Catholic.......err..... education?

Nothing appears to be taking place with respect to sorting out Catholic primary and secondary religious education in England and Wales - no attempt made to put some vim and vigour and integrity into the curriculum.

When our four children went through a Convent School education in the eighties and early nineties we, as parents, found that in the early years class, pupils seemed to be fixated on the story of Zacchaeus and his climb up the sycamore tree, all the better to view Our Lord as He passed by.

It's a good story, fine.

But the lesson programme went on for the whole year.

At the end of the year there were enough paintings of Zacchaeus and the tree to wallpaper the interior of Westminster Cathedral, twice over.

Strangely, the same programme was taught through all the key stages up until the children departed, one by one, for secondary school at the age of eleven. The content matured a little but not much.

I suspect that things have not improved greatly.

So, perhaps it is 'education' itself that is at fault.

There used to be an old joke told in education circles back then that was based on sex education in schools and how parents would howl if they were told that it was to be changed to sex training.

The inference being that training is about learning by involvement and practice.

Our seminaries train rather than educate priests of the future; in fact, they are providers of a truly vocational education in more than one sense of the word.

So why can we not at least 'train' our secondary pupils in the Catholic Faith and Religion?

The whole ethos of  a school could be changed if it was used as the training arena for RE.

History, Geography, Politics, Social Care, Welfare, Community involvement, art, archaeology, a whole host of subjects could be integrated into a vocational training format.

What was that old saw of the academic world?

"Tell me and I shall forget, show me and I may remember, involve me and I will understand"

Sounds pretty good to me.

 

"Come and See" is more like "Go and Lapse"

According to the excellent website Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, currently, some 96% of children who attend a Catholic school, will lapse from the Faith.

That is one appalling statistic.

All of my working life I have been driven by a results based accreditation of performance ideal.
That means, in plain English, that you produce spectacular results or you are out on your backside.

And quite right too. The same should apply to those who have driven such a low level and uninspiring programme of Catholic RE over the years.

How many young souls have been lost to God over the years as a result of an impoverished and perverted religious syllabus?

Indifference, apathy, idleness and incompetence have all played their part.
And, evil intent must be added to that tally.

When our children were young we had the heretical programme called 'Weaving the Web' to contend with.

Opposition to that meant that you were isolated and castigated within the school/parish social network; not that it worried us one little bit, but, such antagonism did effect our children who bore the brunt of modernist Catholic sniping.

Catholic parents, today, have a primary level equivalent programme called; "Come and See".

I'm afraid that the title alone has me reaching for the sick bag.

And, according to Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice, "Come and See" carries on the fine tradition of omitting any mention of sin and other key factors of the Faith.

Here are some of PEEPs main concerns regarding "Come and See":-

The Book consists of 262 pages, including five full page illustrations and many smaller illustrations. Twenty pages cover “Other Faiths”, and the first forty-three pages are devoted to telling teachers HOW to teach, even though they are, presumably, trained and qualified professionals, many perhaps with more experience than the author. Eventually, on page 44, the book starts outlining WHAT to teach.

Were I to cover every heresy – explicit and by omission - in this Programme my review would have to be as long as the 200 pages which cover the teaching to be given, so I will cover just the more serious omissions, remembering that we can commit Heresy by omission. Pages 44,45 and 46 have Grids showing all the Scripture references, Topics and Themes taught throughout the Primary school, covering ages 4/5 years – 10/11 years. When these grids are compared with the 1994 ”Catechism of the Catholic Church” (CCC) which Bl. Pope John Paul II declared “the Norm for teaching religion” they reveal some of these serious omissions.

For example -

1.  The attributes of Almighty God are not taught, such as He is everywhere so always close to us, though these are found in the CCC;

2.  Spirit and what the word Spirit means. They need to know this for

3.  Angels, Guardian Angels, the Devil and his evil spirits who are all omitted as well, even though covered in the CCC;

4.  That we are in the Image and Likeness of God because we have Spiritual Souls with Intelligence and Free Will,( 7 paras in the CCC.)

5.  Adam and Eve, the Fall, Original Sin and even Sin itself are all omitted in spite of having 60 entries in the CCC. This makes it impossible to explain the Incarnation and the Redeeming Passion and Death of Our Lord, so we get nonsense such as the Saviour will rescue us ‘from those who threaten us,” (on page 53.)

