Homegrown: Prepare adolescents for the sacrament of marriage

Meeting Summary

Simon Ashley, a Catholic educator and founder of the Homegrown Initiative, presented a parent-led formation program he spent a decade developing — first as a 30,000-word master’s thesis at the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, and then as a practical resource piloted with a small group of families in 2024. His central argument is simple but pointed: the Church prepares children for the sacraments of initiation, and adults for marriage and holy orders, but adolescents fall into a gap. They get youth groups and conferences but no rigorous sacramental formation for marriage — the very sacrament most of them will enter. Homegrown is his answer to that gap, grounded explicitly in John Paul II’s vision in Familiaris Consortio for a pre-marriage catechumenate.

The program has two levels. Level one introduces the five key topics John Paul II and Pope Francis identify for marriage formation — gift, unity, faithfulness, fertility, and indissolubility — through short glossaries written by AI in the voices of figures like C.S. Lewis, Brené Brown, and Bandit from Bluey, making the Church’s teaching accessible and palatable for teenagers. Parents meet fortnightly online for a 30-minute session, then go away and have the conversation with their own child in whatever way fits their family — over food, on a walk, via a phone screen. Level two introduces Theology of the Body texts directly alongside simple hands-on activities, such as caring for a plant as an entry point into the theology of the body as gift. The pilot group of families — who came through the program last year — confirmed that the structure, while simple, was genuinely transformative: it gave parents language, courage, and a regular rhythm of meaningful conversation with their children.

Simon was emphatic that the program is built on the principle of subsidiarity — it is not a program for children but a program that equips parents to be the primary educators. It is deliberately convenient (half-hour online sessions, flexible implementation), affordable ($30 per adult), and designed to be scalable through trained mentors drawn from cohort graduates. He has found schools an unreliable pathway due to curriculum politics and NFP sensitivities, and now focuses exclusively on the parish as the launch point.

About the Presenter

Simon Ashley is a Catholic educator and the founder of the Homegrown Initiative, a parent-teen formation resource for the sacrament of marriage. He holds a Master of Theology from the John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family, where his research focused on adolescence and the pre-marriage catechumenate, and has worked as a teacher and sacramental coordinator. He lives in southeast Queensland with his wife Nikki and four children.

Key Takeaways

Adolescents are the overlooked cohort in sacramental formation. Children are prepared for initiation, adults for marriage — but there is no serious, sustained program preparing teenagers for the sacrament of marriage they will almost certainly enter. Homegrown is designed to fill exactly that gap, grounded in John Paul II’s Familiaris Consortio framework.
Parents, not teachers, are the right educators for this content. The program is built on subsidiarity — empowering parents to lead conversations with their own children rather than outsourcing it to a speaker, a school, or a youth group. The teacher’s job is to help parents do their job.
Avoid the “one big talk” at all costs. A single conversation about sex and relationships will shut children down; a regular rhythm of short, low-pressure conversations — 5 to 30 minutes, weekly or fortnightly — builds trust, normalises the topic, and creates the space for children to bring their own questions.
Meet children where they are — intellectually and personally. The Homegrown website uses AI-generated glossaries written in the voices of authors teenagers already love (C.S. Lewis, Brené Brown, Bandit from Bluey) to present Church teaching in an accessible way. Before any conversation, parents are invited to identify whether their child responds best to emotion, reason, or ethics, and to choose their approach accordingly.
The parish, not the school, is the right home for this program. Simon spent years trying to implement Homegrown through Catholic schools and found consistent resistance around NFP and curriculum politics. Parish-based implementation, with cohorts of parents meeting fortnightly online, has proven far more effective and sustainable.