comments live on:  “Turn me over, I’m done on this side!”

In retrospect, I think helping the wheelchaired, walker and blind folks in the 4 hour Registration line, a volunteer as needed, got me in trouble, on the watch list for the NEC security team; especially when I tossed roses to Lila Rose and got permission and hugged an old armless grieving friend on stage (Tony Melendez) central that Friday July 19th.  As happens in my Church experience, I’ve never heard back from Bishop Cozzens, CEO Jason Shanks, Sarah Houde or ANY NEC Catholic leadership why I was threatened with arrest if I did not go willingly at high noon on a St Joseph day (the 19th).  It’s only been two months…but then, no good deed goes unpunished. I will continue to spread by joy the Gospel, today refined, of the Proud GodFather’s love for His Eucharistic Eternal Son…someday you will hear about Giza’s role, in the Father’s Birth Reveal and Holy Family’s night time flight toward Cairo and its established Jewish settlement, but let’s settle these family issues first.    All, it is a time where boldness and respectful fearlessness is critical transformative values of our Church.  We must readopt them to turn our decaying world around.

I’ve never seen a priest or bishop at a local school board during the public comments 3 minute segments.  Do you have any idea, while we are fighting over real estate usage (there are plenty of empty school bldgs) instead of pushing for a reasonable cut of the ed pie or accommodating some of the Cardinal’s unwashed homeschoolers?  Go to your local board and see what I and others, like Sonja Shaw, president of Chino Valley SB, see. Gather facts before publishing edicts.  What has this to do with homeschoolers and parish classes? You read and tell me.

Here’s my script this year:  “with all due respect, xx school board leaders, why are you so focused on spaying our daughters like they are 3 legged junk yard dogs? We hire you to educate not indoctrinate with silly ideologies.  Are you willing to risk our girls being groomed by dysphoric teachers’ aides and see further lawsuits over the latest suicide when a few years hence, Suzy wakes up and realizes she will never nurse the little girl she will NEVER have/bear?   Must I repeat, I have just a minute: when you, without our parental permission, help end Suzy’s confusion over being a boy by chainsawing off her breasts and shredding her vagina and other internals, do you realize just maybe it’s time to be the adults in the classroom?  You are just NOT satisfied with kill milling prebirth children, you go after them after they are born”.   Less than 180 seconds but our civic duty is Catholic.

Yes, I use clinical words because, well, our Catholic teachings are stumbling over the clinical “gender dysphoria”(there’s nothing euphoric about this crisis of lies) just as bad as the public ie government schools system.  Confusion. God created them, male and female.  Heal thyself needs to occur on so many levels. We MUST stop serving the godless and get our fearless and bold juices back.  Time is short, maybe too short.

This is too long already; stop digging the hole.

I’ll donate $99 (it honors the beloved homeschooling mom who died on Sept 9th, 2011) as stipend rental Cardinal McElroy, for the first parish that realizes, in your diocese, that having Catholic homeschoolers on campus (like they are AA, Knights of Columbus, bingo if they must) is a blessing not a curse.  Especially since most of them, parents and kids, are involved directly and have their kids participate in sacramental programs.

In fact, so many of your priests, your excellency, already know this basic fact.  But someone in the Chancery, in the department of “coddle the noisy Catholic parish school parent so they don’t leave as well” is a threat best served cold.

God owns the buildings but He doesn’t pay for the electricity; I know.  Although He supplies some of the wind and solar to generate it.  The Twins feast day was interesting for me: I helped at a homeschooling coop at a public park and then attended mid day Mass back in the OC where the pastor had a special blessing for the homeschooling families in attendance.  Odd world sometimes.  Competition may not be the best word but it IS okay to teach your diocese the obvious:

“Homeschooling is a choice, NOT a crime.  It is a lifestyle worth pursuing”.  If you decide on private, the parish (or consolidated parishes) has a school for you. Public, as the school board commentary shows, is NOT the best option.

Yes, let’s stop these shovel ready unforced errors NOW. Cardinal McElroy, listen to your people.   Homeschoolers take showers and supply a higher percentage of the priestly ANSWERED vocations but don’t change your unwashed opinion just to get more consecrated hands in your rectories.  Do it because:

The world is dying for us to do the right thing.

Len Beckman  “It IS a great day to be alive AND Lord use me as You Will, not mine.” ~ my daily starter

Len is dad of 11, PapaLen to 22 grandkids and still homeschooling after 40+ years.  He served as youth minister for 15 years at St Callistus/now Christ Cathedral, DRE/YM at St Anthony Claret for 10 and Holy Family, first Cathedral of the Orange diocese until 2012. Scoutmaster emeritus for T#1123.  Married a never married beauty, Mary at Nativity church on an 8th of the month; not many stepmoms start out with 12 kids (including her hubby).  He continues as a real estate broker after 33 years helping folks make housing choices.  Involved in theater, from producing to clapping for his and others’ kids.  Long time rose supplier to vulnerable moms at Planned Parenthoodlums OC HQ and other proLife activities.  After all, EVERY life is worth living and souls like Kamala and Tim need saving.

Len sees half full glasses, tries to be a diplomat as needed, ‘ambassador to the ailing’ at NEC who STILL awaits first contact from an NEC official re the promised interrogation report sans arrest, that resulted in his banishment to witness to seven Events staffer and Thomas Payne at his car.  Miracles DO happen when we focus on doing good for others.

Thank you for your prayer for Larissa.  Include, if reading this on St Vincent de Paul day, my Rosie’s birthday.  As the commercial says, “results are not guaranteed..” but in our 40 something homeschooling adventure, we have 12 college degrees, a summa cum laude, 3 masters, 20 chickens, no horse but one malformed beak duck and her two drakes; and 4 families homeschooling their kids our grandkids so far.  Construction workers, communications director, comp science guru, home based moms, veterinary tech, smart sculptor, homeschooled Faustina marrying another homeschooled oldest son of 10, Elijah on Holy Innocents…we are related to a Premonstratensian Norbertine priest Fr Louis.

Thank you for your prayers; we will pray for you too!

Comments welcome below