6.  Grace, which has over 20 entries in the CCC is never even mentioned, not Actual Grace, Sacramental Grace or Sanctifying Grace / Supernatural Life. So the teaching on           

7.  Baptism is incomplete. It is several times merely presented as “a welcome or invitation to belong to God’s family.” There is no mention of S.John ch3 v1 ff where Jesus explains to Nicodemus that unless a man is born again of water and the Holy Spirit he cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The CCC teaches Grace/Supernatural Life in over 90 entries, so why omit it? This rhyme helps teach it -

When little babies are baptised, God’s greatest Love is shown

For then he gives new Life to them, A life that’s like His own.

We thank you Lord for this great gift, The treasure of our race

Our Lady’s soul was full of it. The Angel called it Grace.

8.  The Incarnation There is no mention of why Jesus, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became Man, though on page 102 we are told “the Word became a human person”. This is not true. Jesus was, is and always will be the Divine Person who became Man to redeem us from sin and hell.

A shame that, after all this time, the Bishops can't produce a doctrinally sound religious syllabus for schools.

Do they, I wonder, lie awake at night fretting over the fact that, only 4% of Catholic children going through the Catholic School system, will keep the Faith?

And, if they don't lie awake tossing and turning, why not?

Are they content to survey a scene of abomination and not suffer any regrets?

Which point leads one to consider whether the Bishops are a force for good or........something else.

                                                                    

Just run that past me again

Non Catholic pastors as Chaplains in a Catholic school?

Worth School in Sussex is run by the Benedictines and is, according to the blurb on their website, in accord with what St Benedict would expect:

Their website  states:-

St Benedict wrote in his Rule, "We mean to establish a school for the Lord's service", and his wisdom inspires our community in all that we do.

One would not expect, however, that St Benedict would approve of two Church of England vicars being on the school's chaplaincy team.

Yet that is what this 'Catholic' school offers. It is unclear as to whether they are there for the benefit of Protestant pupils or whether they are at the behest of all; I suspect the latter.

Here is how the school describes their chaplaincy offer:

"The Chaplaincy seeks to keep Christ at the centre of the School's life and this is achieved by a variety of experiences and opportunities. The School Chaplain is Father Peter and he is assisted by a team of Chaplains from the monastery. In addition,  two part-time Anglican priests - Revd Gordon Parry and Revd Anthony Ball - are part of the team and their presence and work strengthens Worth's ecumenical outlook. A Housemaster and a member of the Religious Studies Department are also members of the team".

It may just be worth reminding those responsible for running this school that there are some major,   fundamental differences of belief between the Church of St Peter and the Church of Henry VIII.

The C of E does not, broadly speaking, accept any of the following:

1. The Sacraments
2. Transubstantiation
3. The sanctity of Holy Matrimony
4. Purgatory
5. Opposition to abortion
6. The Virgin birth
7. The role of Our Lady
8. Sin
9. Priestly celibacy
10. Papal infallibility

It is a religion where its followers may or may not, believe what they like to believe.
And that is entirely up to them.

But, C of E vicars should not be in a position where they can advise and counsel young Catholic minds, that way lies madness and the spread of heresy.

I suppose that we should be grateful for the fact that, as yet, the school does not have an Imam on the staff.

Watch this space!

Proof of the Vatican II effect

More 'user friendly' than a crucifix

One of my nephews recently attended a get together of his year at his old Catholic Primary School somewhere north of Watford.

This was a real re-union of old boys and girls who had attended the school right on the cusp of the changes enforced during and after the Council, a little over forty years ago.

I hope my nephew will not mind my saying that he has drifted away from the Church but I know that the seed of faith lies within him still and I pray (as for all my relations who have fallen away) that, he will, in time return.

His observations on his experience on re-visiting the school for the first time in many years are interesting, riveting, actually.

Here is his account in his own words:-

"Last month I went to a reunion of my primary school and met people I
haven't seen for over forty years.

 I also got to look round my old school - which was quite disturbing - the contrast
is greater because, not having kids myself, I haven't been exposed to the
changes in education. 

The altar in the school hall was gone and has been replaced by a piano.

 I spotted one crucifix in the whole school (previously there was one in each classroom). 

And there were posters on the wall talking about "feeling" and "empathy". 

It didn't feel very Catholic any more.

Also, there were hardly any books in the place other than the kind of
large print children's books which I would say were for five year olds.....

........ this event was its 50th Anniversary reunion.

