While the Church acknowledges the right and responsibility of parents to educate their children in the faith, she must also exercise her role as a vigilant mother in matters of faith. Religious education is both instruction in the truths of our faith and a guide to a way of life that leads to communion with the Triune God. To put it another way, genuine religious education informs, forms, and transforms. The Church, through the local parish, must take care to ensure that catechesis of children and young people is carried out with attention to all dimensions and facets of religious education.

At the Cathedral of Saint Patrick, we follow the Catholic Church’s stance that religious education is a lifelong process and that parents are the primary spiritual and moral educators of their children. Our responsibility as a parish church is to support parents in their role as the primary teachers of their families. Church law obliges the pastor of a parish to provide for this instruction in the truths of the faith (Code of Cannon Law c.528.1). He does this with the assistance of our Faith Formation Catechists.

Under the direction of their pastors, parents are the primary catechists of their children and youth. As models of practicing Catholics, parents show their children the importance of being engaged learners and practitioners of their faith. Parents then teach and support their children in learning about and practicing the Catholic faith, especially in the preparation for receiving the Sacraments of Confession, Eucharist, and Confirmation. They create a home church for their families in which prayer, Scripture reading, and seasonal religious rituals (e.g. Advent and Lenten devotions, mealtime prayers) are experienced as a family; and in which celebrating the Sacrament of Confession regularly and going to Mass each Sunday and on Holy Days of obligation are family priorities.

The parish of Saint Patrick Cathedral, according to the promise made to these parents at their children’s baptisms, supports the faith formation of our children and youth by providing formal religious education programs. Through our full range of Faith Formation programs, we seek to give the children in our care the knowledge, experience, and skills necessary to become faithful and fruitful disciples of Jesus.

Parish-provided Faith Formation instruction includes the following:

Faith Formation for Children (K - 7th Grade)

The Cathedral of Saint Patrick Faith Formation for Children program is open to all parish children from grades Kindergarten through seventh grade.

Classes are held Sunday mornings September 2024 through May 2025 from 10:05am - 10:50am in the St. Patrick Catholic School building. (Please note class will begin only after the 9:00 am Mass is over).

The Diocese of Charlotte requires that students miss no more than 6 classes in any given year to advance to the next grade level. Should the number of absences be exceeded, we will have to consider having the child repeat the grade the following year.

Students who have completed formal catechesis in the 1st and 2nd-grade years are candidates to receive First Penance and First Holy Communion in the spring of second grade year. As a rule, First Communion takes place after the age of 7, the customary “age of reason”. Hence, children receiving First Holy Communion must be 7 years of age by the end of the final month of the school year. Parents and children are required to attend weekly Sunday Mass, preparation classes and workshops in addition to regular religion classes. To learn more about First Penance and First Holy Communion preparation, please CLICK HERE.