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Surplus Catholic schools targeted

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  • 05-03-2010 5:22pm
    #1
    Erren Music
    Closed Accounts Posts: 384 ✭✭


    Finally a policy that might go somewhere.

    here are some highlights


    The Minister for Education today said his department was examining a number of areas where the numbers of Catholic primary schools could be reduced to reflect declining demand for these schools.

    It is broadly accepted that only about one-third of the country‘s Catholics regularly attend Mass but more than 90 per cent of primary schools are run by the church.

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2010/0305/breaking48.html


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    #2
    strobe
    Closed Accounts Posts: 7,872 ✭✭✭strobe


    A small step in the right direction. Doesn't go anywhere near far enough and who knows what will actually come out of it but fair play I say.


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 5,121 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    Hmm - the RCC is in the news as looking for cash and a few days later a minister starts talking about transferring schools out of the RCC.

    I wonder if they will be using NAMA long-term hypothetical values or current market ones.


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    #4
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Hmm - the RCC is in the news as looking for cash and a few days later a minister starts talking about transferring schools out of the RCC.
    Erren Music wrote: »
    The Minister for Education today said his department was examining a number of areas where the numbers of Catholic primary schools could be reduced to reflect declining demand for these schools.
    Neither that article nor a separate one on RTE seem to report all that accurately on what Mr O'Keeffe actually said -- though that's understandable, since Mr O'Keeffe's vapid committee-speak simply doesn't really parse as normal English very well. A couple of things jump out at me on a brief reading:

    1. His speech appears to state that the church will hand over control of a small number of schools in order to "trial the modalities by which the number of Catholic places and schools will be reduced and released for others." I take this weird phrase to mean that the places formerly reserved for the children of catholic parents will be given to the children of non-catholic parents. If this is the case, then it seems that he's going to create a new, non-catholic primary-school apartheid in addition to the existing catholic.

    2. He praises the catholic schools for something he refers to as "their strong tradition of social inclusion" (social inclusion of catholics, one must assume). What in heaven's name is he referring to here?

    3. He actually seems to want to strengthen religious control of the other schools by bringing about "a consolidation and strengthening of the remaining Catholic provision matched to the demand for it". He does not state how he intends to determine the demand for catholic provision, but I'll bet 50p that he's going to use the census data, since I'd imagine that this dataset provides, numerically, the most advantageous data.

    4. Control will only change in urban areas, since non-urban areas contain "stand alone rural schools and therefore do not come under consideration[/I]". What kind of a headbanger reason is that?

    It'll be interesting to see who gets control of them too. I'm going to put my finger in their air and say that the VEC will get 80% and Educate Together and other non-religiously aligned groups will get, at most, 20%.


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    #5
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Deleted User wrote: »
    Hmm - the RCC is in the news as looking for cash and a few days later a minister starts talking about transferring schools out of the RCC.
    Properties comprise around half of the assents listed by the religious orders to pay for their 10% share of the €1.3 billion residential abuse settlement.

    Therefore, in the majority of cases, the state is effectively buying these religious properties, since most are unsaleable and the state will therefore be unable to realise any cash out of the transfer.

    If this example is anything to go by, then I'd imagine that the state may well end up paying the church to acquire administrative rights.


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    #6
    Mike 1972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,018 ✭✭✭Mike 1972


    robindch wrote: »
    I'm going to put my finger in their air and say that the VEC will get 80% and Educate Together and other non-religiously aligned groups will get, at most, 20%.

    What in practice would this mean ?

    How (if at all) does religious control/influence/teaching work in VEC schools ?


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    #7
    Erren Music
    Closed Accounts Posts: 384 ✭✭Erren Music


    robindch wrote: »
    Properties comprise around half of the assents listed by the religious orders to pay for their 10% share of the €1.3 billion residential abuse settlement.

    Therefore, in the majority of cases, the state is effectively buying these religious properties, since most are unsaleable and the state will therefore be unable to realise any cash out of the transfer.

    If this example is anything to go by, then I'd imagine that the state may well end up paying the church to acquire administrative rights.

    Forgive me for being a little reticent here, but didn't the Irish people pay for the churches and institutions to begin with through financial donations, donated land and shear hard work.

    I know the local priest when I was a child 1970's (a very different planet then) was very active with the aged because the amount of stuff left to the church in wills was of enormous value to them. As a side question did the vatican encourage this in their priests, ie sales targets?

    Or is that incorrect, and the cash came from the vatican's cash register?


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    #8
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Erren Music wrote: »
    Forgive me for being a little reticent here, but didn't the Irish people pay for the churches and institutions to begin with [...] I know the local priest when I was a child 1970's (a very different planet then) was very active with the aged because the amount of stuff left to the church in wills was of enormous value to them.
    While it may have happened in a few instances, I think it's very unlikely that this was the sole reason for priests activity with the elderly. It seems more likely that the elderly, faced with the progressive disappearances of their friends and family, simply ended up contacting the only people they know would visit. And scruples -- if any -- concerning the wider church were simply ignored.
    Erren Music wrote: »
    As a side question did the vatican encourage this in their priests, ie sales targets?
    It's cynical to suggest and difficult or impossible to ascertain one way or the other. I would imagine it unlikely, at least in written form, though I can imagine that, inevitably, a priest would be more likely to visit elderly parishioners who said they'd be leaving money to the church, than those who didn't say that.
    Erren Music wrote: »
    Or is that incorrect, and the cash came from the vatican's cash register?
    The Vatican, in general, does not provide money to client bishoprics, since the bishoprics are the ultimate administrative division within catholicism. The Vatican's current role -- it wasn't always like this -- is to appoint bishops, cardinals and archbishops, and to provide ideological leadership. Around half (I believe) of the Vatican's cash is provided by the bishoprics; the cash usually doesn't go the other way.


