Friday, July 27, 2007
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Urgent Action Alert--Call/E-Mail Rep. Kitty Rhoades
ACTION ALERT--AN URGENT NEED TO CALL OR E-MAIL REP. KITTY RHOADES AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! (Click on link for sample correspondence)--Contact Representative Rhoades, Phone: (608) 266-1526 or (888) 529-0030; Email: Rep.Rhoades@legis.wisconsin.gov.
Your Immediate Action is Needed!
Please PHONE or EMAIL State Representative Kitty Rhoades and (1) thank her for eliminating the expansion of the Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project in the Assembly budget bill, and (2) urge her to block the expansion of the Project on the conference committee.
IT IS CRITICAL THAT THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE BUDGET BILL
NOT INCLUDE ANY EXPANSION OF THE
MEDICAID FAMILY PLANNING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT !
The Family Planning Demonstration Project currently provides free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15, 16 and 17-year-old girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Federal and state law prohibits parents from being notified that their minor daughters are receiving free contraceptives under this demonstration project. This undermines parental authority and increases underage pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by encouraging sexual promiscuity. Expanding the project to include 15, 16, and 17-year-old boys further undermines parental authority in the sensitive area of teen sexual health.
LET’S STAND UP FOR PARENTS AND PROTECT OUR KIDS!
Your Immediate Action is Needed!
Please PHONE or EMAIL State Representative Kitty Rhoades and (1) thank her for eliminating the expansion of the Medicaid Family Planning Demonstration Project in the Assembly budget bill, and (2) urge her to block the expansion of the Project on the conference committee.
IT IS CRITICAL THAT THE CONFERENCE COMMITTEE BUDGET BILL
NOT INCLUDE ANY EXPANSION OF THE
MEDICAID FAMILY PLANNING DEMONSTRATION PROJECT !
The Family Planning Demonstration Project currently provides free, taxpayer-funded birth control to 15, 16 and 17-year-old girls without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Federal and state law prohibits parents from being notified that their minor daughters are receiving free contraceptives under this demonstration project. This undermines parental authority and increases underage pregnancy, abortion, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) by encouraging sexual promiscuity. Expanding the project to include 15, 16, and 17-year-old boys further undermines parental authority in the sensitive area of teen sexual health.
LET’S STAND UP FOR PARENTS AND PROTECT OUR KIDS!
Miles Christi Retreat September 14-16, 2007
Miles Christi Retreat (www.MilesChristi.org). September 14-16, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Miller Pads and Paper Gathering?
If anyone is interested in having Miller Pads and Paper visiting our area, please call me at 715-386-1089. We would need at least 100 people to have them set up a workshop in our area, not to mention a location. If you're interested, let me know. This would be for anyone--not just home educators. Miller Pads and Paper
Attn. Homeschool Support Groups in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota & Iowa
Miller Pads and Paper will be doing their first ever Fall Tour. If you and your support group would like Miller Pads and Paper to come to your support group this fall, please contact Renee or Randy Miller. We will arrange to visit these groups in order of location. All you need to do is call us and give us the groups meeting date and time, plus a contact name and phone number. Next decide if you would like us to come just as an exhibitor or if you would like us to do our art workshop as well as exhibit.
The workshop is 1 hour in length and is titled: Art, The Glue That Makes it Stick! If you are looking for ways to make learning fun by combining Art with core subjects, this workshop is for you. You'll leave with ideas galore and very excited. I rarely get to finish as there is too much to share! Don't worry, I talk with you afterwards if you still have questions. We will provide a handout and free gift to all attendees! We have 2 requests.
1. Groups should be approx. 100 members (or larger). 2 or more smaller groups can combine for this meeting.
2. Please make sure there are no steps for us to go up or down. Our displays are roll in and very heavy!
Please make sure you ask for Randy or Renee Miller. We hope to be a blessing to all we meet with this fall.
Randy and Renee Miller, Miller Pads and Paper, www.millerpadsandpaper.com
608-375-2181
P.S. We must do this on a first come first serve basis, so please call as soon as you can if you are interested. We will only be able to do approx. 20 groups!
Attn. Homeschool Support Groups in Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota & Iowa
Miller Pads and Paper will be doing their first ever Fall Tour. If you and your support group would like Miller Pads and Paper to come to your support group this fall, please contact Renee or Randy Miller. We will arrange to visit these groups in order of location. All you need to do is call us and give us the groups meeting date and time, plus a contact name and phone number. Next decide if you would like us to come just as an exhibitor or if you would like us to do our art workshop as well as exhibit.
