Dad29: Priest Slams Home-Schoolers in MKE Catholic Herald; "helicopter moms and dads"

Fr. John Yockey
A southeastern Wisconsin pastor takes a couple of licks at homeschoolers, revealing his ignorance of home-schooled kids, their parents, and the nature of Satan (!!)

I’m not at all enthused about home schooling: too limited a degree of socialization, not enough involvement with a variety of peers, teachers and situations to learn to negotiate securely outside the family circle.

Keeping even small children hermetically sealed from the evils of the real world is terribly imprudent. Often hell breaks loose once teenagers are off to college with no parental controls, no helicopter moms or dads hovering over them.


Oh. Really?

Those home-school kids often reside in "neighborhoods," Father, where there are OTHER children with whom they bike, play pickup basketball, go sledding, or wander into the store to purchase candy. Those home-school kids often participate in Boy/Girl Scouts, non-school-related athletics, (it's called Land O' Lakes) and as a consequence meet and deal with adults who are not their own parents. Often they have jobs in retail; that's not exactly "hermetic." And in actually Catholic families, where there are several children, "negotiating" within the family circle is quite an exercise.

But maybe you didn't know any of that, Father.
continue at Dad29 

Some great comments on the MKE Catholic Herald.

It sounds like Fr. John Yockey has a history of being a bit of a hot head.
When other priests were unavailable to anoint the sick, hospitals and nursing homes in the area always knew that [Fr.] Verhasselt would come, no matter what time, Clark said.

Parishioners tell of a time when a member of a neighboring parish was dying. The family called the parish priest, Fr. John Yockey, who could not -- or would not -- come to anoint the man. Verhasselt was called and went to the dying man's bedside. The family asked Verhasselt to say the funeral Mass.

Yockey wrote a letter chastising -- and personally attacking -- Verhasselt. Yockey wrote that Verhasselt was obliged to contact him before going out on the call. Verhasselt allowed the letter to be read at a parish council meeting and he asked for advice on how to respond. The council advised that the letter was not worthy of response.

Yockey declined to comment for this story.
Yikes!

6 comments:

Steve said...

I have often heard people cite Christ's parable of the lamp as though homeschoolers are guilty of keeping the lamp under the bushel basket.

As an avid camper I know something about lighting a lamp.

One of the first lessons I learned was that while you are lighting a lamp you MUST shelter it until the wick is burning and the globe is set. If you expose it to the weather too soon a slight breeze or a single raindrop will quench the flame leaving you in the dark.

So it is with children. Until their wick is burning and the globe set, if you expose them to the world too soon their flame of faith will be snuffed out.

Anonymous said...

He is also a "consultor" to the Archbishop...and an promoter of the internal forum "solution." He should be at the Synod.....

Aged parent said...

Thanks for posting this.

Unknown said...

I have often thought about homeschooling (or sending kiddos to the local small, private, independent school ;) ) to be like nurturing a tiny trees that need to able to grow deep roots that would protect them from being blown over...and now more than ever.

TAq said...

Don't knock public schools; they're not all created equal. Cardinal Burke used to ask me how "Wisconsin's Largest Catholic High School" was doing? That was a reference to the local public school that offered a great environment for faith formation.

athomemama said...

Opening sentence: "I’m not at all enthused about home schooling: too limited a degree of socialization, not enough involvement with a variety of peers, teachers and situations to learn to negotiate securely outside the family circle."

But, the "family circle" IS the family operating and socializing and getting about in the real world.

The article simply goes downhill from there........