Religious Education ("CCD") will be starting for the 2022-2023 school year on Sunday, September 25th.  We will be contacting families of the students we know of from last year.  If your family is new to the area or you otherwise want to have your son or daughter join the program, please contact us or simply fill out and send us a registration form for each child you wish to enroll in the program.  If possible, please print out the registration form for each child you want to have in the program, fill out each one, and then scan and email to us copies of the forms.  (The registration fees can be paid later.)  Our email address is stmary-pecatonica@rockforddiocese.org.  We could use more catechists, substitute catechists, and door monitors.  Registration fees are waived for catechists and monitors.  Please see the documents below for further information.

Bishop David Malloy has written a letter to parents and guardians of schoolchildren concerning a state law that requires public schools to teach a certain "national" curriculum for sex education if the school teaches "comprehensive" sex education, although for at least this school year each school district can opt out. All the school districts in this area have opted out, except one in Rockford. The main problems with the "national" curriculum are that it teaches children of all grades (in supposedly age-appropriate ways) (1) a view of sex and sexual activity that is in major ways contrary to traditional values of respect for marriage and of one's body and the bodies of others, and (2) the "gender theory" ideology as if it were scientifically proven and universally accepted, which it clearly is not. This "national" curriculum can cause great harm to children, not only while they are in school but afterwards as well. Please see the bishop's letter for more information, posted in the section "Letters from Bishops." While the public schools in our area have opted out of this "national" curriculum (at least for this school year), parents are strongly advised to find out what schools are teaching their children in these matters, so parents can choose to correct or supplement what their children are being taught, or to simply opt out of some or all of the objectionable lessons their children are being taught, which parents have a right to do.