The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 288: The Duties of Parents (2025)

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Being a parent is far more than just having kids. As the Catechism reminds us, the fruitfulness of married love extends to the moral and spiritual education of a couple’s children. Parents are the primary educators of their children, especially in the ways of virtue and prayer. Fr. Mike reminds us that it is also parents' privilege to evangelize their children. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2221-2231. This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast, where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture, and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in years brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is Day 288, we're reading paragraphs 2221 to 2231, that's a lot. That's at least 10 paragraphs. As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the foundations of faith approach, but you can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your

own catechism in a year reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash CI. And you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app to receive daily updates and daily notifications right to your inbox, question mark, or just maybe it's easier to find. You know, you know the drill. Or if you don't know the drill, or if you don't know the drill, then you can click follow or subscribe and then you will know that drill today is day 288 reading paragraphs 22 21 to 22 31 yesterday we talked about the duties of children today we're talking about the duties of parents and that there's you know I was intimidated I was convicted as you heard I was convicted by I actually so convicted it was it was um it was

emotional for me I don't know if I came across that way it was just it's the ways in which you know, we fail to live up to live up to God's commands with the ways in which we fail to live up to the, that great command of loving our neighbor, you know, even just, you know, loving your parents is, it can be very convicting and it's so convicting for me. I kind of, I feel like I kind of plowed through yesterday, just trying to just like, okay, just make it through this episode. But yeah, conviction. It's good because remember, I said it at the end of the episode yesterday, this is not about information transfer. This is about transformation. This is about allowing the Lord vowing the teachings of the church to convict our hearts and challenge and change our lives.

And so today, the duties of parents, and we recognize that parents, I love the first sentence. It's 2221. The reason I love the first sentence of paragraph 2221 is because at one point I was trying to demonstrate to our students that the catechism is incredibly approachable. And so I said, you guys, it's in like everyday language. You can understand virtually everything that catechism says. And I just randomly flipped open my catechism at the time and read paragraph 20. beginning of the paragraph 2221 and it says this the fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced

solely to the procreation of children and people looking at me like uh what that's ordinary english like well no but i chose the wrong example but we're talking about this the fecundity of conjugal love right the fruitfulness of marital love between spouses is not reduced solely to having more kids but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation so we're going to talk about that today as well as the call of parents to evangelize their children. The call of parents to educate them in the faith. The call of parents to help them grow in holiness and how the whole family is meant to grow in holiness. Remember, John Paul II made it so clear, the family is a school of love. And that's what we're all about today. And so as we read paragraphs 2221 to 2231, that's the goal,

being the family being a school of love. So that's pray because this school also is not about just data transfer. This is also a school where we don't just grow in information. We grow in holiness. We grow in sanctification. So we pray. Father in heaven, we trust you. And in the name of Jesus Christ, your son, our Lord, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we call upon your Spirit to come and be with us, to guide us, to enlighten us in this moment. We call your Holy Spirit to challenge us and to convict us. Your Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Conviction. And Lord God, we ask you to please remove the evil one, the evil one who is the accuser from our midst, and allow the Holy one, your Holy Spirit, your Holy Spirit of conviction to be in our midst and to convict our minds

and our hearts, our lives to challenge and to change us. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is day 288. We are reading paragraphs 2221 to 2231. The duties of parents. The fecundity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreation of children, but must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation. The role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. The right and the duty of parents to educate their children are primordial and inalienable. Parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons. Showing themselves obedient to the will of the Father in heaven,

they educate their children to fulfill God's law. 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. 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. The book of Syrac says, He who loves his son will not spare the rod. He who disciplines his son will profit by him. St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians states, Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord. The home is the natural environment for initiating a human being into solidarity and communal responsibilities. Parents should teach children to avoid the compromising and degrading influences which threaten human societies. Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage,

parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the first heralds for their children. They should associate them from their tenderest years with the life of the church. A wholesome family life can foster interior dispositions that are a genuine preparation for a living faith and remain a support for it throughout one's life. Education in the faith by the parents should begin in the child's earliest years. This already happens when family members help one another to grow in faith by the witness of a Christian life in keeping with the gospel. Family catechesis precedes, accompanies, and enriches

