September 7, 2025

Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~

Parents have an obligation to have their children educated in both the things of this world and in the faith of Jesus Christ. The latter is more important for your and your children’s immortal life than the former. If you haven’t yet enrolled your child in our faith formation programs, please do so immediately. Our participation in the one Church that God ever established is even more important than the curriculum our kids and grandkids may or may not learn in a classroom. Our children need to start learning that participating in the life of the Church is an essential aspect of a life in Christ. Please enroll your children in faith formation classes. You can do so at this website, the same one for all the communities of Columbia River Catholic https://holyredeemervan.org/parish-events/faith-formation-enrollment-ykxz8.

The most important place where faith formation happens is at home. Please instruct your children and grandchildren about the Catholic faith at home. If you don’t think you know enough to pass on the faith to anyone else, then inform yourself. Faith doesn’t end with childhood, it’s lifelong. To that end, we are fortunate to be able to offer many different programs for adults throughout the year as well. Check them out here https://holyredeemervan.org/all-parish-events and here https://www.stthomascamas.org/upcoming-events.

Some good news. As all of you should know by now, Columbia River Catholic has a preschool and kindergarten (CRC-PK). The kids meet on the campus of St. Thomas in Camas. Schooling has resumed for this school year. Some pictures are attached. If you’re open to learning more about this opportunity for your preschool and kindergarten kids or grandkids, go to this website https://www.stthomascamas.org/st-thomas-preschool, or contact contact Laruen White at 360-953-5842 or email at lauren@stthomascamas.org. There is tuition assistance for children of Columbia River Catholic. We hope to expand CRC-PK to first grade and beyond one day. While that is a process we hope to explore, it will need approval from above. Perhaps we’ll get approval this year to explore the possibility of having our pre-k move onto first grade and beyond in the future.

Here's some other good news you are less likely to be aware of. This summer we were able to move Regina Caelia Academy into our school building on St. Thomas’ campus. Some pictures are attached. Regina Caeli (Queen of Heaven) Academy is a Catholic hybrid where children meet in a school building on Mondays and Thursdays where they pray, are taught, take tests, submit homework, give presentations, and make friends. On the other days of the week, they do their homework at home with a parent’s tutelage. This is a combination of traditional brick and mortar schooling and homeschooling. It is an excellent school with over 90 kids from preschool through high school. There is tuition assistance for children of Columbia River Catholic. To learn more, check out their website here https://www.rcahybrid.org/portland-oregon. The principal and vice principal are parishioners of Holy Redeemer Parish. They’d love to hear from you. Here’s the principal’s contact information: Linda Anderson at 971-238-9249 or email at landerson.por@rcahybrid.org.

Taken together, Columbia River Catholic has over 110 Catholic kids meeting on the campus of St. Thomas Aquinas in Camas during the school year.

Columbia River Catholic takes an “all of the above” approach when it comes to supporting parents in their educational choices for their children. Parents enroll their children in public, Catholic, hybrid, or homeschools for different reasons. Those reasons are too myriad to justify supporting one or two to the detriment of others. This parish family and I try to help parents to raise their children in the practice of the Catholic faith regardless of where or how they attend school. With that said, there is clear empirical evidence that good Catholic schools produce a much higher probability of producing good practicing Catholic adults than non-Catholic schooling.

Because it is still misunderstood by many, a word about Catholic homeschooling. We support it. Some people still think homeschooling is unhealthy, but the statistics bear out the success of children, now adults, who were homeschooled. Homeschooling, Catholic or not, was growing steadily before Covid. Since then, it has taken off. Whether you are open to trying homeschooling alone or with others in a consortium like Regina Caeli Academy, we support you. Homeschooling isn’t for everyone, as more factors have to be present for it to succeed (both parents on board, single income household so one parent can teach, a parent who can actually teach, children who will respond to their parent as a teacher), yet for those for whom it can succeed, I encourage you to look into it. It might be the most consequential decision of your children’s lives.

In Christ, I Love You,