Must Catholics Attend Catholic Schools?

In the mid-twentieth century in the United States, it was often said that it was a sin to not send a Catholic child to Catholic school. However, that was not a teaching of the Church but rather a general judgment based on the particular circumstances of the time. At that time, Catholic elementary schools were either free or extremely low cost to attend, and few individuals went on to college or beyond. Today, a Catholic elementary school can cost several thousand dollars a year, Catholic high schools can be more than $10,000 a year, and Catholic colleges are tens of thousands of dollars.

Back in an era when it was a truly an “all things being equal” choice between a Catholic school and secular school, choosing a secular school would raise serious questions. In an era where families simply cannot afford to send their children to a Catholic school, it’s not quite as surprising or unreasonable to choose a secular school.

That being said, secular schools have also come a long way. The larger secular schools will most likely have a Newman Club and/or a Catholic chaplain, so the danger of being away from the faith is greatly lessened.

While the situation has changed quite a bit, the prior warnings are still essentially true. Even today we need to be aware of environments that would attack our Faith or educations that would seek to undermine our values. But, no, its not a sin to choose an affordable secular education as long as we safeguard our Faith.