other forms of instruction in the faith. Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover the vocation as children of God. The parish is the Eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of Christian families. It is a privileged place for the catechesis of children and parents. Children in turn contribute to the growth in holiness of their parents. Each and everyone should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. Mutual affection suggests this. The charity of Christ demands it. Parents respect and affection are expressed by the care and attention they devote to bringing up their young children and providing for their physical and spiritual needs. As the children

grow up, the same respect and devotion lead parents to educate them in the right use of their reason and freedom. As those first responsible for the education of their children, children, parents have the right to choose a school for them, which corresponds to their own convictions. This right is fundamental. As far as possible, parents have the duty of choosing schools that will best help them in their task as Christian educators. Public authorities have the duty of guaranteeing this parental right and of ensuring the concrete conditions for its exercise. When they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state of life. They should assume their new responsibilities within a trusting relationship with their

parents, willingly asking and receiving their advice and counsel. Parents should be careful not to exert pressure on their children, either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. This necessary restraint does not prevent them, quite the contrary, from giving their children judicious advice, particularly when they are planning to start a family. Some forego marriage in order to care for their parents or brothers and sisters, to give themselves more completely to a profession or to serve other honorable ends. They can contribute greatly to the good of the human family. Right.

There we are paragraphs 2221 to 2231. Wow, I just, it's beautiful, incredible. So paragraph 2221, that wordy line. I don't know if you got, it wasn't just 2221 that had some wordy lines. A lot of words, multiple, not monosyllabic, but multiple syllabic, multi-syllabic words were used here. So the headline, of course, the funnity of conjugal love cannot be reduced solely to the procreating of children that must extend to their moral education and their spiritual formation.

So basically that's saying that the call of parents, right, the call of husbands and wives is not simply to have as many children as possible, but as in having children, right, the fruitfulness of marital love and having children, their duties are to the moral education and their spiritual formation of children. And this goes, I know I've shared this in the past, but I sometimes I am so grateful that the Lord has called me to not have children he's called me to be single you know for the Lord I'm not not only because I love being a priest I love it so much not only because of that but also because I sometimes see my nieces and nephews and I am just so preoccupied with them getting hurt I just it's it's one of those things where I understand the

the plight of helicopter parents I understand the plate of Zamboni parents those who drive ahead of their kids and make sure that everything's all smooth like I get it because I look at kids and I'm just, ah, be careful, be careful. I remember talking to my sister, Sarah at one point, and maybe I shared this before. I was like, Sarah, I just, man, if I had your kids, I just, I would, like, I wouldn't let them go out the house without, you know, a helmet on and elbow pads and knee pads, like full body armor. I'd just be so concerned all of the time about their, about their health or about them getting hurt. And my sister, she's, so she's so good, she said, well, yes, of course I care about that, but I'm more, I care more about, you know,

them getting to heaven. I was like, yeah, that's right. Here, the brother, the priest is forgetting that part. I didn't forget that part. It was just, you know, but yeah, that's the concern. That is the care. That is the great duty. The right and duty of parents is to educate their children. That's the primordial and inalienable. In fact, in the middle of paragraph 2221, it says the role of parents in education is of such importance that it is almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. So consider that. That's just, it's almost impossible to provide an adequate substitute. Now, we have in our modern, you know, day and age, we have the modern school system, which I'm grateful for. I'm grateful for schools. But we also recognize that the schools, what they

attempt to do is they attempt to hopefully build on what parents have conveyed to their children. But teachers can't do that. And no matter how great a teacher is, they can, yes, absolutely. I mean, I love teachers. And I'm so grateful for their work, for their vocation. to call, that call to be teachers, to shape young minds, but they're not just shaping young minds. They're shaping people, right? And that's why the church is emphasizing this, is that no matter how good the teacher, the teacher cannot take the role of the parent. Does that make sense? I mean, again, again, I am praising teachers here. So all of us who are grateful for our teachers in our lives, all of us who are teachers. So please hear my praise and my thanks for you and your

your call from the Lord to convey knowledge. But you probably know this too. At the end of the day, there's only so much that you can do. I mean, actually, some of the greatest teachers I know, that's one of their greatest pains is at the end of the day, there's only so much that they can do. Because we realize that almost no one can replace the role of a parent in education. So moving on, paragraphs 22, 22, which is fun, 2, 2, 2.2, parents must regard their children as children of God and respect them as human persons.

which is massively important. A child does not exist for the sake of the parents. The parent doesn't exist for the sake of the child. These are beings, persons created for their own sake. Keep that in mind. Next paragraph 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. No, let's pause on this for a second. It says that parents have the very first responsibility for the education of their children. And then they list a number of areas of education. Listen to those areas. Tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, disinterested service are the rule.

