Who and what are the Fathers and the Doctors of the Church and why should the Catholic Home School child know or care about them?  Our Catholic Faith comes to us from the apostles. As they passed on the Faith to the believers of their day and passed on their holy orders to new bishops and priests the new generation of leaders began to write and explain, to clarify doctrine and practices. These early teachers who followed the apostles are the Fathers of the Church.  We go to them and learn that the dogmas we believe and the sacraments we receive today are the same as they were in the early Church. The Doctors of the Church are holy men and women whose insights and teachings have so influenced the Church through the centuries that they have been recognized with the special title.

The writings of the Fathers of the Church are well preserved and fill many volumes. What we offer here is merely a brief survey by Mike Aquilina - The Fathers of the Church: Introduction to The First Christian Teachers. Archbishop Charles Chaput recommends this book as "a gem of readability for a popular audience." Some of the Fathers of the Church are also Doctors of the Church and more about them can be found in the other books listed below.

The 33 Doctors of the Church by Christopher Rengers, O.F.M.Cap.is a 750 page volume with one chapter devoted to each of the thirty-three declared Doctors of the Church.  Each chapter contains anecdotes from the saint's life, selections from his or her writings, and frames his life in the times in which he lived thus providing a panorama of Church history.