Parish School of Religion (PSR)

Parish School of Religion (PSR) exists to assist families not enrolled at St. Francis Holy Ghost School in fulfilling the sacred duty entrusted to them by God at Baptism: the Christian formation of their children in the truth of the Catholic faith. PSR is not merely a program or activity, but a participation in the Church’s perennial mission to Make Disciples of Jesus Christ and to hand on the Faith which has been received.

The Church has always taught that parents are the primary educators of their children in matters of faith and morals, and that this responsibility comes from the very nature of parenthood itself. As the Catechism states at length:

“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.”
(CCC 2223)

PSR exists to support, strengthen, and supplement this parental mission, not to replace it. The parish, as an extension of the Catholic Church’s teaching office, cooperates with families by providing systematic instruction in Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition, doctrine, moral theology, prayer, and sacramental life.

The Church insists that catechesis must be ordered toward truth. Education in the faith is reliant upon a want for knowledge of God and desire for the good.  As the tradition has long held, truth precedes love, for one cannot love what one does not know. In this light, the Second Vatican Council teaches:

“Since parents have given children their life, they are bound by the most serious obligation to educate their offspring and therefore must be recognized as the primary and principal educators. This role in education is so important that only with difficulty can it be supplied where it is lacking. Parents are the ones who must create a family atmosphere animated by love and respect for God and man, in which the well-rounded personal and social education of children is fostered. Hence the family is the first school of the social virtues that every society needs. It is particularly in the Christian family, enriched by the grace and office of the sacrament of matrimony, that children should be taught from their early years to have a knowledge of God according to the faith received in Baptism, to worship Him, and to love their neighbor. Here, too, they find their first experience of a wholesome human society and of the Church. Finally, it is through the family that they are gradually led to a companionship with their fellowmen and with the people of God. Let parents, then, recognize the inestimable importance a truly Christian family has for the life and progress of God’s own people.” (Gravissimum Educationis, 3)

Accordingly, PSR is intentionally structured to teach the objective content of the Catholic faith:

1) Who God is

2) What He has Taught

3) How He saves

4) How We are Called to Respond

This includes instruction on the Creed, the Sacraments, the Commandments, prayer, and the life of grace, always in continuity with the Church’s received teaching.

Participation in PSR is thus an act of obedience, stewardship, and charity: obedience to Christ and His Church, stewardship of the souls entrusted to parents, and charity toward children, who have a right to receive the faith whole and entire. Through faithful catechesis, PSR seeks to prepare students not only for the reception of the Sacraments, but for a lifetime of informed, reverent, and courageous Catholic living.

PSR is available to all children in Kindergarten through 12th Grade.
To enroll your child in PSR, please contact the Office for Religious Education.
618-498-3518

Keaten Mansfield, Director of Religious Education
Cathie Ward, PSR Coordinator — (618) 791-4461