Scouting the Catholic Way

Learning cardio-pulmonary resuscitation on a mannequin borrowed from the local fire department. Spending an afternoon at an equine center learning to groom and ride horses. Lolling down a placid river in a canoe.

Sounds like Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in action, right?

Almost. You'll definitely find these activities on the to-do list of any Cub Scout, Brownie, Boy Scout or Girl Scout, but you'll also find them on the itineraries of families who have chosen to do scouting a little differently — in ways that explicitly incorporate the Catholic faith.

Signing up kids for scouting used to be a simple matter of going down to your local church or public school and finding the troop appropriate to their age and sex. But traditional scouting in America has changed in ways that make some Catholic families wary.

Boy Scouts of America has been under attack for years over its staunch refusal to allow homosexual men to be scout leaders. A June 2000 U.S. Supreme Court decision upheld the organization's right to retain this policy, but the simmering controversy still makes some boys and their parents uncomfortable.

And although Boy Scouts of America remains the gold standard of scouting organizations, family-friendly policy and excellent program content cannot always guard against indiscretions or errors in judgment by local leaders. Catholic parents who enroll their sons in the Boy Scouts must make at least an implicit commitment to eternal vigilance.

Leo and Barbara Corbalis of San Jose, Calif., enrolled their son William in the Cub Scouts when he was a small boy. Barbara became a den mother in her son's pack in order to monitor activities. At one point, lack of discipline in the pack prompted the Corbalises to change packs.

“One boy in the pack would insult his father to his face in front of everyone,” says Barbara. “The father, who was a pack leader, never did anything in response.”

They also pulled William from Cub Scout seminars on sexual abuse and, as a 15-year old scout, their son once stood out in the hallway at a scout seminar rather than watch the R-rated movies being shown to the scouts inside.

William is now 17 and on his way to becoming an Eagle Scout and, while the Corbalises have found the Boy Scout experience to be both challenging and rewarding, they never even considered enrolling their daughter in the Girl Scouts. Girl Scouts USA has avoided controversy by adopting the very policies the Boy Scouts fight against.

Girl Scouts USA promotes the acceptance of homosexuality as normal — as an aspect of “diversity” to be celebrated. The organization is openly tolerant of lesbians within its ranks. And in 1993, the organization revised the Girl Scout Promise to reflect a policy making use of the word “God” optional. Members can substitute another word or no word at all. The “Beliefs and Values” page on the Girl Scouts Web site (www.girlscouts.org) recommends to girl scouts and their families the book A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles.

Holy Heritage

For Patti Garibay of Cincinnati, this was all just too much. Patti had been involved in Girl Scouts since she was a Brownie, and her four children also were scouts. She was a troop leader, camp director and served as a delegate to the local Girl Scout council. Friends would say that she bled Girl Scout green.

But one year, during Christmas, she discovered that technically it would be “illegal” for her to sing Christmas carols with her troop because the references to God and Jesus were considered discriminatory against nonbelievers.

Eternal vigilance was no longer an option. Garibay felt she had no choice but to leave.

“It was the saddest day of my life,” she recalls.

But she sees now that all those years of involvement in Girl Scouts were preparing her for a greater task: In 1995 she founded her own scouting program and called it American Heritage Girls. American Heritage Girls is not Christian, but makes a point of putting faith in God at the top of its priority list. The American Heritage Girls’ oath reads: “I promise to love God, cherish my family, honor my country and serve in my community.”

Carolyn Moore, who now serves as the organization's national growth director, was also a lifelong scout. She said her decision to leave Girl Scouts was difficult, but necessary. “We took the best of the existing national programs and melded them into a quality program that also promotes moral values, service and patriotism,” says Moore. “We don't bleed green anymore. We bleed red, white and blue.”

Parents who want to provide their daughters with a wide range of activities — camping, bicycling, art, community service — in a traditional troop setting complete with uniforms, proficiency badges and challenging activities will find American Heritage Girls an excellent alternative to Girl Scouts. American Heritage Girls currently has 1,300 members and is incorporated in nine states, with more and more requests for new troops coming in.

Pilgrim Power

For some parents, their troubles with mainstream scouting were not just a matter of content and policy; scheduling and logistics figured in as well. Five years ago Nancy and Kerry MacArthur of Houston had five children, 7 to 17 years of age, with four of them in four different scouting programs. “One weekend we found ourselves going in four different directions,” says Nancy, who wondered at the time why they couldn't do all the scouting activities together, as a family. And then Nancy mused, “What if we took the basic scouting structure and made it Catholic?”

The result was Pilgrims of the Holy Family, a Catholic family activity program that mirrors traditional scouting in the areas of proficiency it stresses but adds strong Catholic elements — plus the advantages of a more homespun structure. Unlike Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts or American Heritage Girls, there is no national headquarters, no incorporation, no chartering of troops. This gives the program great spontaneity and flexibility. Families order the materials and jump right in.

“It's perfect for families in remote areas who don't have a local scout troop,” explains Kerry. “You can keep everything within your own family or you can join together with other families.”

The MacArthurs have written a guidebook for the program, with checklists for earning 74 proficiency badges. All the traditional scouting topics, such as camping, boating and woodworking, are covered. For parents who may be concerned about how the content of the program measures up to Boy Scout standards, many of the badge requirements, especially for the most challenging skills such as lifesaving and first aid, are the same as those found in the Boy Scout Handbook. (For these badges, the MacArthurs recommend parents contact their local Red Cross chapter for qualified instruction.)

The program also includes many uniquely Catholic topics, such as Liturgy and Catholic Social Thought. Each proficiency area has its own patron saint; for example, herpetology (the study of reptiles) falls under the patronage of St. Patrick.

For their charity achievement badge, the MacArthur children and their friends did yard work, house-cleaning, maintenance and odd jobs for senior citizens.

“The kids begged to keep doing it,” says Nancy, “because they had befriended the people they were working for.”

The MacArthurs’ Pilgrims of the Holy Family troop received the “Volunteers of the Year” award in April 2002 from Associated Catholic Charities of the Galveston-Houston Diocese.

All materials, including sashes, vests and badges, are available from Catholic Heritage Curricula. Pilgrims of the Holy Family is designed for both boys and girls 10 and older. Catholic Heritage Curricula also carries programs for children under 10: Blue Knights for boys and Little Flowers for girls.

Clare Conneely writes from Winfield, Illinois.