Now, it doesn't say where they learn mathematics and a spelling and the social sciences or the whatever I'm blanking on other topics you could learn. It doesn't say any of those things. It says creating a home where these things are the rule, where tenderness, forgiveness, respect, fidelity, and disinterested service are the rule. Because why? Because we're not just creating a next generation of engineers. We're not just creating the next generation of mathematicians or the next generation of nurses

or the next generation of teachers or the next generation of fill in the blank. We're trying to raise people, right? We're trying to raise saints. That is the goal of education. is it's not just intellectual formation, although, again, I am not dismissing that in any way, shape, or form. That's very important. But it is human formation.

It is human formation. And I love this last aspect of the home. It says, among other things, that disinterested service is the rule. And whenever I read that phrase, disinterested service, a lot of our students are like, wait, what is that? Just like, you know, mom is plating up some food. And she's like, here, I don't care if you eat it or not. because she's disinterested? No, that's not what disinterested service is. Disinterested service is I want you to have this. I'm serving you in this way, not because I'm getting something out of it,

but because it's for your good. That's it. It's just freely given. There's no strings attached. That's what disinterested service is pointing to. There's no strings attached. It's not, okay, here's a deal. I'm taking care of you now so that when I'm old, you take care of me, or something like that, if we get that idea. The home is well suited for education and virtues. Why? Oh my gosh. Well, the home is well suited for education and virtues because, man, the hardest people to, who are the hardest people to love? The hardest people to love are the ones who are related to. And so to recognize that, okay, apprenticeship and self-denial, in sound judgment, self-mastery, all of those things, the preconditions are to freedom. And all of those things are in so many ways the hardest to live out when you're with your family. Amen? Can I get an amen in this one here? Because how many times I have this happen so often with our students. Our students, they come to the university and they're growing and they're, you know, they've had an encounter with the Lord Jesus. They're growing in faith, hope and love. They're becoming more generous. They're becoming more patient. They're becoming more forgiving. All these

things. And that's the first half of the first semester until they go home for Thanksgiving. And they realize, within four days, they realize, oh, I have not grown as much as I thought I had grown. Like I thought I was so giving, so patient, so kind, so all these things. And then they have to be patient, kind, generous, all these things with their family. family members and they realize, oh, yes, I've just started to grow. I have not really, I'm not abounding in growth because sometimes the hardest people to love are the ones we're related to. And so, yes, the home is well suited for the education in the virtues. But I love how it says this. This requires, an education in the virtues requires an apprenticeship

in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery. And then it has this dash and says the preconditions of all true freedom. The preconditions for all true freedom are an apprenticeship in self-denial, sound judgment, and self-mastery. Those are the preconditions for freedom. I think I love that. That's amazing. Self-denial, sound judgment, self-mastery, so good. And so parents should teach their kids all those things. They should teach them the goodness of subordinating the instinctual desires for higher desires, right, for those things that are truly for a person's good. Now, the last sentence before the scripture quotes in paragraph 22, 23 is, I just want to highlight this for parents. It says this. It says by knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will be better able to guide and correct them. By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will better be able to guide and correct them. I remember talking with a mom when I was just newly ordained. And this mom was kind of lamenting the fact that she said, I don't know, I'm so frustrated because I feel so badly. because I keep telling my kids to behave a certain way, and then I behave the way I just told them

not to behave. Like she says, I keep telling my kids, hey, don't yell at your sister, don't yell at your brother. And then I'm yelling at them. I tell them to be patient with your siblings, and I'm not patient with them. I tell, you know, all these things. And she was highlighting the fact that I'm not living the way I'm telling them to live. And she felt so defeated. She felt like such a failure, like such a hypocrite.

