At their child’s baptism, parents make a vow, a promise before God, to raise their child in the faith, introduce their child to the Church and to Jesus Christ, and help that child grow in a relationship with Christ, learning to keep his commandments and follow him, said Bishop Andrew Cozzens. “That’s a part of Catholic parenting from the Church’s perspective and God’s perspective,” he said.
“In fact, it’s the main part of Catholic parenting — that my main duty, my main goal is to help my children get to heaven,” he said. “That’s a part of Catholic parenting that you can’t outsource.”
Bishop Cozzens said studies indicate that most Catholic young people who grew up in the Church today leave it before their 20th birthday — something he finds deeply concerning. “The median age at which they decide to leave the Church is age 13,” he said. “So, this is a big problem for us.”
But studies also show that, of the young people who choose to stay in the Church, the vast majority of them do so because they had committed Catholic parents, he said.
Bishop Cozzens recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley to talk about the role of parents in raising their children in the faith. Parents who are intentional about their responsibility make a difference, he said. “If you’re intentional about doing things to help your children grow in love in the Church, then, in fact, that’s going to make a huge difference for them,” he said.
Some of what parents can do is pretty basic, he said.
First, engage children in the sacramental life of the Church, he said, starting with Sunday Mass. Parents who skip Sunday Mass because the children are in a soccer game teach children a lesson — that soccer is more important than God, Bishop Cozzens said. “And when they get to college, there’s going to be lots of things that are more important than God.”
But, if children learn in their family that nothing is more important than their relationship with God, that will have an impact, even if they don’t always make the right choice when they go to college, he said. “They’re going to know God’s important because we went to Mass every single Sunday, even when we were on vacation,” he said.
Mass attendance is the first and most basic thing, Bishop Cozzens said, but so is making sure children receive first Communion and practice confession. “It was always an inspiring thing for me as a kid, when my parents would take me to confession and they would go to confession first.” As a teenager, the bishop said, if he wanted to use the car on Saturday night, he needed to first go to confession.
Other practices he mentioned for parents is to ask themselves: Do we pray in our home? Do we pray before meals? Do we pray any other time together? Do we show that a relationship with God is important, by the way we spend our time? Do we talk about readings in the Bible at some point during the week? And then, do we share our faith?
Growing up, the dinner table was a place where important conversations took place — about what was happening in the world and how to see that in light of the faith, Bishop Cozzens said. Those basic practices are very important, he said, adding that parents don’t need to do “dramatic things.”
If parents don’t have an answer to a question their children ask, perhaps look answers up together in a catechism at home, he said. But parents don’t need to be an expert, he said. “You have to be a committed disciple — that is, I’m a person who is seeking to live in a daily relationship with Jesus, and I want to make sure that my children also understand what that means, to live in a daily relationship with Jesus. And that means daily prayer, daily trying to grow together, sharing my faith, serving together.”
Bishop Cozzens said his family served the poor together at Thanksgiving by working at a food shelf for part of the day, or sometimes on Christmas, if not at Thanksgiving. “Or we would adopt a poor family, and we weren’t allowed to spend more money on our own family than we spent on a poor family. So, these were little practices that helped us as children understand, ‘This is the way we live our faith.’”
At the end of the interview, Conley asked Bishop Cozzens how the faithful can support Catholic school educators. To hear his suggestions — and the full interview — listen to this episode of “Practicing Catholic.” It airs at 9 p.m. Aug. 27, 1 p.m. Aug. 28 and 2 p.m. Aug. 29 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with author, Catholic speaker and retreat leader Liz Kelly, who previews her upcoming Cuppa Joe talk on “St. Joseph: Adorer of Christ,” and FOCUS missionary Megan Roder, who describes how she helps give college students a chance to encounter Christ and respond in faith.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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