The posters on the wall had a list of the pupils' names in one column,
and then a series of columns with different "emotions" happy, sad,
depressed, angry etc. 

The title was something like "How do I feel today?

Implication was that each pupil had to mark how they felt each day for
everyone else to see.

When I was a pupil myself, I remember there being a large map of the
Holy Land on the wall.

Quite a shock!"

My note: Heavily edited and made anonymous as far as the school is concerned.

Oh no! An insight into Catholic Education in Southwark

Health warning: Please do not read this if you suffer from hypertension,heart problems or, if you are prone to hysteria.....or bouts of violent rage....

"Parish Liturgist approaching....."

We are back in the Archdiocese of Southwark, in their little set up that facilitates education for permanent deacons, parish administrators, ex nuns, catechists, feminists and so on.

The organisation is the Education Parish Service and, if you recall, I made passing reference to them in a post last week.

The EPS has a policy with regard to inclusive language (wouldn't you know it?) and it makes stirring reading.

You see, what I had not realised is that it's just not right that we exclude nice people when we pray or discuss matters theological.

It's quite wrong, bordering on a mortal sin (except we don't do mortal sin any longer), to talk of God as our Father because that excludes the 'Mother' side of God.

Our Lord was not quite on the right track when He said: "When you pray, say Abba (Father)" - the EPS regulations don't specify precisely what He meant by that but we can surmise that Our Lord was talking about a Swedish pop group that would revitalise the Faith in the wake of Vatican 2 ('By the Rivers of Babylon').

So HERE is their website page that tells us how we should phrase things - scroll down to 'EPS Policy on inclusive language' (it's a little lengthy but please stick with it until the thin red mist descends, and then go and lie down in a darkened room (I have not fisked it, I would not know where to begin):

 EPS POLICY ON INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE

In line with many theological publishing houses and universities in

this country, it is the policy of Education for Parish Service to

require inclusive language.

1. The terms ‘man’ and ‘men’ are to be used only for males.

Where both women and men are intended then other terms must

be found.

thus we may say:

the human person

the human being

each person

humanity

humankind

the human race

turns to God in faith

2. The use of the possessive:

rather than: the hearts of men

use: people’s hearts

or perhaps better: human hearts

3. The persistent use of ‘he’ and ‘his’ to refer to a person of either

sex is NOT acceptable. For example:

Man is saved through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He is conscious of his past sins and he experiences God’s

forgiveness.

The use of the plural can often be used to avoid exclusivity. Thus:

Human beings are saved through the death and resurrection of

Jesus Christ. They are conscious of their past sins and they

experience God’s forgiveness.

Education for Parish Service Version 2

Policy on inclusive language 2 November 2009

4. It may not always be possible to avoid using ‘he’ ‘him’ and

‘himself’ in relation to God, without sounding stilted or losing some

of the intended meaning. Nonetheless it is NOT acceptable to use

these pronouns unnecessarily, or where an acceptable alternative

is available. Whether the following alternatives are acceptable or

not will be a matter of individual judgement.

Let us consider the following two sentences, which are overloaded

with male pronouns:

God himself, in his goodness, sent his only Son into the world. In

doing so he gave himself for the salvation of the world he had

created.

And now let us consider some possible alternatives:

‘God himself’. The reflexive pronoun in this phrase is often used

automatically, out of habit and piety. If all that is meant is ‘God’,

then only ‘God’ should be used. If the point is that this is the very

God, then ‘The very God’ should be used. If what is meant is that

this was truly God, then ‘It truly was God’ should be used.

in his goodness. ‘out of goodness’ loses very little of the sense of

‘in his goodness’ apart from the false implication that God is male.

sent his only son into the world It may be that the ‘his’ in this

instance is the best option we have to date. However ‘sent God’s

only son into the world’ would be an acceptable alternative.

he gave himself This could be replaced by ‘God gave of God’s

own self’.

the world he had created This could be replaced by ‘the world that

God had created.’

What might we end up with?

God, out of goodness, sent his only Son into the world. In doing

so God gave of God’s own self for the world that God had created.

It is clear that work on inclusive language has a long way to go.

As a minimum requirement students should avoid the routine use

of ‘God himself...’

Education for Parish Service Version 2

Policy on inclusive language 3 November 2009

WHY INCLUSIVE LANGUAGE?