And I was like, well, actually, here's the hidden blessing in this. imagine that you were the mom you wanted to be you're the super mom you're the perfect mom or if you're dad you're imagining to imagine the perfect dad and that your kids they see you not only doing what you said you would do but also like never really struggling and you have this faith and you believe in Jesus and you belong to the church and and you have this great faith and then they see that that perfect image and as they grow up they realize that wait I'm not perfect though I'm not like mom was I'm not as perfect as dad was. And so I guess, you know, yeah, I guess mom could go to church. Yeah, I guess dad could pray, but that's because they were perfect. And the temptation is they could disqualify

themselves because I'm not perfect like mom was. I'm not perfect like dad was. I said, you're giving your children a gift of letting them actually see you. And they're not only seeing you with your ideals and what you're aspiring for, but also they're seeing you fail. But when they see you fail, they also have to see where you go when you fail. meaning to confession. The same children that see you sin, they should also see you go to confession after you've sinned. Like you should explain it to them,

asking them for forgiveness and then saying, now what I need to do is I need to go to confession because I don't want to be that way. I want to be a better mom. I want to be a better dad. And so please pray for me. Please forgive me. And I'm also going to ask the Lord to forgive me.

Hopefully in that the witness that's given is this is what it looks like to be a real human being. not a perfect person, but a real human being who's striving after holiness and isn't there yet. So teach them, when they see you not living up to what you're teaching them, let them also see, keep teaching them, right? Let them also see what you do when you fail. Go to confession. I love this.

By knowing how to acknowledge their own failings to their children, parents will better be able to guide and correct them. So important. No last couple things here, paragraph 22, 25, through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. And so this is not something I find is so strange. So many parents who are saying, you know, I'm going to wait. I, you know, I was raised Catholic. I want to give my children freedom. I want to give them the freedom of being able to choose their own faith. And so I'm going to withhold teaching the faith to

them. And I'd say, okay, that's fine. But there's a great thinker who once said, if you don't know what you believe, the world will tell you what you believe. So there is no such thing as that blank slate that there are false gods everywhere who are vying for your children's attention and they're telling your child how to look at the world you're telling they're telling your child those voices are telling your child how to see others those voices are telling your child how to see uh the universe around them the world around us is constantly shaping us and so if you refuse or abdicate that that role of also shaping the the worldview of your child that is so deadly dangerous and such as i said It's an abdication of the role of being a parent.

I mean, guys, do you think about this? What's the reason why you're Catholic? The reason you're Catholic is one reason only, because you believe it's true. So if I believe something was true, would I allow my child to just do their own thing and hopefully find the truth? Or would I say, actually, this is the truth? And I'm going to help you see the reason why this is true. Because we can't force faith on anybody.

But we can, when you're a child, a parent to a child can say, you are coming to with us. You are going to religious ed, that kind of situation. You are going to the school that we want you to go to. There is such a thing as that because the parent knows better. Again, I see this happen so often where parents will say, well, my kid doesn't want to go to mass, so I don't want to force them. They're going to resent going to mass. Okay, do you do the same thing when it comes to their diet? Like if your child says, I want to just live on Twinkies for the rest of my life, we'd say, oh, you know, I don't want to force you and then you're going to hate vegetables later on in your life. Like, no, because you know that Twinkies are not what you live.

off of and you know that a well-balanced meal is similarly why in the world well we just throw our children to the wolves by saying i'm not going to impart the faith i'm not going to make them go to mass i mean this is so remarkable i mean paragraph 2226 says this it says the parish is is the eucharistic community and the heart of the liturgical life of christian families it is a privileged place for the catechises of children and parents you know the reality i remember i did not like going to mass as a kid i mean i hated it so much. And yet my parents bringing me back to the Catholic Church again and again and saying, no, this is just what we do. Like, just like we all sit down to eat, we all go to Mass. This is what we do. They gave me this gift that I did not realize, I mean, multiple gifts,

but one of the, here's two of the gifts. One gift was, was this, that the idea of doing whatever it takes to get to Sunday Mass, no matter what, is just there. It's in my bones. I mean, I think that even if I wasn't a priest, this would be it. Just because why? Because I was raised on this. This is just normal. You do whatever it takes to get to Sunday Mass. The second gift is I, the ability to walk into any Catholic church anywhere in the world

and realize this is part of my patrimony. This is part of my inheritance that I belong here. This is the truth for you too. I know a lot of people who, you know, again, they were baptized Catholic but not really raised Catholic. They weren't brought to the parish on a regular basis. so the parish became a place. We're like, no, I know this.

I like, I know that back room back there. I know where things are here. Because you get, have this familiarity and you realize, I don't just know this place. I belong here. And any Catholic church, every Catholic church you walk into, yep, you might not have the key to the back room anymore, but I belong here. Like, this is, this is mine. I, I'm part of this church.

