As Catholic homeschooling steadily grows across the US, J.C. Miller, a Michigan attorney and father of seven, believes it’s time for the Church to officially recognize and support this movement.
In a July 8 article for Crisis Magazine, Miller argued that homeschooling is no longer a fringe phenomenon but a vibrant and increasingly influential segment of Catholic family life, one that may hold the key to the Church’s future.
“The data indicates that homeschoolers are much more likely to embrace a religious vocation and more likely to retain their religious faith and practice in college,” Miller wrote. “It’s time for Catholics to seriously examine the impact of homeschooling on the Church and what we should do in response.”
Citing insights from Father Robert Sirico’s recent piece in the Wall Street Journal, Miller pointed to a hybrid education model that revitalized a struggling parish school. His own child attended such a program, where homeschoolers participate in in-person classes two days a week.
The model worked so well that Miller’s diocese included a goal to “consider part-time Catholic school options to include more homeschooled students and families” in its five-year plan.
Yet Church responses remain inconsistent. Miller contrasted the openness in some dioceses with the resistance in others, like San Diego, where a previous bishop banned Catholic homeschool groups from using parish facilities. The rationale given was that such use might “undermine the stability of nearby Catholic schools” — a claim Miller challenged.
“Are these the most effective means?” he asked, referring to traditional Catholic education programs. “The available data actually suggests that homeschooling by members of the Church is an effective way of accomplishing that teaching mission.”
Miller pointed to findings from Professor Ryan Burge, who analyzed a large dataset from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. Burge found that homeschooled college students reported the highest levels of weekly religious attendance, exceeding even those who had attended parochial schools.
“Homeschoolers were 25 percent more likely to go to religious services weekly over parochial school graduates and more than twice as likely to go to church compared to public school graduates,” Miller noted.
This pattern appears again in vocation statistics. Drawing on research from The Pillar’s Brendon Hodge, Miller highlights that homeschoolers are significantly overrepresented among newly ordained priests and religious. Though they made up only a small percentage of Catholic children two decades ago, they now account for a much larger share of vocations — three to four times their proportion in the general population.
“With such a large future impact, maybe it is time for the Church to be more intentional and strategic about homeschooling,” Miller said.
He also pointed out that these outcomes have emerged without the kind of institutional support that Catholic schools typically receive. In many cases, dioceses cover a significant portion of tuition costs, sometimes as much as 70 percent. Parishes also dedicate a large share of their offertory income to keeping schools running.
Despite these investments, enrollment in many Catholic schools continues to decline, while homeschooling continues to grow.