1. When referring to the human being

The reason for inclusive language when referring to the human

being is to guard against exclusion. In the 1970s and 1980s the

International Commission on English in the Liturgy recognized the

need to stop using male-only nouns and pronouns in theology and

liturgy when both male and female were intended.

‘The failure of much of liturgical and theological language

adequately to recognize the presence of women seems effectively

to exclude them from full and integral participation in the life of the

Church, and this exclusion can prevent the whole Church from

experiencing the fullness of the Christian community’. (Eucharistic

Prayers ICEL October 1980)

It is for this reason (to prevent the exclusion of women) that the

words of consecration, which refer to the blood of the new and

everlasting covenant that ‘will be shed for you and for all men’

have been changed by our bishops, so that the word ‘men’ is

deleted.

The historical background to the prevalence of exclusive language

makes its use all the more unacceptable. It was not simply that it

was more convenient to use ‘men’ to refer to people generally.

Men were seen to be the norm for humanity, and women a lesser

or deficient version. This teaching is now officially rejected by the

Catholic Church.

Education for Parish Service Version 2

Policy on inclusive language 4 November 2009

2. When referring to God

The reason for inclusive language when referring to God is to

guard against idolatry: the worship of a false male ‘god’. The

Christian tradition has tended to exclude from its liturgical practice

and prayer life the female images for God used in Scripture. The

persistent use of male pronouns reinforces the maleness of the

images that are consistently used, and has led many to believe

that God IS male. God, who is above and beyond sexuality, who

indeed brought the distinction between maleness and femaleness

into being, is reduced in the mind of the believer to the level of the

created world.

To compound the distortion, when God is viewed as male, the

male human being is seen to have a closer identification with God.

The status of woman as creature made in the image and likeness

of God is then called into question.

Now please tell me that this is all a nasty dream and that I should stop drinking that excellent Algerian red wine after 8 o'clock at night.

I have never read such unadulterated twaddle in my short life.

Small wonder that we have Muslim Prayer Rooms in ten (yes, ten) of Southwark's Catholic Schools.

No surprise that Catholic parishes have been taken over by Uriah Heep doppelgangers to greet you as you enter church for Mass or that catechesis is handed over to George who has a rather unsavoury personal odour, or that the liturgy is in the hands of a bossy harridan who crushes all who have the temerity to question why Year 4 has been commissioned to perform their interpretation of the 'Offertory Dance' during Holy Mass.

I know this is an oft repeated mantra but, for heaven's sake, what are our Bishops thinking of?

I cannot help but recall that old joke about getting into a lift (elevator) with a gun that has only two rounds. 

In the lift is the Parish Liturgist and two terrorists..... 

...what do you do?

Answer: Put two rounds into the Parish Liturgist on the grounds that you can always reason with terrorists!

An omission - a Catholic education

                                       Life in a Catholic school of the Sixties

In yesterday's post I listed the formative elements that contributed to my Catholic faith but I  omitted one key part, that of my religious education.

I do believe that Catholic education today bears no resemblance to Catholic education in the late 50s and early 60s, unless, of course, you have an excellent school such as the London Oratory or the Cardinal Vaughan at your disposal.

Catholic education, or RE as it was called at St James's Burnt Oak, was very much a mixed bag.
I know not what syllabus the teachers (mainly Dominican nuns) worked to but it must  have been highly creative and innovative.

Each morning, after the occasional assembly prayers and daily class prayers, we would receive 45 minutes of RE.

Geography played a large part of this followed swiftly by history. We learnt about Palestine and its surrounding regions, of Lake Genasareth and the Sea of Galilee. We studied the journeys of Our Lord and then reverted to the Old Testament and mapped the component paths from Egypt to Sinai and Jerusalem to Rome.

We delved into the structure of the Roman Empire and compared how its rule in Britain compared with its rule in the Mediterranean regions; how it ruled in terms of an occupying force while still allowing a Jewish structure of military and civil authorities.

We examined the miracles of the Old Testament in comparison with those of the New, we debated the parables of Our Lord and statements such as: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my church" and we discussed the parameters of sin and how a moral code fitted into a modern society.

Outside of RE lessons we were taught to sing Plainchant and I recall our lay music teacher, Mr Freed exhorting uo to turn our mouths into pillar box aperture shapes when singing the Kyrie so that we produced an 'a' sound rather than the much easier 'ee' one.