And so I have rights here. I also have responsibility to talk about that all the time. But I have a right to be here. And there's some, that's an incredible gift that parents are able to give to their children. It's a small one, but I think it's a pretty significant one at the same time. Now, I love 2227. It says, children in turn contribute to the growth of holiness for their parents, which makes it sense. Each and everyone, parents, kids, siblings should be generous and tireless in forgiving one another for offenses, quarrels, injustices, and neglect. And it says mutual affection

suggests this, and the charity of Christ demands it. It's incredible. It's just so beautiful. the last couple of paragraphs are about choices so 2229 that parents have a right to choose a school for their children which corresponds to their own convictions it says even this it says this right is fundamental that's remarkable 2229 the right to choose a school that aligns with their own convictions is fundamental and hopefully you can find a school that is in line with your with your convictions because again this world is changing so quickly that, you know, I went to a public school for most of my life. I went to Catholic elementary school, but public high school, I guess most of my life is an exaggeration. I went to Catholic elementary school, Catholic college. But my high school years, you know, junior high and high school were spent in the public school.

And it was great. It was wonderful. I loved it. That's changed a lot. So we recognize that, again, great teachers, great teachers in the parochial schools, in the Catholic schools, and in the public schools, great teachers. But what's the ethos? of those schools.

There are plenty of Catholic schools that aren't, they're Catholic in name, but not necessarily Catholic in what your students will get, your children will get. There are plenty of public schools with great teachers, again, but parents have to be careful about where they're sending their kids to school. You know, I work on campus at a public school,

a state school, the University of Minnesota in Duluth. And it's so remarkable because, you know, there's other Catholic colleges, our students could have chosen to go to, but I think a lot of them said, you know, I could go to a Catholic school that's Catholic in name only. And I wouldn't know that this, it says Catholic on the side of the wall, but inside the walls, it's not Catholic. And it would almost be like the teachers in some ways. Now, I'm not saying every teacher. Please don't misunderstand me.

But in some ways, the teachers can be like wolves and sheep's clothing. Like, oh, no, I thought, I wait, I was going to this theology class. And I thought I was getting this is what the church teaches. No, this is just what you teach. And it's not the faithfulness to the church. Now, at the school I work at as a chaplain, our students, they know when they arrive on campus, they know that, nope, I'm walking into an arena that is not necessarily friendly to the Catholic Church. In fact, I'm walking into arena that sometimes there will be even some hostility to the church. I mean, by and large, there's not a ton of hostility, but there again are going to be teachers and our students aren't surprised when they find it because they knew.

They knew that going in. And so, you know, wherever you're going to go to school, wherever you're going to choose school for your kids, the big thing is you have a right. to choose a school for them, which corresponds to your own convictions. And this is so important. Now, this is the last piece. This is quite a long episode. I understand this. It says this. It says, when they become adults in paragraph 2230, when they become adults, children have the right and duty to choose their profession and state in life. They have a new relationship with their parents, and they can ask their parents and receive advice from their parents. But parents

should be careful not to exert pressure on their children, either in the choice of a profession or in that of a spouse. That is very important. We have this happen too often where we have young men in particular, but also we have young women on our campus who are discerning religious life, young men discerning seminary, and the people who are standing in their way the most are their parents. I've had to happen so many times when here's a young woman

who wants to go into religious life, but the person putting up a fight is her mom or dad. A young man who's like, I think I'm supposed to call it go to seminary next year, but the person putting up the fight for them is their mom or dad. And I just think, okay, you have a say in the sense you get to give counsel. You get to give your thoughts. In fact, it says the necessary restraint of them not telling here's what you're going to do does not prevent them, meaning doesn't prevent parents from giving their children judicious advice, particularly

when they're planning to start a family, planning to take a next step in their vocation. You get to have an opinion, but parents may not make the choice for them. or make the choice against them. That's one of the things that we just recognize is not under the purview of a parent when their children become adults. Well, there has been so much that we tried to cover today. I'm so sorry. But what a gift.

I mean, you know, when you have this many paragraphs? When do you stop talking? Tomorrow we're going to keep talking about family and the kingdom as well as the authorities and civil society. You know, we talked about roles of children to their parents, roles of parents, their children. We're also going to talk about the duties and roles of civil authority. authorities and the duties and roles of citizens. That's coming up tomorrow and the next day.

Until then, I have a little secret. I am praying for you. Please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. Can I wait to see you tomorrow? God bless.