Parent-Led Catechesis: The End of Sunday School
By Maria Riley
Young Catholics are leaving the Church in droves. The most recent study from Pew Research Center shows that for every new Catholic convert, eight have left the faith.1 The vast majority who leave do so during their teen or young adult years. Looking at these staggering numbers leads to one logical conclusion: the current faith formation model that most parishes implement simply isn’t cutting it for youth today.
As integral as Religious Education (RE) classes are to parish life, the crux of this obligation to keep kids Catholic falls to the children’s parents. Unfortunately, between weekly RE sessions and Catholic school attendance, many parents are all too happy and willing to let someone else be responsible for the faith education of their children.
All parents have vowed before God and witnesses to catechize their children to know and love God and to understand and obey the doctrine of faith of the Catholic Church. Parents did this simply during the Sacrament of Matrimony by affirming their preparedness “to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church.”2
When they chose the Sacrament of Baptism for their child, this vow was reiterated and elevated. During the Baptism, after the parents express their desire to have their child baptized, the celebrant speaks the following words:
“You have asked to have your child baptized. In doing so you are accepting the responsibility of training him (her) in the practice of the faith. It will be your duty to bring him (her) up to keep God’s commandments as Christ taught us, by loving God and our neighbor. Do you clearly understand what you are undertaking?”3
The parents then respond, “We do.” These two words commit the parents—not the parish Director of Religious Education or the Catholic school Religion teacher—to the faith education of the child. In this promise, parents have unequivocally committed to the spiritual development of their child. This obligation extends beyond simply paying the registration fee and dropping their child off at RE each week. Faith must be lived and experienced at home, every day, for the transformative relationship between Christ and his disciple to grow deep roots by the time the child reaches his or her teen years.
Traditional RE Programs Aren’t Working
Most parishes across the country offer faith formation through a classroom format. Sessions are scheduled weekly during the traditional school year, and parents drop off their children. Students are separated by grade, and a catechist uses a workbook to teach facts about the faith. In Catholic schools, Religion class replaces the Wednesday evening RE sessions but with the same objective: to learn about the Catholic Church.
While knowing the facets of the faith is a valuable and worthwhile endeavor, it fails to instill that personal faith that keeps youths Catholic. When kids sit in an RE classroom, it feels like school. Worksheets and quizzes only reinforce this atmosphere. Memorization and recitation may work for a weekly spelling test, but the Catholic faith cannot be summed up by a list of patriarchs and the miracles of Jesus.
Simple facts are easily forgotten, as demonstrated by how few adults can still recite the preamble of the U.S. Constitution or solve for cosine. More significantly, facts rarely have an impact on the heart. The heart is where disciples are drafted, and until the hearts of young people are converted, their tether to the Catholic Church remains weak if not nonexistent. Expecting a youth to remain Catholic after learning only statistics about the history of the Catholic Church and its prominent figures is akin to reading someone’s resume and knowing if you want to marry them or not. Some things can’t be understood until you experience them yourself, and in the case of faith, this experience happens most profoundly within the loving, deeply personal relationships of the family unit. This current classroom model isn’t offering the best of the Catholic Church—a profound, personal, and ongoing encounter with Jesus Christ himself, most especially through the Eucharist.
The Solution: Family Faith Formation
Instead of sitting students down in a classroom and expecting them to quietly behave and learn about the faith, kids need to be home with their families experiencing and living the faith. What we need now is the Family Faith Formation (FFF) model for catechesis, which does just this. Parents act as the primary catechists for their children, passing down their faith as with generations of old.
Faith at its core is relational. God himself desires a relationship with us, which is why he created us and eventually sent his only Son to suffer and die for us. When God created Adam, he recognized it wasn’t good for man to be alone. When Jesus commissioned his disciples, he sent them out two by two, and the establishment and growth of the infant Catholic Church bloomed because of the personal witness and relationships the disciples cultivated throughout the world.
Worksheets and recitation painfully lack relationship. While most faithful catechists selflessly give their time and expertise to their students, it’s impossible for them to have a meaningful relationship with every student. Even in small classrooms with the most loving catechists, an hour and a half a week cannot produce the intimacy required for true penetration into the heart of these kids.
When God, the creator of the universe, chose to enter the world, he did so through a family. Further, for 30 years, Jesus lived a mostly hidden life, learning how to pray and worship God with his parents. Through their example and witness, Mary and Joseph taught Jesus to read the Scriptures, pray with the Psalms, and rest on the Sabbath. In all things, Christians are called to imitate Christ, and the faith education of children is no exception.