We attended Mass in the parish church on high days and holidays and, on the odd occasion, in the school itself. We went on pilgrimages together and, in our general history lessons, we were taught both the 'Catholic answer' and 'the one you use in the exam.'

The school curriculum would be unheard of today and, at first glance one may overlook how that had a bearing on one's Catholic Faith but we learnt Brickwork (why?) alongside Physics and Woodwork and Metalwork alongside Algebra and Chemistry and, somehow it all seemed to work in a fashion and it added to our Catholic Faith by embedding fortitude, resilience and creativity into our outlook on life.

Discipline was the major area of failure; it was harsh, unjust and unCatholic but it did teach a certain stoicism although, I fear that many would have lost their Faith due to unwarranted strappings and beatings.
In defence of the teaching staff I have to say that it was a tough school. The pupils came from a mixed bag of backgrounds and there was a strong criminal element.

 James Hanratty, the last man to be executed in Britain, was four years ahead of me but there were plenty of potential killers among my contemporaries.

And, finally, there was the Christian witness of the Dominican Sisters themselves. Most had served on the missions and were able to regale boys with pretty bloodthirsty tales while the younger ones provided exemplar models of propriety and goodness that most could relate to if not actually follow.

I would not hold St James's up as a model of good Catholic Education but it did have the main component parts to imbue the Faith into the great unwashed and I am grateful to the nuns and lay teachers for that at least.

Is the magic circle starting to go pear shaped?

First we have Bishop Mark Davies putting an orthodox stamp on Shrewsbury Diocese, then his Lordship's right hand man, Monsignor Philip Egan, an orthodox man according to the pundits is appointed Bishop of poor old Portsmouth Diocese and now, the Bishop of Lancaster, the Rt Reverend Michael Campbell, successor to the acclaimed Archbishop O'Donoghue, has drawn a line in the sand as far as teachers in Catholic schools are concerned and asked them to make a public profession of faith.

This has resulted in shrieks from the left wing press and cries of "McCarthyism rules again".

I don't quite get that; wasn't McCarthy anti communist?

 Is it just the act of asking people to come clean about their beliefs that results in such emotive language?

What is wrong, precisely, with wishing to know where those who are in charge of educating and informing the young stand?

Isn't that where the Catholic Education Council and the Bishops of England and Wales have gone so very wrong over the past forty or so years?

They appear to prefer a sort of grey sludge and mediocrity delivery of religious education as opposed to orthodoxy and clarity.
The thing I was always brought up to believe is that theology is black and white, no room for dissembling or equivocation.

So now, out of circa 28 Bishops in England and Wales, for the first time since Vatican II we appear to have a growing number of good men who are not prepared to toe the party line.

That's getting on for 11% - maybe not a great statistic but a damn sight better than zero.

And, with more appointments looming, and the good offices of the Papal Nuncio, Archbishop Mennini, we may hope to see that number of good men increase dramatically.

Who knows, given time and the works of the Holy Spirit, the magic circle could disappear in a puff of smoke?

It's too late to ask Catholic schoolchildren to respond

News is coming through about the Catholic Education Service and its request to 385 Catholic Secondary schools to support the campaign opposing homosexual "marriage".

It would be interesting to hear from some Secondary school teachers on this issue but my estimate is that it is too late, Catholic schools, or most of them, are Catholic in name only.

There is no longer any depth of knowledge leading to a fervent faith, no spirit of concern for moral issues other than saving the whale and recycling old copies of The Tablet to make bedding for rabbits and guinea pigs (you see, it does have a use).

With most young people that I meet (and I do meet a fair number in the course of earning my crust), you cannot tell if they are Catholic.

They display an almost total lack of ignorance about the faith and they tend to have very liberal views on issues such as homosexuality, IVF and cohabiting together.
Their lives are dominated by their regard for 'self' and if 'self' reckons that it's OK for two men or two women to live together as husband and wife....what's the problem?

This is a cynical view but it is a realistic one. There are exceptions and there are some exceptional schools but they probably account for less than ten per cent of the total, just 38 decent schools in the whole of England and Wales, probably a lot less.

Dear me. Somebody has not been doing a very good job - who could that be?

Of course, the Godless ones have jumped on the bandwagon and have started their mantra about it being a "political" issue and therefore outside the remit of the Church Authorities. The Humanists and Secularists are also promising to pursue any breach of the laws that may occur as a result of this lobbying.

Sadly, I don't think they have much to fear. I would love to be proved wrong.

