Another problem solved
What a relief: it turns out that religious schools don’t exclude after all. Whew!
The Catholic school accommodates plenty of non-Catholic children whose parents are often African Christians who choose to send their kids to a school with a specifically religious ethos.
In other words, they find a denominational school, even if it is not of their own denomination, more congenial than a non-denominational or a multi-denominational school.
This is an absolutely key point. It blows out of the water the assumption that denominational schools somehow ‘exclude’ anyone not of their own denomination.
Ohhhhhh, I see. I was confused all this time. I thought “exclusion” could apply to students of other religions as well as other denominations, and to students of no religion at all at all. But it turns out that’s wrong and the only issue is that a school of one denomination might exclude students of a different denomination and David Quinn knows of one where it doesn’t work that way, he guesses, as far as he knows, so there’s no problem with churchy schools and everything is copacetic.
A cynic might say oh really? So a Catholic school doesn’t exclude children from Muslim backgrounds? Or Protestant ones? Or secular or atheist ones? But decent people don’t care what a cynic might say, so let’s rejoice to know that denominational schools are a wonderful brilliant great terrific perfect idea.
I work with a Hindu who went to Catholic schools much of her life. She does not seem to see it as a problem.
This isn’t relevant to the Irish situation, but my first full-time job was teaching in a Catholic high school, and there were some non-Catholic students whose parents wanted their kids educated in a religious environment, even though it wasn’t their religion. There were also several non-Catholic faculty (I claimed to be Lutheran), and the dean of students was Jewish. The school took great pride in this spiritual diversity, and Sister Joan confided in me that they welcomed everyone except atheists. Very much in this spirit.
It’s interfaith outreach!
I almost wanna have kids, just so I can pack them BLTs before sending them off to Muslim shcool.
Sure, many Catholic schools welcome children from homes with different religious beliefs and traditions. I have little problem believing that non-Catholics are not turned away.
The tricky part is that they do not teach different religious beliefs and traditions — otherwise known as false beliefs and traditions. I suppose it might even be one of the goals of a Catholic education: to turn out devout Catholics.
Oh, and just to stress that I’m not one to discriminate, shrimp cocktail in Schul would also be alright.
What food could be used to irritate the atheists? Hot cross buns? Not all that irritating, I’m afraid…
Hmmm… I’m thinking…
The only food specifically offensive to atheists (and not just offensive per se, such as deep-fried Twinkies) might be one of those candy canes with the poem attached:
“Look at the candy cane/ What do you see?/ Stripes that are red/ Like the blood shed for me/ White is for my savior/ Who’s sinless and pure/ ‘J’ is for Jesus my Lord, that’s for sure!/ Turn it around/ and a staff you will see/ Jesus my shepherd/ Was born for ME!”
Churches encourage children to hand these around to classmates at their secular schools. Offensive on several levels. I’m sure we’re all irritated.
Though not because of the candy cane itself, which, contrary to the Sunday school urban legend, was not created to symbolize Jesus. So it might not work as a proper example.
This is basically it. We have no god to be displeased with us, we have no god whose honor we need to defend….their prayers can’t hurt us, their emblems can’t hurt us. Probably we can’t be ‘deeply offended’, just annoyed.
That’s why it’s sometime hard to raise an objection to these things in the same way that a religious person would.
Well, I’d be miffed if they took baby-twizzlers off the menu in the cafeteria.
In unrelated news, I wonder if that crucifarcical ECHR decision means that it’s now alright to immerse crucifices in urine and display them covered in ants. I mean, who could possibly take offence, when it’s such an obviously secular symbol?
I don’t know. What about pretzels?
But didn’t Doubya choke on a pretzel? How can I be mad at pretzels? (Disclosure: I don’t wish choking on anyone. It was just a snarky thought arising.)
Yikes, I didn’t know about those candy-canes! That’s pretty offensive. Not quite offensive enough to go kill a few random people though.
Pretzels – well I tell you what: I find chocolate-covered pretzels incredibly offensive because they taste so disgusting. But again…kill people over them? Hmmmmmmmmmmmmnot really.
In India they dont.
I’m pretty sure they dont even in America – I have a friend who sends his kids to a catholic school – though he does complain that his kids thank Jesus for everything.
You might be interested in an apparently serious piece of research that claimed that sectarian schools were actually better at promoting community cohesion.
http://www.churchofengland.org/media-centre/news/2009/11/pr11109.aspx
They claim they were more active in fostering links between other faiths and community schools than community schools themselves. In other words, they made strenuous efforts to try to make contact with the children they had excluded, whereas community schools, where all different faiths and none mixed freely, didn’t seem that bothered about reaching out to other community schools where all different faiths and none mixed freely.
Sectarian schools still regularly cite this research as evidence of how good they are for community cohesion.
I was going to go with the old roast fetus in kitten sauce joke, but then I remembered that I carry around a Seafood Watch card that lists verboten wildlife. The Monterey Bay Aquarium says, Thou shalt not eat Chilean Seabass (aka Patagonian toothfish), nor Monkfish, nor Sharks. I’ve had many bowls of tasty sharkfin soup, and this I heartily regret.
I have also learned that at least one Catholic kindergarten in Japan accepts children from non-Christian (Buddhist) parents. I suppose a Catholic school can’t be too picky about such things in Japan, though, or they wouldn’t make any profit!