The committee charged with examining patronage of primary schools has issued its report, and, surprise surprise, it is nothing more than another attack on the Catholic Church and her patronage of schools. In its recommendations, the report says that religious education should not be conducted in schools, prayer should be changed so as to be more inclusive ie not Catholic prayers, and religious symbols of all faiths should be on display rather than Catholic religious symbols. Now remember they are not talking about state schools here - they are talking about Catholic schools.
So to sum it up: the report is recommending that Catholic schools should not be allowed to be Catholic, but rather conform to a secularist, left-wing, relativist agenda. That's objective for you in modern Ireland.
Well, the Church's response to this should be very simple: No way, and then just get on as per normal and ignore any efforts the Minister for Education makes to force Catholic schools to conform. But will the hierarchy and Catholic parents do that? Certainly the parents of Ashbourne, Co. Meath, will not be impressed. They are up in arms because the government told them they cannot have a Catholic education for their children.
This, my friends, is actually unconstitutional in Ireland. The constitution states that parents are the primary educators of their children and they have the constitutional right to decide what type of education they want for their children and the government is bound by the constitution to support and provide for this. We have a very liberal constitution when it comes to education here in Ireland, and that's the best way. Our government and their left-wing secularist allies want to de-liberalise this and force all parents of all religious traditions and none to send their children to the same types of schools - schools which will only cater for secularists and atheists.
A friend of mine said this morning that the report is deliberately extreme so as to force the Church to compromise. I do realise that there has been a tendency in the Church here to compromise even when she does not have to. She relinquishes certain rights in order to reach out. That may be noble at times, but in the present age with the attack of radical secularism, this is not the time to reach out and compromise - now is the time to fight, and fight hard. Now is the time to stick by our constitutional rights and tell the government that we will not allow them to take away our liberty here. The government already has plans for a constitutional convention which will aim at giving Ireland a new constitution - you can bet that the creature they bring to life will be worse than the Frankenstein monster, and the liberties people of faith enjoy in this country will be significantly diminished. Religious schools will be high on agenda.
Is it not time for the Catholic Church to form alliances with other faith groups? I have said this before. In Ireland in the past the Church was strong, she had power and could wield that power in the face of governments and politicians. That was not always a good thing. Now she has no power, and certainly not with an agressive secularist government headed by a man who wants to break the country's ancient relationship with the Holy See. Is it not time, then, for the Cardinal, the other Archbishops and Bishops to get talking with other Christian leaders, the new evangelicals among them, with the Chief Rabbi and the Muslims, to form a grand alliance to defy the government? The Taoiseach and Minister for Education will fob off a delegation from the Bishops, but they will not fob off a delegation of Catholics, other Christians, Jews, Muslims and other religious groups united in a defiant stand against the radical secularist agenda that wants to prevent us passing on the "faith of our fathers and mothers" to our children.
Catholics, much to the chagrin of radical secularists, are the majority in this country. United with other Christians, Jews, Muslims and people of other faiths, we are the overwhelming majority, and we all want to keep our schools and their individual faith ethos. If we got together, the government would be very foolish to defy us. Yes, I'm sure they would try, but by God, if they do not listen to us, come the next election not only can we boot them out of office, but we can wipe their parties off the political landscape. It was almost done to Fianna Fail in the last election, it can be done again.
Father, while I agree with what you say, the hierarchy and Catholics are so divided and complacent they will not stand up to the government. The bishops will run and hide, as has become their modus operandi the last few years, and the ordinary Catholics in the pew will do nothing - after all those very Catholics voted in Enda Kenny, Eamonn Gilmore and Ruari Quinn. They have no sense of their faith being under attack, and will just plod along. For those that are traditionally Fine Gael or Labour, they will still vote for those parties regardless of what they do - oppression of Catholicism won't change their minds. In fact, they just won't see it.
ReplyDeleteAmongst other things, priests and Bishops in Ireland need to preach and teach the faith and morals to their flocks. This includes teaching about the moral nature of the family, the duty and authority of parents to educate their children in accordance with a moral philosophy that accords with both faith and reason. People need to be taught that it is gravely wrong to give up the education of one's children to the State or any other entity whose moral philosophy conflicts with fundamental and objective moral truths and with the Faith. Of course, the vast majority of Bishops and priests have failed egregiously in this duty for over 40 years (many having come out of bad seminaries such as Maynooth whose moral philosophy has been subverted since the sixties). As the above comment suggests, we have the Bishops and priests to blame for the ignorance, passiveness and abject failure of many parents in respect of their sacred and inalienable (and constitutional) duty to educate their children, morally, intellectually, physically, socially and spiritually. If I had been dependent on preaching and teaching of faith and morals from the pulpit (and I am in my forties and attend Mass several times per week) I would know next to nothing about either faith or morals, and in fact, be in serious error in respect of both, as is the case with probably a majority of baptised Catholics in Ireland. As in so many matters, it is the silence of many that has allowed the erroneous philosophy of the dissidents to prevail in the Church in Ireland.
ReplyDeleteA leaflet should be sent to every parish in Ireland warning parishioners of what is going on here. These people are hell bent on taking Catholic Ed. from Catholic schools. It should be vigorously resisted. Why on earth would a Catholic school display another religion's symbols? I read today in The Little Way magazine about Bartolo Longo who was hell bent on ridding Italy of its Christian symbols and way. You know sometimes I wonder.
ReplyDeleteAnd Blessed Bartolo Longo was converted, so there is hope. We must couple action with prayer. As St Ignatius said: Pray as if everything depends on God and act as if everything depends on you.
ReplyDeleteOur response should be "Over my dead body!"
ReplyDeleteThanks to all the (mainly) women who stood for justice outside the Dail today to protest against Clare Daly's (with support of other TDs) introducing a Bill to the Dail that would make lawful in Ireland the killing of defenceless children in their mother's wombs.
ReplyDeleteAt present I am reading Familiaris Consortio (Pope John Paul 11) and one very important point struck me It reads as follows "However, those in Society who are in charge of schools must never forget that parents have been appointed by God, Himself as the first and principal educators of their children and that their right is completely inalienable." God is the one with the highest authority he is the author of all life and it is God who has given this authority to parents as to how to educate their children. Where is God is all of these debates and arguments???? Has anyone asked his help????
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