From Catherine Huang.

I entirely sympathize with the writer's dilemma. My husband and I have three children and also have had to grapple with this issue.

We did have the advantage that we homeschooled our children, using the profoundly Catholic curriculum provided by Kolbe Academy in Napa, CA, for the early years of high school. Our oldest daughter entered [a Catholic] high school in Grade XII and took the prescribed religion course. She found it very mentally taxing, because it was difficult to be honest about her own convictions and the Church's teachings while at the same time knowing that only spouting the "politically correct" line that the teacher was pushing would enable her to pass the course. Fortunately, the teachings of the Church and those of the teacher coincided on some issues, e.g. poverty, and she was able to take advantage of that.

At one point in the course, the students were assigned to produce a "mandala." A mandala is described by the dictionary as a Hindu or Buddhist form of prayer consisting of artwork in a circular and symmetrical form. We found this disturbing and I contacted a faithful and wise retired priest, who had many years of experience with the school board, to ask whether in his opinion this was worth challenging. He encouraged me to do so, and I met with the school principal and with the religion teacher. The meeting with the religion teacher was not encouraging regarding her Catholicity, and as almost invariably with liberals she assumed that once she explained her position I would inevitably agree. Her view was that (after 11 years of "Catholic" education) most of the students were "little pagans" and a Catholic curriculum was neither possible nor meaningful. I said, "I entirely understand." She reacted with relief and the assumption that Sara would do the assignment. "However," I continued, "I do not agree. I do not feel that this is an appropriate assignment for a Catholic young person, and I want Sara to do a different, alternate assignment." Sara and I had discussed this: I suggested she make and bring in a pysanka, a Ukrainian Easter egg, that being a work of art stemming from Catholic prayer. It was accepted. The course was, overall, the worst experience of her high school career.

Our second daughter was due to start school at the beginning of grade XII, but none of us wanted her to have to go through that course. We kept Felicity out of high school for an extra semester and did (among other studies) a crash course on St. Augustine--reading The City of God in its entirety. At enrollment, when the principal said she must take a required religion course, I firmly said that The City of God was our grade XII religion course so she had fulfilled that requirement. My assertion was accepted. Felicity transferred to a public high school after the end of the first semester (as her sister had done after the first year) in order to be able to take certain courses such as vocal music and senior Spanish, and commented that she found the atmosphere much more conducive to Christianity. She joined the evangelical student club and provided a leaven of Catholicity there.

Our son started high school at the beginning of grade X in this same public high school. We felt that, as one fervent and faithful Catholic mother whose son also attended Sarnia Collegiate put it, "What do I like about [this school]? No religion classes is a big advantage." He got to know many of the Catholic young men from the separate high school over the course of that year preparing to go to WYD 2005 with them and was revolted, he says, by the "hypocrisy" (his word and he insists on it) with which many or most of them publicly espoused Catholic ideals and privately boasted of their transgressions. He feels that the moral tone in the public school is higher, and as regards the friends with whom he associates, I have no reason to doubt that.

The only bright spot in this sorry story is the fact that the school accepted Felicity's St. Augustine module as the Grade XII religion equivalent. However, this was done outside of the school system and the school has no obligation to accept it. We have the good fortune to live in a county where the Beauchamp case, giving parents the right to homeschool and severely limiting school boards' powers, is still a living memory (and the Beauchamp family still very much a presence), so principals tend to be very courteous and willing to accommodate. I well know that this is far from being the case in some other parts of Ontario.

Mooretown, Lambton County, ON