Drawing on their own experience, families say homeschooling cultivates priestly vocations

(OSV News) -- Father Danny Morrison's first memories of a Catholic priest take place in his childhood home. When he was as young as 4 years old, he saw priests playing sports with his family or joining them for dinner.

"It struck me to see a man with so much joy," he recalled. "Then, from that young age, to see the same man on the altar, wearing funny robes, and yet there's a sense of reverence -- of, whoa, there's something really profound going on."

He added: "That, I think, was the first spark of seeing the priesthood, and not even necessarily knowing what it was, but desiring it."

Father Danny, parochial vicar at Little Flower Parish in Bethesda, Maryland, spoke with OSV News ahead of National Vocation Awareness Week Nov. 2-8. The 26-year-old priest entered the seminary after receiving a homeschool education and was ordained in June. His family and three other Catholic homeschooling families with sons who discerned a vocation to the priesthood spoke about the impact of homeschooling on cultivating priestly vocations.

Of Father Danny and his six siblings, four discerned a religious vocation, including three to the priesthood. They belong to a documented increase in priests who were homeschooled.

"More than one in ten responding ordinands (15%) reported being home schooled," according to a report released earlier this year by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, or CARA, at Georgetown University in Washington that drew from a national survey of seminarians scheduled for ordination in 2025.

The co-author of the report, Sister Thu T. Do, a religious sister of the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Hanoi and a research associate at CARA, said CARA began tracking homeschooling among ordinands in 2006. At that time, only 3% of ordinands reported being homeschooled.

"By 2025, that figure had risen to 15%, marking a 400% increase over the period," she said in emailed comments. "On average, 9% of ordinands have been homeschooled over the past decade."

Drawing from their own experiences, the homeschooling families who spoke with OSV News agreed that homeschooling cultivates priestly vocations. They spoke about the beauty of living out their faith in every aspect and the freedom and flexibility to pursue the sacraments regularly and prayer daily. Many of them invited priests into their homes and stressed the importance of being around priests. They also valued their homeschooling communities where they forged friendships with other families also striving for holiness.

Laurie Kraemer, mother of Fathers Matthew and Timothy Kraemer, and Judy Miller, mother of Father Jayson Miller, belonged to the St. Joseph Pillar of Families Catholic Homeschool Support Group, based in Grand Forks, North Dakota, and the surrounding area. Including her sons, Kraemer counted eight alumni who either are priests or are on the path to priesthood.

"You have more time and space to help the child to know what the faith is, to live it out and to ponder that call," Kraemer, a mother of seven in Grand Forks, said of homeschooling.

The Kraemers, like other homeschooling families, welcomed priests into their home, where they prayed and played games together. Kraemer remembered starting every school day with learning religion. They prayed the rosary, attended Holy Hours, and even traveled to events like the March for Life, a national pro-life event, in Washington. They embraced faith with their homeschool group, where they would do things like pray together in front of the Blessed Sacrament for a "half holy hour."

Both Kraemer and Miller used some materials from Seton Home Study School, a Catholic homeschooling curriculum, they said. Along the way, they each spoke about how they and their families learned and grew in faith together. They weren't perfect or the holiest people in the world, both of them said in separate interviews, but they strived to make sure their children knew the importance of faith and doing their best to live a Catholic lifestyle.

"I think that what fosters vocations is the sincere and total effort to establish and live an authentic Catholic life in the home," Miller, a mother of five in Lawton, North Dakota, said in emailed comments. "Over time, the children experience Catholic life as ‘normal and just how we do things.' This requirement of time and effort is just less difficult to live out in the family that includes homeschooling as a natural part of the rhythm of their days."

Miller added: "Homeschooling is not the only way to have the time that is needed to live the Catholic life of prayer, liturgy, study, etc but it provides a very natural and flowing way to do so."

From Orangevale, California, Brian and Jeanne Condon spoke about homeschooling eight of their children, including Ben, a seminarian studying at St. Patrick's Seminary in Menlo Park, California. They also strived to create a homeschooling environment where they lived out their faith.

"We plant," Jeanne said, "but God's the one who causes the growth."

Jeanne, who did the majority of the homeschooling while Brian worked, called herself a relaxed homeschooler who followed British educator Charlotte Mason's approach to homeschooling, which she described as embracing beautiful artwork and music, exploring nature and reading good books.

Her goal, Jeanne said, was that their children would feel the love of family life.

Faith was part of their routine. They regularly attended Mass, confession and Eucharistic adoration.

Jeanne started every morning with a "school of quiet," where she and their children did a gospel reading and laid the foundation for mental prayer. They also began praying the rosary every night. They were involved with their parish, where Jeanne even helped start a vocations ministry.

Like other parents, Grace Morrison pointed to her children's exposure to the faith while homeschooling -- the accessibility of the sacraments, such as daily Mass, confession and perpetual adoration at their parish in Gaithersburg, Maryland.

She's the mother of seven -- including Fathers Danny, James and Nicholas Morrison, and Sister Mary Sophia Morrison, a member of the Nashville Dominicans, as the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Cecilia in Tennessee is best known.

Her children were also exposed to the faith through their Mother of Divine Grace School curriculum. They held up the saints as heroes, she added, and they were motivated not to live in mediocrity, but to practice the virtue of magnanimity.

In their journey, they walked with other faithful families in their homeschool community through their local TORCH (Traditions of Roman Catholic Homes) group. Other families in that community also discerned multiple vocations, she and Father Danny said.

"Every family was pursuing holiness," Father Danny said, remembering his friendships from that community. "It was very much part of our conversation as far as prayer, as far as vocation."

These parents shared their advice for other homeschooling families that want to encourage and support vocations. Among other things, they emphasized the importance of discerning homeschooling itself, not trying to force a vocation on a child, fostering a love for God and relationships with priests, modeling a life of faith, being involved with your parish, and praying with and for your children.

For his part, Father Danny recommends praying the rosary.

"Marian devotion is such a critical part to anyone's family, but especially to vocation -- to any vocation, holy matrimony, priesthood, religious life, to have the rosary be the foundation of the family," he said, remembering when his family prayed at bedtime.

Today, Father Danny strives to be like the priests he grew up around. He enjoys going to families' homes for dinner and calls it "a beautiful camaraderie of vocations."

"My hope is when I join a family for dinner that they have an increase of faith and an increase of joy and just fellowship," he said. "I certainly know I walk away with so much happiness and so much fulfillment in seeing them live out their faith in the beauty of their family."