ROWAN WILLIAMS AND RICHARD DAWKINS OPPOSE MEW CATHOLIC SCHOOLS
Dr Rowan Williams, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, co-signed a letter to the Daily Telegraph saying it was “difficult to bring to mind a more divisive policy, or more deleterious to social cohesion” than removing an admissions cap that prevents new faith schools from selecting more than half of their intake from their own religion.
The cap effectively prevents the Catholic Church from opening new schools because, once they reach the 50 per cent limit, they would have to turn away students because of their Catholic faith – something that would violate canon law.
However, the letter implies that children do not really have any religion, saying that removing the cap would allow schools to “label children at the start of their lives with certain beliefs and then divide them up on that basis.”
Other signatories to the letter include Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, Rabia Mirza, Director of British Muslims for Secular Democracy, and Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston.
In their 2017 general election manifesto, the Conservative Party pledged to remove the cap, calling it “unfair and ineffective” and acknowledged that it prevented the Catholic Church from opening new schools.
The manifesto reiterated a pledge that Prime Minister Theresa May had made shortly after taking office the previous year.
In December 2016, the Diocese of East Anglia said it was ready to open eight new Catholic schools once the cap was lifted, citing a desperate shortage of school places for Catholic children.
In November 2017, the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales launched a petition calling on the government to keep its promise. “By forcing Catholic schools to turn away Catholic school children on the basis of their faith, the very principle of a Catholic parent’s right to choose a Catholic education is under threat,” the petition said.
In January this year, Damian Hinds was appointed Education Secretary, raising hopes that the government would honour its promise. Hinds was educated at a Catholic grammar school and has previously called for the government to lift the cap.
PAT SAYS:
I know SOME PEOPLE will attack Archbishop Rowan Williams for being anti-Catholic. Dawkins is indeed anti-Catholic and anti Religion.
However, while Rowan Williams is technically a "Protestant" as the former head of the Church of England I do not believe that he is in any way prejudiced or biased. Instead, he is a very accomplished scholar who thinks deeply about all matters social and religious.
The debate is particularly important in Northern Ireland where there is a huge divide between the two religious communities.
I do not believe that SEGREGATED EDUCATION is the FULL CAUSE of the Northern Ireland problem.
But I do believe that it has played its part in that separation of the Catholic and Protestant communities that has led to war, hatred and even fatalities.
I believe that if you sit in the same classroom as members of the opposite community there is much less chance of having strong negative feelings about them.
In that sense I believe, IDEALLY, all schools should be state schools.
I believe that in schools kids should learn about all religions from the perspective of the comparative religions.
And if parents want to teach people a particular religion or denomination that should be done in the FAMILY HOME and in church, the synagogue, the mosque, the temple etc.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteMagna, could you repost that and say it in your most kind, gentle and unassuming (but so effective) way?
DeleteUnlike you, Magna Carta at 00:25 - you are a live Ass. And probably a pole-axed Ass - given the late hour and your typical slabberin’.
DeletePat, I don't think it is fair minded to have such a ridiculing post on Denis Faul at the top of your blog. While it is a worthy insight to learn that Fr. Faul said this, there is no need whatever for the words mongrel or ass to be included. It's degrading language. Why don't you edit some of these unfortunate words? Denis Faul I'm sure had his faults but he was also a towering figure for peace and his constant outspoken comments against republican thuggery laid the ground in many a heart of both communities in preparation for the peace process. We need to keep balance. While calling out abuses, we need to keep one eye on healing and on the next good step we can make.
DeleteFair enough, 11:51. And I'll delete the other post.
DeleteHere goes.
Mons Denis Faul was wont to criticise parents who sent their children to integrated schools, because, in his controversial opinion, they had 'broken their baptismal promises' by doing so.
Magna, I salute you for that gracious response.
DeletePoster at 13:27, you mustn’t come here very often. That’s Magna Carta.
DeleteHe says whatever the f*** he likes and, usually, he doesn’t delete his vitriolic remarks.
He must be in a good mood today. Someone must have bought him a bottle of Vladivar so he’s set up for tonight.
Don’t expect Pat Buckley to curtail Magna by the way. Pat gives him a free hand.
I agree with you there, Pat. Children should be taught about all the religions in school and parents can pass on their own faith to children outside school hours. It's the only way to go.
ReplyDeleteButt out Bucko - this debate is for Catholics not renegades!
