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Post by hibernicus on Dec 25, 2013 20:41:36 GMT
This little scene (teacher at Catholic school dismissed for entering into gay "marriage"; pupils - whose parents are paying thousands a year to give them a Catholic education - go on strike in sympathy, and show by their comments that they are absolutely clueless about Church teaching) is from the US Pacific Northwest, but it could be from Ireland; that is, assuming that Irish school authorities would have the gumption to try to uphold Catholic teaching in the first place. redcardigan.blogspot.ie/2013/12/exhibit-why-catholic-education-is-rip.htmlEXTRACT See, kiddies, if you want your children to lose their faith altogether, if you want them to organize protests and sit-ins because the mean old Catholic church won't celebrate the gay wedding of a school administrator, if you want to raise children with the morality and virtue of Roman courtesans--the cheapest ones--you can have this privilege for just under twenty-thousand bucks a year. I attended a Seattle-area Catholic school a few decades ago. The handful of us kids who were actually Catholic, who understood that sex outside of marriage was wrong (instead of complaining that the mean ol' Church frowned on Catholic girls using condoms with their boyfriends, when everybody knew that was the right way to date a guy), were pretty much constantly attacked for our beliefs both by the teachers and by our fellow students. That was the breaking point for my parents, who started homeschooling us the year I was a sophomore in high school at one of those cesspools not unlike Eastside Catholic--in fact, I recall touring Eastside Catholic with my parents because they were really hoping that there was at least one authentic Catholic school left in that diocese, and they were disappointed to find out that, if anything, Eastside was a bit further gone along the road to heresy, moral midgetry, and overall spoiled-bratism than the school we were presently attending. Clearly, nothing has changed. Except the tuition, which is more outrageous than ever. I am starting to think that the dire situation of the Catholic Church in America won't change until factories of rot like this one are shuttered by the bishops, solemnly destroyed by expert demolition crews, and then the ground they stood on spread with blessed salt while prayers of exorcism are intoned with serious purpose. Then, just maybe, it might be possible to rebuild actual Catholic schools instead of cute and pricey little heretic factories, which are good at churning out "former," "lapsed," and "ex-" Catholics, but not much else. END
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 2, 2014 22:12:38 GMT
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Post by shane on Jan 5, 2014 21:50:45 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 8, 2014 16:53:59 GMT
I do not think Shane's post is in the right thread, given that this is primarily concerned with basic Catholic education/ the state of Catholic schools and universities. I will make a few comments, however: (1) Given that PEter Brooke is a born-Protestant, ex-agnostic convert to ORthodoxy who has never been Catholic, his comments on Catholicism should be treated with some caution. His equating Maritain (who was a major intellect by any standard) with O'Rahilly (who was a talented educator but fundamentally a polemicist and who was very reluctant to admit that his opponents might be in good faith, or that there could be, on any subject, a disjunction between what he wanted to be true and what actually was true) is not a good sign. (2) His objection to the ressourcement theologians is based on a distinctly Orthodox view that theology is essentially a "finished" subject and has been for centuries, and that the whole Latin theological tradition going back to Augustine is fundamentally mistaken. I don't really see how a Catholic can accept this view, (His more favourable view of Thomism, which is odd for an Orthodox, may rest on a sense that neo-Thomists tended to treat Thomist theology as timeless and "finished" in the sense of providing a definitive method which only needed to be applied). (3) Just about any theological school, religious order, etc can be said to have "failed" in that it didn't achieve all its objectives, was subject to corruption, etc. You could just as easily say that St Francis "failed" because of the Spiritual v. Conventual dispute, or that the nineteenth-century Thomist revival failed since it produced several conflicting versions of Thomism. That doesn't mean that the Franciscans can simply be dismissed and abolished and the Rule of St Benedict treated as the only legit form of religious life, or that we should go back to theology as it was practices before the Thomist revival.