Did Archbishop Nichols really write this letter?

Archdiocese of Westminster,
motto: "Could do better"

This passed me by at the time, Archbishop Vincent Nichols letter to secondary school students sent out on 5th September in both video and text format by Westminster's Director of Education, Paul Barber.

One might even suspect that the good Archbishop never ever wrote it and that it was written by a person of the Diocesan Education Department.

Why?

Because it is, in my view, a pretty dire piece of English purportedly expressing a Catholic message that is so wrapped up in gobbledeygook it might just as well have been a Tablet editorial.

It takes 12 paragraphs of gut wrenching copy before religion or God enters the picture at all. It is badly written and it does nothing to inspire or show the dynamism of the faith.

It talks inanely about self respect; it patronises and it condescends.

It is so bad that I am beginning to feel that it is me that has got it all wrong. My Catholic education (admittedly light years ago) majored on self humility, not self respect and I knew the basic principles of right and wrong when I was four years old.

If I was (let us wildly imagine) a 15 year old student that managed to read the Archbishop's message through to its conclusion (no mean feat by itself) I would feel less than enamoured of a faith that spoke to me in such terms; in fact, I would seriously consider that I might be on the wrong train!

Here is the letter.....I have commented sparingly in red, one could comment on almost every word.
 Note that it is addressed to 'Secondary School Children' not a good start.........

The Most Rev Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Westminster’s message to Secondary School Children in (am I being picky or should there be a 'the' here?) Diocese of Westminster

5 September 2011

Today I want to speak to you, to each student in our secondary schools, as you begin this new school year.

I hope you have had a good summer. Some of you may have been on a family holiday. Some of you will have got your exam results. Some of you may have had a difficult time. It’s not always easy being a teenager, (ermm, secondary education begins at the age of 11) knowing what to do or who to follow. All of you will have known about the riots in our capital city. (Yes, your Grace, but what about them?)

Now you come back to the patterns of school and college life with the demands they make and the opportunities they carry.

Here you learn again about being part of a community that is far wider than your family. Central to what you learn is the need to show respect for each other and have some responsibility for each other if you are going to make the best of the opportunities given to you here.

These lessons of mutual respect and responsibility went out of the window for those few days of rioting and looting. I know that many of you were upset at what you saw.

Since then much has been said about young people today. But I am confident that you do understand the issues involved: that we owe respect to others in every circumstance; that theft is wrong; that we are easily tempted in the spur of a moment; that the actions we take always have  their consequences.(If I was a secondary school student I might suspect the Archbishop of painting me as part of the riot mob).

But it is a deeper truth that I want to stress, one that underlines all these other points. It is this: the respect we have for each other is rooted in the respect we have for ourselves. Your respect for yourself is so important. Self-respect is what helps to set the standards by which you live.

That might sound simple. But profound and true self-respect is difficult to achieve. So many influences can sway you this way and that making you feel confused about who you really are and what you really want.

Self-respect is something you grow into gradually, as you come to accept and appreciate the abilities and character you have been given. You learn of it through those who love you. You can lose sight of it when you feel dejected or misunderstood.

When you truly respect yourself then you set yourself high standards of behaviour especially in the company of your own age group. You are not afraid to be different. When you truly respect yourself you also have high achievement targets. You want to do your best and be your best.

As you get older, you come to understand for yourself the differences between right and wrong. You learn how to be generous with what is right and how to say ‘no’ to what is wrong. Gradually you seek and find true and lasting values, not just those promoted by fashion or celebrity.(celebrity what?) Gradually you acquire the habits and routines of good behaviour, so that you know how to behave even when no-one is watching.(I can't believe this twaddle - it is aimed at those in the age bracket 13 to 19 is it not?)

But what is the deepest foundation of this self-respect?

When you look at yourself in a mirror who do you really see? A child of your parents, certainly. A person liked by their friends. And a face anxious about its appearance. (You mean...it can't be...acne your Grace?) But you see someone more.(More?, should that be 'else'?)

What you see is someone expressed in this truth, on which you can rely: ‘Before you were born God called you. From your mother’s womb God pronounced your name.’ (Jer.49.1)

There it is. You are a child of God. That is who you see each morning in the mirror. It is God’s life that is within you, the supreme gift that you have received. When you understand this, everything changes. This is why you have such respect for yourself, in every aspect of your being, and in your future. This is also why you have respect for your family and for every other human being for they too have the same dignity as you, as sons and daughters of one heavenly Father. We share one life together.

