For the past few years, since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Diocese of Madison has partnered with the Franciscan University Catechetical Institute to offer our Catholic school teachers and parish leaders online coursework that they can access to continue in formation of the faith.
Franciscan at Home took the place of live coursework that was previously offered through the Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute.
Seat of Wisdom Diocesan Institute provided formation for parish leaders and staff along with school teachers and interested adults. It offered both a basic and an advanced track with various course offerings.
Courses now available for all
If you are searching for more opportunities to grow in or learn about the faith but aren’t sure where to find classes or resources to do so, we now have an opportunity for you.
Franciscan at Home and all tracks available on the online learning system are now available to anyone in our diocese as a way for catechists and parishioners to grow in faith and in love for Christ!
These courses are free for anyone as a result of a diocesan subscription, made possible by contributions to the ACA.
Tracks and offerings
The Catechetical Institute offers specially designed online courses that cover a variety of topics and can be completed at your own pace.
The courses are divided into short segments of video that are followed by a task that allows you to engage with the information presented and learn more.
The tasks are designed to help you grow in your spiritual life so they often invite you to pray with Scripture or a passage from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and ponder how this applies to your life and work.
The workshops are best done in a group or with a companion so that you can discuss and grow together.
The system allows you to type in your responses to the tasks and save your work so that you can come back and pick up where you left off which allows you to either complete a workshop at one time or do small segments over a period of time.
The workshops are broken up into tracks (a grouping of workshops) for various roles — Director of Religious Education, Catholic Schools, Catechumenal Ministry, Deacon Formation, Ministry of Parenting, etc., but all of the more than 200 workshops are also available individually.