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 24, 2014 21:37:53 GMT
More Erin Manning on the woes of US Catholic education. The last passage is particularly pertinent: redcardigan.blogspot.ie/2014/01/what-good-are-todays-catholic-schools.htmlEXTRACT One of them, brought up by many of his commenters, is the prohibitive cost of Catholic education in most areas. In our diocese, for instance, grade schools run about five thousand dollars per year per child, and high school is more than fifteen thousand a year. Uniforms, mandatory fund-raising or volunteer hours, and other costs add to this total until it becomes out of reach for many families. Sadly, the families for whom Catholic schools are most out of reach are the families who are open to life and who try to live on a single income so Mom can stay at home with the youngest children. It doesn't help these families to be told at Mass (as I personally experienced) that if you just gave up luxuries like fancy new cars and annual vacations you could easily afford tuition at the Catholic schools; it also doesn't help when some young moms get the idea that their pastors think they are lazy and selfish to want to stay at home with their children instead of earning that second income to pay for diocesan schooling. Another is the implosion of the teaching orders of religious nuns; the lack of religious sisters willing to dedicate themselves to the teaching of Catholic children primarily for the purpose of instructing them in the faith has had a devastating effect on Catholic schools, not only by increasing their cost, but also by resulting in the hiring of lay teachers, some of whom are not only not Catholic but actively inimical to the Church. But the biggest problem of all is the one I keep mentioning: Catholic schools no longer produce Catholic graduates. They produce ex-Catholic, former Catholic, "Catholic but dissenting," or lapsed Catholic graduates. Since this is a violation of their mission so deep and profound it can almost not be overstated, the question arises: what good are today's Catholic schools? END She is commenting on this post, which highlights one charming effect of Ruairi Quinn's ongoing Cultural Revolution: if the US precedent is anything to go by, secularised schools will tend to actively exclude religiously-based perspectives (as distinct from treating religion as a sort of zoological specimen. The combox (in which Manning participates) is interesting here: blog.adw.org/2014/01/in-an-age-of-many-problematic-trends-in-public-education-catholics-need-to-work-harder-to-provide-educational-alternatives/comment-page-1/#comment-259386This is also relevant: www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/nun-driven-out-of-seattle-catholic-school/comment-page-1/#comments
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 25, 2014 21:05:01 GMT
Ruairi Quinn proposes religion should in the medium to long term be excluded from schools altogether and left to the family and parish (both of which are less able to handle this than ever before) so as to give more time to reading and maths. Note the following (1) The implicit suggestion that the present poor state of reading and maths are due to the time taken up on religion, rather than (say) any problem with teaching methods etc (2) The idea that Catholic education is about seeing the world as a whole through a particular worldview, rather than just being a separate module which can be taken or left with no implications for the rest of the curriculum, is quietly ruled out of court - as is the possibility that it has implications for the public as well as the private sphere. Politics.ie has a thread with a link to the original story and a chorus of atheists saying Amen www.politics.ie/forum/education-science/221198-min-ed-drop-religion-favour-reading-maths.html
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Post by shane on Jan 26, 2014 20:51:11 GMT
The INTO general secretary Sheila Nunan is quoted in yesterday's Daily Mail:
"The minister's concern for literacy and numeracy standards might have some credibility if primary school children were not taught in overcrowded classrooms. Irish classes are the second most overcrowded in the EU. The comments about the teaching of religion were a red herring to deflect attention from the indefensible increases to class sizes in small schools"
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Post by hibernicus on Jan 27, 2014 23:04:10 GMT
Even the ACPI is protesting at the minister's scapegoating activities: www.associationofcatholicpriests.ie/2014/01/press-statement-from-the-association-of-catholic-priests/Ruairi Quinn has his precursors: By the end of the second century, the Christian apologist (literally, 'defender' of the faith) Tertullian complained about the widespread perception that Christians were the source of all disasters brought again"st the human race by the gods. 'They think the Christians the cause of every public disaster, of every affliction with which the people are visited. If the Tiber rises as high as the city walls, if the Nile does not send its waters up over the fields, if the heavens give no rain, if there is an earthquake, if there is famine or pestilence, straightway the cry is, "Away with the Christians to the lion!"' (Apology 40)" - Bart D. Ehrman, A Brief Introduction to the New Testament (Oxford University Press 2004 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians_in_the_Roman_Empire
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 2, 2014 22:46:24 GMT
I was recently told by someone trustworthy (and who would disagree with me on quite a few issues) that a Muslim friend of theirs complained that Ruairi Quinn seems to want God and religion excluded from the schools, and from society, altogether. A nice little quote to bear in mind when you see secularists playing the Pluralist Multicultural Card as a reason for their advocacy of the "naked public square".
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 12, 2014 18:59:31 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 23, 2014 21:16:08 GMT
And yet again Ruairi Quinn is complaining that Catholic schools are not diverse enough. Let's hold our breath and wait for him to suggest that in the interests of diversity, nondenominational schools should make time to hear the views of traditionalist Catholics, Protestant evangelicals, etc. Then again, perhaps it wouldn't be advisable to hold our breath...
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Post by Deleted on Apr 26, 2014 20:07:59 GMT
But who really cares about what Labour has to say when it comes to Catholicism? Everyone knows where they stand. Besides, everyone also knows that atheists only expect religious people to be "open-minded" and accept other religions as being equal to theirs. Atheists are excluded from this rule because they believe they have a divine right to the claim of being rational.
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 26, 2014 21:18:27 GMT
Yes, I know the atheists' claim to impartiality is as bogus as the Emperor's NEw Clothes - but since Emperor Ruairi has no shortage of flatterers it is advisable to point out for the benefit of the timid and self-doubting that his supposed robes are not what he says they are.