This truth lies at the heart of the life of your school community. I trust that in this coming year you will continue to learn more about the greatness of human living and achievement, about your faith in God made visible in Jesus Christ who is your friend and companion, about your own abilities and true potential. I hope that as you grow and learn you will see the importance of giving good leadership to others around you and the importance of contributing to your local community to build a just and compassionate society. What you give, the service you offer, helps others around you, but it really helps you to grow in self-respect as well.

Thank you for listening to me. I ask that you take a copy of this message home to your parents and talk about it with them, too.

One last thought. All your actions are carried out in the presence of God. You can be sure that God never lets you out of sight because God loves you so much that He can never take His eyes off you. God wants to watch as you prosper and truly flourish. You are loved so much. Please remember this in the term ahead.

God bless you all.

Archbishop Vincent Nichols

2 September 2011

So what makes me think that some other person may be the author of this missive? (Apart from the poor grammar and misplaced content).

 Well  this is how it was presented on one school's website (and it was not the Cardinal Vaughan School)

Paul Barber, Director for Education at the Diocese of Westminster, has informed us of a message from Archbishop Vincent Nicholls (sic) that the Archbishop would like all secondary students aware of as soon as is reasonable.
Paul Barber writes,
"As you will have read ... Archbishop Vincent has recorded a video message addressing all students in our secondary schools. He has requested that this should be shown to all students at the earliest opportunity this term. He also wants to share the important message he has relating to the riots last month with parents and families ... The video can be found at http://www.vimeo.com/28512337 or from the diocesan website www.rcdow.org.uk"

I have not seen the video message, I am still minus sound on my pc so I cannot comment on how closely the text follows the video clip.

But one thing is certain, the letter should never have seen the light of day.

The story of a convent school

This brief series of facts plot how, over the course of 10 years, a Catholic Convent School went from being fairly orthodox in its approach to education and the faith to being over the top modernist.

 By that I mean that it travelled from the margins of being a reasonably good school teaching the faith well and achieving good academic results to being a dung heap of secular, politically correct and religiously effete garbage.

For the sake of brevity I have placed this information as bullet points....

• 1986 - The school has a population of 80% Catholic pupils and 20% non Catholics. It enjoys a good academic reputation and the children, when they progress to secondary school, are regarded as exceptionally well behaved by their new teachers. The headteacher is a nun who wears a wimple and habit and she has two other teaching nuns as well as Catholic laypeople on the staff.

• 1989 - by now all four of our children are at this school and doing reasonably well. We have concerns about the teaching of RE as it seems to comprise solely of learning the parables (and doing paintings of scenes from the parables). Each Christmas the school produces a nativity play which involves all of the pupils. School Sports Day in the summer period is popular with parents and there is a standard prize structure for those coming first, second and third.

• 1990 - School Masses have become so crass and banal that we withdraw our children from receiving the sacraments at them. School Sports Day now comprises of races where all participants receive a prize; there is no first, second and third prize structure. At Christmas the nativity play has been replaced by a semi comical musical about Herod and the nativity.

• 1992 - A group of Baptist ministers are given access to the children and catechise them in the course of one day. The first we know about it is when the children bring leaflets home with them describing how Jesus had brothers and sisters and that he was 'just a prophet'. Complaining just means that our children receive even greater discrimination from the teaching staff. By now the nativity play and the semi religious musical have gone and in their place is a panto type production, no mention of the Christmas story whatsoever.

• 1994 - The nuns have discarded their habits and wear the mandatory M&S outfits, their hair is permed. The RE element has not changed; the classroom walls are still plastered with pictures of Zacchaeus up a tree. The only element of change is that the older classes have more realistic pictures. Several of the teachers are now non Catholics and have no appreciation of our concerns. It is hard to spot a crucifix in the school now.

• 1996 - The only nun on the staff is the headteacher. 80% of the pupils are non Catholic and only 20% Catholic. School Masses are a debacle with pottery chalices and many interuptions with wisecracks from the priest. When asked if he would go into the non Catholic secondary school to catechise the children the priest replied: "What's the point they are only going to lose the faith anyway."

Zacchaeus seemed to spend at least
ten academic years up that tree!

