The Truth About Religious Education

The Truth about
the Religious Education Program
at Holy Spirit.

An Editorial Comment:
Father Louis and his "new administration" have been attempting to change an extremely successful religious education program at Holy Spirit Parish for all the wrong reasons.

Our previous once-a-month family-based religious education program has been in place for years. It has been well accepted by our parishioners and has been professionally administered by Martha Sanchez. Martha Sanchez received national recognition for her development of this program. This program is fully approved by the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. It was an excelent program and there was no ligitimate reason to change it!

Because Martha Sanchez is part of the "old staff" group that joined the Farm Workers Union against the wishes of our bishop, Father Louis has been attempting to remove administration of the religious education program away from Martha Sanchez. This is what this whole thing is about!

Martha Sanchez has been kept "out of the loop" on our religious education program for over a year, with Father Louis refusing to allow her to order books and instructional materials or even to inform her of when religious education classes could be scheduled! These same type of tactics have also been utilized by Father Louis in his dealings with Ann Cass and Chayo Vaello.

As part of this removal process, several other key volunteers (including a paid employee) in the religious education/youth group program have recently been removed or driven off by Father Louis and his forces.

This year, due to the uncertainty of the RE program, only about 800 kids signed up for religious education. Holy Spirit normally has about 1,300 kids in religious education. Because of the tremendous growth in our area, this figure should have been well over 1,500 this year.

When Father Louis and his "new administration" put out a call for volunteer catechists (religious education teachers), only about 20 to 25 parishioners responded. When those responding realized the time requirements that the "new" weekly religious education program would require, over half declined.

This left our "new" religious education program with only about 10 or 15 "potential" (untrained) catechists to teach over 800 kids, with virtually no competent administrator. When the remaining volunteers discovered the situation, almost all of them also abandoned the cause.

The Truth: There is simply NO religious education program left at Holy Spirit! Father Louis' attempt to remove Martha Sanchez has virtually resulted in the TOTAL LOSS of our religious education program!

When Father Louis stated, "There will be no questions and there will be no answers" at his recent religious education meetings (2), he truly had "no answers and wanted no questions"! He had no religious education program to offer to the parishioners of Holy Spirit!

At this point, our parishioners are left with two choices: (1) they can "home-school" their children or, (2) they can send their children to another parish for religious education.

Religious education is key to the survival of our Catholic faith and it is the responsibility of every Catholic to provide religious education to their children. This is a requirement of the Catholic Church!

This useless destruction of our religious education program at Holy Spirit is an unforgivable sin of magnum proportions. Bishop Peña and Father Louis are playing games with our children!

Every Catholic in the Diocese of Brownsville should be totally outraged at what has happened at Holy Spirit Parish and should join me in demanding that Bishop Raymundo Peña and Monsignor Louis Brum immediately resign themselves of their positions in the Catholic Church!

We have asked Bishop Raymundo Peña to do something about this deplorable situation at Holy Spirit Parish for over three years. By ignoring this problem, he has encouraged it! His continuous acts of retaliation against three fine ladies that have dedicated their hearts and souls to the Catholic Church must stop! Enough is enough!
~Kanickers


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