ReplyDeletePat, we are sick, sore and tired explaining to you over and over again why in these days Catholic schools are even more essential
ReplyDeleteWe now live in times when there is very little or no chance that a Catholic child will have his Baptism rights of education in his Faith in the heart of his family home (which would be ideal but just doesn't happen) We have very recently seen yet again the superior academic standards in Catholic schools and that cannot be tossed aside either as if it was of no consequence.
Attacks on Catholic education are nothing new but the ways in which they are perpetrated grow more and more insidious and subtle.
I am a lay Catholic teacher who will defend children's rights to my dying breath. The most important role of an education system is bring a child closer to God and develop his moral judgement . If the school fails him in that, it has failed him no matter what else he achieves..
(Please spare me the complete rundown of the evil and abuses which infiltrated schools mainly where clergy were in teaching positions. I know and you can be assured that I regard the whole thing with the same horror, shock and disgust as you do. Every good Catholic teacher does so and please remember we, ourselves were not the perpetrators and our job is made all the more difficult - - but also all the more important - - because we have to fight back and safeguard our young people even more carefully.)
I don't think Pat is attacking catholic schools. He is talking reality. The situation requires forward thinking catholic authorities to start organising faith classes outside school hours and to be glad they have the chance to do it. It could eventually be the making of a church renewal. Any decent bishop in the country today should be trialling that idea in his area.
DeleteRights? One religion is not right for everybody. I had to live as a child with communion that creeped me out adn terrible doctrines such as an innocent man being punished for our sins and babies being sinful and needing forgiveness in baptism and you are telling me that is my right as a baptised person? Don't get me started on the violnece God commanded in the Bible.
DeleteWell said Anon @ 13:31.
DeleteYou've pointed out just a few of the massive contradictions in the bible between the cherry picked warm and "nice" bits of it and the inconvenient elements.
MMM
"The Family Home"?!!
ReplyDeletePat, is that your suggestion for being the best place for a Catholic child nowadays to learn about his Faith? Is that the best you can come up with?!!
One minute you're telling us that hundreds of people never put their foot inside a church and can't remember the first thing they learned about their Faith and then you make the ludicrous suggestion that the home is the right place for the children to learn their religion. What planet are you on!! You talk as if we were still living in the 1950s and even then parents recognised that some parts of the teaching was best left to those specially trained to approach it in the most effective ways while the parents at home supervised family prayer and taught their kids mainly by their own good example.
Fat chance of that happening nowadays! Before you write rubbish, think and engage your brain a bit more .
Yes, incredibly, we are now dependent on the family home that will encourage their children to faith classes organised by humble clergy and faith filled people that will enable true believers - the future church.
DeleteIn my memory and to some extent still religious education was left to schools with mums filling in the gaps. I believe R E should be between families and church with parents/main carers taking the lead
ReplyDeleteI agree with this. There is only so much a school can do with regards to RE. For the most part, the theory is learned in school but it is by example that parents and the community show children how they can be responsible christian's in a pluralist society. Faith is be lived and witnessed.
Delete'Cough'! Anglicans are not protestants technically. They are the halfway house between Catholicism and Protestantism. It's part of the genius of the Elizabethan settlement, which after the turbulent reformation years, set out what the Anglican church would be.
ReplyDelete8.05 I never knew that. When I was growing up there was only Catholics and Protestants and that it. We may have more knowledge but there are some with a strange view of what religion is all about. Jesus was neither Catholic nor Protestant as we use the terms in the modern world
DeleteNonsense, 08:05. At her coronation in 1953, the Queen swore that she would uphold the "Protestant Reformed Religion by law Established" ie the CofE. Lillibet is very low church, has never attended a Mass and I dare say that if you asked her if she's a Protestant the answer would be in the affirmative.
Deletehttps://www.royal.uk/coronation-oath-2-june-1953
Who'd pay any heed to the Welsh Druid (Google him) or the chicken biologist Dawkins, who despite no training in philosophy or theology goes into a spittle-flecked nutty whenever Christianity is mentioned?
ReplyDelete08.33 If you are a typical product of Catholic education - then God Help. You are a bigot and a racialist.
DeleteWhere's the racialism? Rowan is both proudly Welsh (and why wouldn't he, it's a wonderful country) and he's a druid. Check Google images.
DeleteHere you go: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/aug/06/religion.world
DeleteIn writing "Who'd pay heed to the Welsh Druid". you imply that Rowan Williams is not worth consideration because he is a pagan and a Welsh one at that. In your Googling you obviously failed to comprehend that the ceremonies of the Gorsedd of Bards of Ynys Prydain into which ++Rowan Williams was inducted are firmly Christian based. It is an institution set up to foster Welsh culture, and especially the Welsh poetic tradition. Cornwall and Brittany have similar institutions and in fact Roman Catholic priests have been prominent over time in the Breton Gorsedd.
Deletehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/2172918.stm
Thank you, I'll read that, I was unaware.
DeleteAbsolutely agree Pat.
ReplyDeleteThe attitude of the RC church is well summed up by the story I heard yesterday.
A N. I. integrated secondary school, as part of their religious studies has been in the practice of inviting members/ministers of different religions in to speak to the older pupils about their relgious beliefs. While they've had, over several years, representatives from the Church of Ireland, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu faiths, plus a Humanist, so far the local catholic church has refused, with no explanation, to allow any representative to explain the catholic faith beliefs to the pupils. And this in a predominantly Catholic town!
Is this a common feature elsewhere in the North?
And can any RC cleric kindly explain the origins and rationale behind such as attitude?
MMM
That situation is, on the face of it, bizarre, MMM. But, in reality, it probably reflects the bigotry of one person, likely a parish priest.
DeleteNothing to explain really. All Catholics have an obligation to support the local Catholic schools. A priest might accept a genuine invitation from a Protestant school but he cannot condone the liberal secularist agenda of the integrated movement which misses no opportunity to attack Catholic education and label our schools as sectarian.
DeleteSorry but as a practicing Catholic I have no obligation to support the local catholic school.
ReplyDeleteI can send my children to whatever school I wish.
Yes I know in Dublin people get their children baptised so that they can get into certain schools...Fair play to them.
Baptism is meant to be a big deal and nobody's opinion changes what it is meant to be. To use it for social advantage is not on either from a pro religious or anti religious perspective. Integrity and the principle come first
DeleteTo 12:19 Certainly you have an absolute right to send your children to whatever school you wish. It's just a bit silly to try to pass yourself off as a "practising" Catholic.
Delete12:19, Vatican II teaches otherwise.
DeleteIn Gravissimum Educationis, one of the Council's last documents and promulgated in 1965, it states that "Catholic parents are reminded of their duty to send their children to Catholic schools wherever this is possible" (GE 8).
It sounds like 12:19 is "practising" to be a Catholic. LOL
DeletePriests are going to have to stop telling people that they are obligated.
ReplyDeleteNo the word is choice, people choose to send their children wherever.
People choose to go to mass.
I agree. Telling people that they are obligated to do something is controlling.
DeleteActing from obligation is divorcing conscience from heart: making moral conduct legalistic and authoritarian.
Learn to act from love...but love enlightened by sacred wisdom.
Magna are you feeling alright today? Did you bang your head or something?
Delete😇❤
DeleteIt's the new meds. They are marvellous. Only one intemperate outburst today so far, though Happy Hour is starting shortly, so watch out.
DeleteWhy does the Catholic Church attack academic selection in Northern Irish grammar schools as unjust and push for a comprehensive style education while promoting the most expensive private schools for the sons and daughters of the elite in the south of the island? Selection by money is all fair and square then?
ReplyDeleteNo answer to that one.
DeletePerhaps the good Armagh bishop could enlighten us.
He does appear now and then talking about something he knows nothing about, namely the unborn.
Of course we never heard his view on the Tuam babies, did we.
Perhaps that is under the carpet stuff just like..................???.........
The Tuam babies stuff is unproven and even if it's true two wrongs don't make a right. All the baby killing supporters only can do so because their mothers didn't kill them. Do they see the irony in that?
DeleteDawkins is right about the label. The purpose of a label is to box people in. It is about putting pressure on them to conform and about control. The Roman Catholic Church claims that once you are validly baptised you bear the label Christian. It denies that you need to be holy or a friend of God's in order to be Christian!
ReplyDeleteThe word Christian means follower of Christ. Christ means messiah or anointed king. The suffix ianos added to it makes it Christianos - a Christ Person. In the same way Caesariani meant a servant of Caesar. A more accurate meaning is Christ-like. Thus if a baptised person does not have any interest in religion or doing good you can deny they are Christian for they are not Christ-like.
Christian is an adjective. It is not a noun. The Catholics say you can become a Christian without faith or doing good and merely by being baptised. That is to say Christian is a noun. That teaching is heretical and simply bigoted.
Acts 11:26 only reports that the believers were called Christians by the pagans. It does not say the term originated among the authorised apostles of the Church. It does not say if the term was approved. The term was used in a derogatory way. So we can assume that it was not approved.