So when people say to me "But we are all the same, we are all Catholics" I beg to differ. The modernist Catholic element is not deserving of any respect whatsoever, it has done enormous harm to the Church and probably lost many souls in the process. And the souls that it has lost are, in the main, those of children, too young to rationalise their faith but old enough to see that what they were being offered in the guise of RE was pure pap.
That is an awful holocaust of young souls; we grieve for the three thousand physical losses of 9/11 but modernism has many, many millions of spiritual losses to its eternal shame.

Just as a footnote to the above bullet points. The Parish Priest of such laxity had to leave the country overnight after being apprehended for soliciting in a public lavatory. His Curate, who had denounced my family as being 'heretics' and had turned many of his parish against us, ran off with a divorcee with four children.
I mention these points to illustrate that invariably there is a link between a decline in teaching the faith and the morals of those charged with the teaching.

Smart lad wanted as Headteacher of what we hope will become a bog standard secondary school with low outcomes and no Catholic ethos

I remember, back in the days when I did an honest days work, advertising for a new Principal for a College of Further Education. Due to our location, in wildest Pembrokeshire, we attracted a somewhat challenging postbag of applicants.
There was the chap who wanted 'above all else to be in the beautiful Pembrokeshire countryside and walk my dog on the beaches' - err....no way!
Then there was Craig, manager of the local wholesale carpet store 'Offcuts going cheap' who felt that he had had enough of the retail business and its long hours and fancied working in education because of the long holidays. I am still not sure if I was being wound up or not.

The bottom line and moral of the story is - it is not easy to recruit high quality applicants, especially into the education sector, but this is the task that Westminster Diocese has set itself, presumably in line with its new plans for the Cardinal Vaughan School....What? The Diocese has NO plans for the School? You must be joking, what kind of a omadhaun  person said that? Oh, the current School Governor...'nuff said.

Well that might narrow the field somewhat; you can just imaging the interview scenario....."Well Mrs (sorry Ms) Dullas-Ditchwater, could you please tell us how you plan to lower our results and reduce the school's Catholic ethos?"

"Well yer reverences I think that we can dispense with morning prayers, in fact, prayer of any kind is so discriminatory so it can all go, and we can disband that bunch of kids who think they can sing like angels, I'd replace them with a massed band of recorders backed up by a Caribbean steel drum quartet - that's pretty multi culchural ain't it? My next move would be to form an LGBT group so as we can call ourselves multi sexual, I think that the Arch would like that.
Then I'd do away with interviewing prospective pupils and asking them if they are practising Catholics or not - I like to consider meself an equal opportunites sort of person, especially as far as non Catholics and non Christians are concerned and then as far as the curricul...curriccull...you knows what I mean, the educashional programme; I'd introduce some really good sex ed stuff that I picked up in Soho last week and maybe even have a few modules on how to determine yer sexuality from the gay point of view. How's that fer starters?

"Well, Ms Dullas-Ditchwater, you have astounded the panel with what you have told us - the job's your Darling - when can you begin?"

If you want your children to keep the faith - don't send them to a Catholic school!

Not my words but those of Archbishop Sheen, uttered, I guess, in the mid seventies, a year or two before his death.
He went on to explain that, at a Catholic School they would probably receive a bland sort of grounding in the faith but that, if they went to a non Catholic School, they would have to stick up for their faith and become stronger and more knowledgeable as a result.
There are a few, very few, good Catholic Schools in Great Britain today, Cardinal Vaughan is one; the vast majority fall into the mindless liberal category. Archbishop Sheen's advice is sound overall,  except that, today I would add a caveat. Send your child to a non Catholic School only if both parents are strong Catholics. Children need the primary ethos of Catholicism to come from the home. Then they can stand up to the barracking they will receive at a non Catholic School.
If the home faith element is not so strong then, at least a Catholic School will give a base to be built on and, equally importantly, a network of Catholic friends.
As parents we had very bad experiences of our local Catholic Convent School. By the age of eleven, most, if not all of the school children knew nothing about the Sacraments or transubstantiation. They did know how to colour in pictures of the parables and stick them up round the walls.

All too often, RE becomes an art class rather than an instruction in catechetics

Sadly, the worst influences can come from embittered or disenfranchised Catholics, either teachers, family members or friends. And if one of the Catholic parents is weak or ignorant in the faith, it can cause friction and even apostasy. Couple this with a wishy washy school experience and you have young men and women who, in all probability, may never go to Church again in their lives and whose salvation, as a result is in grave doubt.