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    #9
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Mike 1972 wrote: »
    How (if at all) does religious control/influence/teaching work in VEC schools?
    I'm not at all sure, but looking at other places where the religious have ceded control of assets -- like the religious orders placing everything into "trusts" whose boards consist largely of people who are members of, or who are sympathetic to, the religious order ceding control -- I think it's quite likely that they'll try to influence things to ensure that only people sympathetic to the church are on the schools' boards.

    For example (and I'm willing to put money on this), under the new board-level management, I wouldn't expect many changes in the way that religion is "taught".


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    #10
    Mike 1972
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,018 ✭✭✭Mike 1972


    robindch wrote: »
    the religious orders placing everything into "trusts" whose boards consist largely of people who are members of, or who are sympathetic to, the religious order ceding control -- I think it's quite likely that they'll try to influence things to ensure that only people sympathetic to the church are on the schools' boards.
    .

    How exactly do the "Educate together" schools work then ? Are they non-denominational or multidenominational ?

    i.e. Do they have "reperesentation" from different churches (and non christian religions) on their boards or is it totally secular


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    #11
    robindch
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 24,399 Mod ✭✭✭✭robindch


    Mike 1972 wrote: »
    How exactly do the "Educate together" schools work then? Are they non-denominational or multidenominational? .e. Do they have "reperesentation" from different churches (and non christian religions) on their boards or is it totally secular
    They are multidenominational, in that they will accept children regardless of which religious groups, if any, the child's parents belong to. They are non-denominational, in that they are not controlled by any religious groups, and I believe that neither the national ET board, nor any of the individual ET school boards, include representatives who act on behalf of any religious group.

    Their charter document is here and explains the above in more detail.


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    #12
    Ickle Magoo
    Closed Accounts Posts: 17,485 ✭✭✭✭Ickle Magoo


    Mike 1972 wrote: »
    How exactly do the "Educate together" schools work then ? Are they non-denominational or multidenominational ?

    i.e. Do they have "reperesentation" from different churches (and non christian religions) on their boards or is it totally secular

    The board is secular. The kids learn about all religions with no emphasis put on any one. Any specific religious instructions are organised by the parents out with class time though school rooms are made available for them. Our ET has RC, protestant and meditation/spirituality classes; open to all who wish to go for half an hr or so after school once a week.


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    #13
    Erren Music
    Closed Accounts Posts: 384 ✭✭Erren Music


    robindch wrote: »
    While it may have happened in a few instances, I think it's very unlikely that this was the sole reason for priests activity with the elderly. It seems more likely that the elderly, faced with the progressive disappearances of their friends and family, simply ended up contacting the only people they know would visit. And scruples -- if any -- concerning the wider church were simply ignored.It's cynical to suggest and difficult or impossible to ascertain one way or the other. I would imagine it unlikely, at least in written form, though I can imagine that, inevitably, a priest would be more likely to visit elderly parishioners who said they'd be leaving money to the church, than those who didn't say that.The Vatican, in general, does not provide money to client bishoprics, since the bishoprics are the ultimate administrative division within catholicism. The Vatican's current role -- it wasn't always like this -- is to appoint bishops, cardinals and archbishops, and to provide ideological leadership. Around half (I believe) of the Vatican's cash is provided by the bishoprics; the cash usually doesn't go the other way.
    Yea I see that, the elderly would have been vunerable and an easier target. I wonder how people feel now. My aunt left the church a very large estate on her death, she was conned into going to lourdes and all the other things the church needs money for. Would she or someone like her be leaving anything to the church now.

    The way the vatican is setup from a business and political perspective is a masterclass in self protection. I have been researching the vatican for a while and there is very little information about their assets.

    "In a statement published in connection with a bond prospectus, the Boston archdiocese listed its assets at Six Hundred and Thirty-five Million ($635,891,004), which is 9.9 times its liabilities. This leaves a net worth of Five Hundred and Seventy-one million dollars ($571,704,953). It is not difficult to discover the truly astonishing wealth of the church, once we add the riches of the twenty-eight archdioceses and 122 dioceses of the U.S.A., some of which are even wealthier than that of Boston.


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    #14
    expectationlost
    Registered Users Posts: 11,770 ✭✭✭✭expectationlost


    robindch wrote: »
    It'll be interesting to see who gets control of them too. I'm going to put my finger in their air and say that the VEC will get 80% and Educate Together and other non-religiously aligned groups will get, at most, 20%.

    and the vec particularily the merged ones will remain catholic ethos by default


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