The workshop is 1 hour in length and is titled: Art, The Glue That Makes it Stick! If you are looking for ways to make learning fun by combining Art with core subjects, this workshop is for you. You'll leave with ideas galore and very excited. I rarely get to finish as there is too much to share! Don't worry, I talk with you afterwards if you still have questions. We will provide a handout and free gift to all attendees! We have 2 requests.
1. Groups should be approx. 100 members (or larger). 2 or more smaller groups can combine for this meeting.
2. Please make sure there are no steps for us to go up or down. Our displays are roll in and very heavy!
Please make sure you ask for Randy or Renee Miller. We hope to be a blessing to all we meet with this fall.
Randy and Renee Miller, Miller Pads and Paper, www.millerpadsandpaper.com
608-375-2181
P.S. We must do this on a first come first serve basis, so please call as soon as you can if you are interested. We will only be able to do approx. 20 groups!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Salvete!
As an opening post to this blog, here is a partial quote from Seton Catholic Home Study Mission statement: www.SetonHome.org
Pope Leo XIII declared: It does not however follow from this that the parents' right to educate their children is absolute and despotic; for it is necessarily subordinated to the last end and to natural and divine law, as Leo XIII declares in another memorable encyclical, where He thus sums up the rights and duties of parents: "By nature parents have a right to the training of their children, but with this added duty that the education and instruction of the child be in accord with the end for which by God's blessing it was begotten. Therefore it is the duty of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights in this matter, and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their own control in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety."
This incontestable right of the family has at various times been recognized by nations anxious to respect the natural law in their civil enactments. Thus, to give one recent example, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, in a decision on an important controversy, declared that it is not in the competence of the State to fix any uniform standard of education by forcing children to receive instruction exclusively in public schools, and it bases its decision on the natural law: the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty, to educate him and prepare him for the fulfillment of his obligations. (37)
The Church places at the disposal of families her office of mistress and educator, and the families eager to profit by the offer, and entrusting their children to the Church in hundreds and thousands. These two facts recall and proclaim a striking truth of the greatest significance in the moral and social order. They declare that the mission of education regards before all, above all, primarily the Church and the family, and this by natural and divine law, and that therefore it cannot be slighted, cannot be evaded, cannot be supplanted.
Disorderly inclinations then must be corrected, good tendencies encouraged and regulated from tender childhood, and above all the mind must be enlightened and the will strengthened by supernatural truth and by the means of grace, without which it is impossible to control evil impulses, impossible to attain to the full and complete perfection of education intended by the Church, which Christ has endowed so richly with divine doctrine and with the Sacraments, the efficacious means of grace.
The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself. Accordingly that education, as a rule, will be more effective and lasting which is received in a well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family; and more efficacious in proportion to the clear and constant good example set, first by the parents, and then by the other members of the household. (71)
We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education. The offices and professions of a transitory and earthly life, which are certainly of far less importance, are prepared for by long and careful study; whereas for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children, many parents have little or no preparation, immersed as they are in temporal cares. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency, prevalent almost everywhere today, which, under one pretext or another, for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics, causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years.
From this it follows that the so-called "neutral" or "lay" school, from which religion is excluded, is contrary to the fundamental principles of education. Such a school moreover cannot exist in practice; it is bound to become irreligious. We renew and confirm [their] declarations, as well as the Sacred Canons in which the frequenting of non-Catholic schools, whether neutral or mixed, those namely which are open to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is forbidden for Catholic children, and can be at most tolerated, on the approval of the Ordinary alone, under determined circumstances of place and time, and with special precautions. (79)
For the mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted), does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth's entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is wanting, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence. (80)
The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism, according to the emphatic expression of the Apostle: "My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you." For the true Christian must live a supernatural life in Christ: "Christ who is your life," and display it in all his actions: "That the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (94)
For precisely this reason, Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, not with a view of reducing it in any way, but in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ. (95)
Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character. For, it is not every kind of consistency and firmness of conduct based on subjective principles that makes true character, but only constancy in following the eternal principles of justice And on the other hand, there cannot be full justice except in giving to God what is due to God, as the true Christian does. (96)
Pope Leo XIII declared: It does not however follow from this that the parents' right to educate their children is absolute and despotic; for it is necessarily subordinated to the last end and to natural and divine law, as Leo XIII declares in another memorable encyclical, where He thus sums up the rights and duties of parents: "By nature parents have a right to the training of their children, but with this added duty that the education and instruction of the child be in accord with the end for which by God's blessing it was begotten. Therefore it is the duty of parents to make every effort to prevent any invasion of their rights in this matter, and to make absolutely sure that the education of their children remain under their own control in keeping with their Christian duty, and above all to refuse to send them to those schools in which there is danger of imbibing the deadly poison of impiety."