Agrippa said to Paul "In a short time you will persuade me to become a Christian."
And Paul said, I would to God, that not only thou, but also all that hear me this day, were both almost, and altogether such as I am, except these bonds. Agrippa only uses the nickname. There is nothing in the text to indicate that Christian was the correct way to describe a believer in Christ. And Agrippa said what he said in humour for it does not flow from what Paul said to him. Paul did not for example show how he thought the Prophets predicted Jesus. Paul does not approve the term Christian but merely replies that Agrippa and everybody else would be better being like Paul.
Read 1 Corinthians 1. "I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another in what you say and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers and sisters, some from Chloe’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, 'I follow Paul'; another, 'I follow Apollos'; another, 'I follow Cephas '; still another, '“I follow Christ.' Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don’t remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power."
Notice this condemnation of labelling appears twice in the letter. It rejects the claim to be a follower of Christ. The implication is that it is up to Jesus to decide what you are.
1 Peter 4:16, "but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God."
The term was one of abuse which is why Peter tells the believer not to be ashamed. The context is about being abused over Jesus. Peter does not approve of the nickname but merely says people must use the abuse to glorify God by doing good even in the face of it. He did not say you suffer for being a Christian but as one labelled as a Christian. You can suffer as a Christian though you are not a Christian or if you reject the label.
An excellent post, 13:25; it shows considerable textual-critical skill. Had these thoughts been elaborated and presented to me as an essay, I should have marked it as a First.
DeleteAnd you'd have found yourself under investigation for giving a first to an essay without a single source. Stupid twat.
DeleteThat's what makes it obvious to everyone that your academic credentials are bogus - your only point of reference is your own opinion.
Which is why, bonehead at 18:01, I used the word 'elaborated' in my post. (Sigh)
Delete@13.25
Delete.Lots and lots of misinformation regarding the Catholic faith in your post. Tell you what... just go through it yourself (or maybe some other informed poster will refute your falsehoods . I simply haven't the energy to do this today but I feel annoyed with you.)
@ 18.01
DeleteSpot on!
@Magna Carta 'elaborated' not 'referenced, moron. Trying to cover your own idiocy as usual
Delete20:06, to elaborate means 'to expand on something'. To expand on an argument would, naturally, include the citing of sources for it.
DeleteIntelligent people would have understood this immediately: they would not have required its being spelt out for them.
You're not intelligent, are you?😆
Point of (grammatical) fact: Christian is both a noun and an adjective.
DeleteNo amount of asserting otherwise changes that fact.
Pat, I'm wondering do any of your readers of any faith, perhaps abroad, have an experience where out of school religious education actually invigorated the faith of the community?
ReplyDeleteNo, the church doesn’t keep the community together anymore.
DeleteWe don’t talk with our neighbours anymore.
The gaa keeps the Catholic people together. It’s a fact.
I know of young people converting to Catholicism, their choice.
U wd need to ask them why.
No, sadly the situation is that many parents let their children badly down if they are in a situation where the religious education classes are outside school hours. Attendance is at best patchy, not a priority and that's the message the child absorbs as to its importance. If it was the best option for the children believe me we would be already organising it in that form. But it is not.
DeleteOut of hours Catholic "religion education" is a contradiction in terms since it suggests that religious formation is about learning disembodied theory ABOUT religion in a 45 minute slot from, in many cases,an adult who couldn't care one way or another . That is not what a proper Catholic education is in essence.
DeleteIn many ways, it is "caught" as well as "taught" and you cannot pass on to the next generation what you don't have yourself. So it's most certainly not just about teaching children to regurgitate "theory" - - to use the term used by an earlier poster today..
To get a child baptised with no intention to do your best to carry out what you promised to fulfil on the infant's behalf in the Baptismal rite is very dishonest and very sad. That unfortunate youngster will be even more dependent on the "loco parentis" dedication of his Catholic teachers. (Over the years so much has changed and so much has been lost.)
ReplyDeleteMourneful Mickey will you ever just shove off.
ReplyDeleteYou come on here pontificating about catholic matters, but same time boast of being an atheist, ...and a failed seminarian to boot.
Catch yerself on and sod off and leave us decent Catholics to pracice our faith.
I3.32 people do this in Dublin, it maybe baptised into C of I, but I know for a fact that they do.
DeletePreviously their kids remained unbaptised?
Schooling is so important for some, it can mean that their kids get a job eventually.who can blame them them.Here in the north many children go to top grammar (non catholic) you wd be surprised.
But this is how life in unfolding for some.
