A new survey found that nearly a quarter of United Kingdom parents don’t teach their children any religion due to a fear that it would make their children outcasts at school.
The survey was carried out by the organization ComRes and commissioned by Theos, a religious and social affairs think tank.
Another reason given by about a fourth of parents in the UK was that their children “may have questions I could not answer.”
Only about 40% of parents said they had ever talked to their children about religion, while nearly 1 in 5 said it was “not my role as a parent to pass on my beliefs to my children.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church is very clear that Christian parents have a responsibility to raise their children up in the faith:
“Through the grace of the sacrament of marriage, parents receive the responsibility and privilege of evangelizing their children. Parents should initiate their children at an early age into the mysteries of the faith of which they are the “first heralds” for their children. […] Parents have the mission of teaching their children to pray and to discover their vocation as children of God.” (CCC 2225-2226)
