Our priest makes each family meet with him in person before they can enroll their children in Catechism and he said he was going to require them to attend at least one class with each child. The children are required to go to mass weekly and get their cards signed by him or the DRE. Supposedly, if they miss one mass or one class in Confirmation or First Communion they can’t receive the sacrament but I haven’t seen him kick anyone out.
After 1st Communion they are required to be altar servers and if the parents don’t send them back the next year he calls them and the kids usually show up.
On Baptisms he’s pretty easy, the parents don’t have to be married or anything but their Godparents must be Catholics in good standing and the parents and Godparents must take a 4 hour class.
We never see a lot of those families again until they start Catechism.
In my classes I usually have 1 or 2 kids who know anything about the faith from home. Most don’t pray, they don’t read the Bible.
He’s very strict but not mean and we have about 3 times as many students as we had before he came but most of them don’t come to mass during the summer.
That's ridiculous. Unmarried parents of a child are not in good standing with the Church; yet the godparents are required to be in good standing?