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Post by hibernicus on Sept 11, 2014 11:03:53 GMT
The fact that this column from yesterday's IRISH TIMES deals with Islamic parents and pupils rather than Catholics should not conceal the alarming implications of some of the views put forward. It is the author's personal opinion, but I suspect some of the views he advances are pretty widespread among the administrative and professional classes; Some examples. (Read the article for yourself, in case I have misunderstood the passages or am inadvertently overlooking qualifications): EXTRACT The proposals of Dr Ali Selim, of the Islamic Cultural Centre in Dublin, for reform of the education system contain some very reasonable points on the hardship and unfairness towards religious minorities of the current education system. Most strikingly, he notes that because the State has handed control of the vast majority of the school system to particular faiths, Muslim citizens face discriminatory barriers in accessing State-funded education for their children. Citizens seeking to access a service for which they have paid through their taxes should not find that they may only access the service once those of a preferred religion have been served. It would be considered outrageous if hospitals gave access to elective surgery on the basis of “Catholics first”, yet that is what happens in relation to State-funded schools. END Here the columnist assumes that the schools are the creation and exclusive property of the state, which has "handed them over" to the churches, and the idea that parents might wish to provide a Catholic education for their children is dismissed out of hand. EXTRACT Introducing such changes would be the opposite of an “inclusionary revolution”. What Dr Selim proposes is to single out pupils from Muslim backgrounds on the basis of their religious heritage and to radically restrict the kind of education offered to them on that basis. Parents have the right to expect that State schools will not be used as vehicles to brainwash or propagandise for any faith or political ideology. This right is guaranteed by the Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. However, parents do not have the right to prevent their child from encountering anything with which they may disagree while using the State education system. Moreover, a State education system has an important role in ensuring that children have the skills and knowledge of wider society to enable them to make real choices about how they wish to live their lives in the future. Some exposure to ideas with which one’s parents may disagree is vital to allow a child to exercise genuine choice about the kind of adult he or she wishes to be. END Note that the parent's right is expressed in purely negative terms - they are entitled not to have their children indoctrinated or brainwashed (note that these are treated as synonymous, and the provison "with which they do not agree" is silently omitted). Note also that religious education is treated in purely negative terms - excluding certain things - not as possessing positive content which parents may legitimately wish to have provided. EXTRACT Music, relatively free interaction between genders and a basic knowledge of sex and relationships are important features of Irish society. It would be deeply exclusionary to deprive some children of the experiences and tools necessary to take a full part in Irish society on the basis that their parents do not wish them to have knowledge of such experiences. There is great diversity of belief within Islam on issues of interaction of the sexes, music and matters of sexual morality. Furthermore, Islam may be but one element of the identity of Muslim children. A young Muslim lesbian has the same right as a young Catholic lesbian to be informed in sex education that lesbianism exists and she has a right to be respected and choose her future notwithstanding that both sets of parents may disapprove of homosexuality. It would be deeply wrong to adopt a policy that assumes Muslim children neither can nor should ever come to different conclusions from their parents on matters of sexuality and relationships. Many Muslim children may ultimately choose to follow conservative teachings on matters of gender or sexuality. Others may see no contradiction between their faith and a more egalitarian approach to these matters. Either way, they have the same right as every other child to the full range of information in making their decision. END Note the following assumptions (a) Parents do not have legitimate authority to decide (within certain limits) on their childrens' education - the State is expected to routinely overrule them on the basis of what it thinks is best for the child (b) What is best for the child is assumed to involve "fitting in with Irish society" as if this was the only good. Minority cultures are assumed to only possess validity insofar as their members accept them as adults; the idea that membership of a culture involves a process of formation and to inhibit that formation is to outlaw the culture itself is ignored, because the author treats his own secularism not as one culture among many but as a neutral default position and as coming naturally, all other views being artificial affectations. (c) The author's preferred form of education is described as "information" but the view that one has a right to engage in extra-marital sexual activity is clearly not a matter of mere information. (The formulation is deliberately ambiguous; it can mean that there is a legal right to do what is not forbidden by law, or that there is a moral right to do it; the latter is clearly not mere "information" but involves a value-judgement, and the implication of the author's view is that the school should clearly throw the weight of its influence against the value-judgement of the parents.) www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/religion-and-beliefs/muslim-pupils-should-not-be-deprived-of-the-cultural-resources-to-take-a-full-part-in-irish-society-1.1923145Let me repeat, Islam is a false religion and many forms of it have deleterious social effects. Nonetheless, Muslims have certain inalienable and God-given rights under natural law, including the right to bring up their children in their own faith (excepting certain very extreme cases). To deny them those rights is an offence against God as well as against them. Catholics should be very wary of certain forms of anti-ISlamic campaign, for they are often put forward by secularists who wish to use the crimes of certain forms of Islamists as an excuse to forcibly secularise society and restrict the rights of ALL believers, Catholics included. I think the Scottish blogger who calls himself "Lazarus" is much too sanguine about the behaviour of the Muslim activists engaged in the recent "Trojan Horse" activities in Birmingham schools, but his warning that we may be making a rod to beat our own backs in being too enthusiastic about limiting Islamic influence on schools is worth considering: cumlazaro.blogspot.ie/search/label/Islam
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Sept 11, 2014 11:20:55 GMT
When I read the IT article Hibernicus quotes, I thought "very bloody convenient": the author more or less takes the points Dr Selim makes to hit at Catholic education and rejects his case for Islam in education. In other words, the only answer to the conundrum is secular education, more of it, regardless of the parents' opinions.
I suspect that the short-sighted view of education given reflects that of many right through the administrative class, as Hibernicus suggests.
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