Provided the children remain unmolested I have no problem with their choice?
There is only one god so far, and I’m hoping that these young men are taught to respect women.God knows, judging by the ongoing court case, lots of so called educated young men still think women are for their pleasure after a bellyfull of alcohol.Need I say anymore.
When I was in Birmingham Baptism was a way of getting into school. Same happened in Heywood.
DeleteNowadays in Birmingham a metal detector is the way into school lol
DeleteIsn't a bit of a cheek of the Anglicans to call themselves the "Church of Ireland"? They are a small minority, descended from Planters (note their English and Scottish surnames), St Patrick was sent to Ireland by a Pope, wrote in Latin and celebrated Mass.
DeleteThe Catholic church doesn't do this. Even in Italy it doesn't call itself the "Church of Italy".
Even in it's home territory the Church of England (sic) is very much a minority pursuit.
Wishful thinking? Could become a reality if Rome isn’t more attentive.
DeleteMy 4 year old step grandson was baptised and never taken to church after that. We took him once. He recently saw a video about Jesus and asked Clarice if she would take him. He really got stuck into Sunday school activities. The 3 year old thought I looked like a princess when I was in my vestments
ReplyDeleteBut those so called "top grammar non - Catholic schools have been very soundly trounced into 10th place in the recent independent Performance and Exam results with Catholic grammars taking no less than the first nine places from number one. An astounding result and it is no surprise to many of us here in N Ireland that the shoe is very firmly now on other foot with non - Catholic pupils on the waiting lists for Catholic schools It has been like this for several years now.
ReplyDeleteMust be a slow news day. International Women's Day tomorrow will be just as boring. I hope the priests and trainees will re-activate their Grindr, or Chappy apps soon.
ReplyDeleteWhy did the woman cross the road?
DeleteCome to think of it, what was she doing out of the kitchen in the first place?
I'm surprised that Pat didn't pick up this juicy story. And yes, as noted earlier, the Maynooth German department ontinues to offer extra-curricular lessons to willing seminarians.
DeleteLucky seminarians, German-helmets are nice.
DeleteI see that the Wounded Healer is presiding in Kilkenny this weekend. It's sickening the way he refuses to retire.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.westmeathexaminer.ie/news/roundup/articles/2018/03/07/4153060-livestream-will-show-sundays-ordination-of-castletown-geoghegan-man-as-bishop/
Really? Perhaps Sean Brady is aware that there is actually a shortage of clergy. @ 16.21
DeletePerhaps that's why he has agreed to continue working.
It happens.
He was presiding in Kilkenny this weekend? Wow, I saw the shameless Susie at Williams and Kate's wedding.
DeleteA friend of mine who is a priest in Tyneside was standing outside his church as all the children from primary school came processing in. The little boys in their suits and red bow ties and the girls in their white dresses and veils. “ isn’t that lovely’ he said ‘ all the children making their last Holy Communion’
ReplyDeleteEnough said.
'Enough said.'? Really? I should have thought it only the beginning.
DeleteApart from this priest's cynicism, there seems a huge, almost psychotic, lack of self-insight on his part. A failure, given the historical background of child-sexual abuse by priests, to ask the obvious question: are we, the clergy, predominantly responsible for this sacramental backsliding?
Perhaps your friend just wasn't honest enough to admit the truth here.
It sounds as if that Tyneside priest had very low expectations of the families in his care. I hope the little First Communicants didn't pick up on his cynicism. It was their special day..
ReplyDeleteHi +Pat,
ReplyDeleteJust noticed the Dublin Diocese have a vacency for a Child Protection and Safeguarding Officer.
Wasn’t too long ago this filled this role.
Why the high turnover?
Don't anyone waste your time applying for it. After his great success in Manchester, reducing candidates' psychological assessments to two or three words, at a great saving of money,the fake Magna Carta has virtually been promised the role. Admittedly his radical rewriting of the diocese's policies may come as a shock. For example if a priest is accused of abuse, Magna's policy calls for summary castration. While somewhat violent, his methods are felt to be effective.
DeleteAfter all, at St Luke's he managed to let through a grand total of 0 candidates for priesthood, and his thoroughness is what is needed.
There will be an extra Safeguarding Officer...
DeleteThanks Pat for the blog today. It's an interesting and developing subject. I tend to believe that the days of a single faith being taught in state class rooms are almost over. I might be wrong. Thanks again for the opportunity to post on this topic and to read the other contributors.
ReplyDeleteIt is an extra one...
ReplyDelete