Resistance to Change
The only thing consistent in life is change, and yet humans resist change every step of the way. Inevitably, when a parish transitions from a traditional classroom RE model to Family Faith Formation, parents will struggle with this “new” obligation on their plate. Of course, this obligation fell to them the moment their child was conceived and was professed at their child’s Baptism, but since they have not actively taken a role in their child’s faith upbringing, it will feel like too much to take on.
For years, many parents have happily written a check and not taken any personal responsibility for their children’s faith development. Even devout parents who respect and love the Catholic faith may find the switch to parent-led FFF overwhelming and daunting. For those parents who were raised Catholic, they most likely either attended a Catholic school or weekly RE classes themselves. Many of them experienced Sunday School continuing until the Sacrament of Confirmation, at which point they “graduated” from RE and no longer needed catechesis.
These parents need to be lovingly reminded of not only the promises they made at their children’s Baptism but also that as Catholics, we are called to live in the world and not of the world. Nothing is more important than the spiritual formation of children, yet parents often prioritize sports or social obligations over family prayer or reading the Bible together. Today’s secular world prizes accomplishments over faith, and even for Mass-going Catholics, the pull to keep up with club sports or supplemental academic opportunities can trump the whisper of God reminding them what truly matters. Allowing parents the opportunity to take the lead with their children’s spiritual development forces the top priority to be a priority in their lives.
The Logistics of Family Faith Formation
Families today are overscheduled and stretched thin. Many well-meaning parents may honestly not think it possible to find time to teach their kids about the faith amid their hectic lives. The reality is that FFF actually requires less time than a weekly RE session. In the classroom model, students are in class for an hour and a half, and when you factor in commute time and preparation, most families commit at least 10 hours a month to RE.
In the FFF model, parents are invited to a one-hour parent meeting the first week of the month to learn about the topics and focuses of the lessons. At this meeting, parents become familiar with the material and have all their questions answered. This allows parents to confidently present the lessons to their children, and it supports any parents who feel under-catechized or ill-equipped to teach their own children.
Additionally, the entire family comes to the parish once a month for a family session that includes a small teaching, a family activity, and time for fellowship. Families can begin to build relationships with other families, particularly those with kids of similar age. This fellowship is completely devoid in a drop-off RE or Catholic classroom setting, and building community, especially for families with children at home, will foster the heart transformation Jesus seeks for all of us. The parish will begin to feel like home.
The home portion of FFF should be integrated into the family’s existing schedule and can be as varied as the families who practice it. This is one of the truly beautiful aspects of parent-led catechesis: parents know their own children best because of that intimate relationship God cultivates between parents and their children. If children are squirmy, the family can take a hike and encounter God and his mysteries in nature. If children love videos, the family can watch a faith-based movie together. If the family is particularly busy, they can use time in the car to discuss the topics of the month. Parents are empowered to implement family prayer, Scripture reading, and the monthly topics through organic methods that work with their specific family dynamic.
The Mission of All Parents
Instead of RE being one more thing on their overly scheduled calendars, families grow together in faith, encouraging more family time and less hecticness. Within each family, the actual application of the FFF model can be adapted and suited for their particular needs, schedule, and temperaments. In this way, children will be raised within a domestic church that prioritizes the most important thing—faith.
Catholicism isn’t simply checking the box after attending Mass on Sunday. It’s relational and meant to be deeply personal. By experiencing faith together as a family, parents can not only deepen their own faith but can adequately pass down their love of Christ and his Church. Children need to know why faith matters, especially in today’s culture that is constantly vying for their attention and preaching pleasure over sacrifice.
This is the mission of all parents, and it’s time we start taking this mission seriously. Faith cannot be adequately passed down through one homily each week. Faith has to be lived, and children need to see their parents praying, sacrificing, growing, and loving in their daily lives. By implementing FFF, families can be renewed and restored as the source of love and faith. It’s no guarantee a child won’t stray from the faith, but if parents and children honestly seek God together, his graces will be poured out lavishly on them.
Maria Riley is a passionate Catholic wife, mom, writer, and speaker. She's the author of the award-winning chapter book series, Adventures with the Saints. She writes for Catholicmom.com and the Culture of Life Studies Program. Her Substack, In the Throes, inspires everyday holiness in a hectic, secular world. She can be found at MariaRileyAuthor.com.
“Religious Switching,” Pew Research Center, February 26, 2025.
Rite of Marriage.
Rite of Baptism for One Child.