This incontestable right of the family has at various times been recognized by nations anxious to respect the natural law in their civil enactments. Thus, to give one recent example, the Supreme Court of the United States of America, in a decision on an important controversy, declared that it is not in the competence of the State to fix any uniform standard of education by forcing children to receive instruction exclusively in public schools, and it bases its decision on the natural law: the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty, to educate him and prepare him for the fulfillment of his obligations. (37)
The Church places at the disposal of families her office of mistress and educator, and the families eager to profit by the offer, and entrusting their children to the Church in hundreds and thousands. These two facts recall and proclaim a striking truth of the greatest significance in the moral and social order. They declare that the mission of education regards before all, above all, primarily the Church and the family, and this by natural and divine law, and that therefore it cannot be slighted, cannot be evaded, cannot be supplanted.
Disorderly inclinations then must be corrected, good tendencies encouraged and regulated from tender childhood, and above all the mind must be enlightened and the will strengthened by supernatural truth and by the means of grace, without which it is impossible to control evil impulses, impossible to attain to the full and complete perfection of education intended by the Church, which Christ has endowed so richly with divine doctrine and with the Sacraments, the efficacious means of grace.
The first natural and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself. Accordingly that education, as a rule, will be more effective and lasting which is received in a well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family; and more efficacious in proportion to the clear and constant good example set, first by the parents, and then by the other members of the household. (71)
We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education. The offices and professions of a transitory and earthly life, which are certainly of far less importance, are prepared for by long and careful study; whereas for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children, many parents have little or no preparation, immersed as they are in temporal cares. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency, prevalent almost everywhere today, which, under one pretext or another, for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics, causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years.
From this it follows that the so-called "neutral" or "lay" school, from which religion is excluded, is contrary to the fundamental principles of education. Such a school moreover cannot exist in practice; it is bound to become irreligious. We renew and confirm [their] declarations, as well as the Sacred Canons in which the frequenting of non-Catholic schools, whether neutral or mixed, those namely which are open to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, is forbidden for Catholic children, and can be at most tolerated, on the approval of the Ordinary alone, under determined circumstances of place and time, and with special precautions. (79)
For the mere fact that a school gives some religious instruction (often extremely stinted), does not bring it into accord with the rights of the Church and of the Christian family, or make it a fit place for Catholic students. To be this, it is necessary that all the teaching and the whole organization of the school, and its teachers, syllabus and text-books in every branch, be regulated by the Christian spirit, under the direction and maternal supervision of the Church; so that Religion may be in very truth the foundation and crown of the youth's entire training; and this in every grade of school, not only the elementary, but the intermediate and the higher institutions of learning as well. To use the words of Leo XIII: It is necessary not only that religious instruction be given to the young at certain fixed times, but also that every other subject taught, be permeated with Christian piety. If this is wanting, if this sacred atmosphere does not pervade and warm the hearts of masters and scholars alike, little good can be expected from any kind of learning, and considerable harm will often be the consequence. (80)
The proper and immediate end of Christian education is to cooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian, that is, to form Christ Himself in those regenerated by Baptism, according to the emphatic expression of the Apostle: "My little children, of whom I am in labor again, until Christ be formed in you." For the true Christian must live a supernatural life in Christ: "Christ who is your life," and display it in all his actions: "That the life also of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh." (94)
For precisely this reason, Christian education takes in the whole aggregate of human life, physical and spiritual, intellectual and moral, individual, domestic and social, not with a view of reducing it in any way, but in order to elevate, regulate and perfect it, in accordance with the example and teaching of Christ. (95)
Hence the true Christian, product of Christian education, is the supernatural man who thinks, judges and acts constantly and consistently in accordance with right reason illumined by the supernatural light of the example and teaching of Christ; in other words, to use the current term, the true and finished man of character. For, it is not every kind of consistency and firmness of conduct based on subjective principles that makes true character, but only constancy in following the eternal principles of justice And on the other hand, there cannot be full justice except in giving to God what is due to God, as the true Christian does. (96)
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