[Ghost Buster]

Originally Posted by Gurgle

Texas and Indiana, the New World's Cork and Leitrim respectively.

Indiana is full of Canadian, Dutch, German , Australian, British and American crusties and drop outs who do pottery and protest at the Corrib pipe line. Well I'll be!!!!!!

[rainbow kirby]

Yet another reason why any future child of mine will not be sent anywhere near a Catholic school.

[Shenshen]

Originally Posted by robindch

They're at it in Canada too:

http://www.canada.com/news/Students+...556/story.html

The religious justifications are almost identical:

The bolded part makes me wonder why they would want to meddle in politics in the first place then.

[Penn]

Originally Posted by Shenshen

The bolded part makes me wonder why they would want to meddle in politics in the first place then.

They can say it wasn't political all they like, but what was the petition for if not to try and influence a political decision?

[kylith]

Ah the irony of them sacking the engaged pregnant woman, sure wasn't Jesus conceived out of wedlock? Would they treat Mary like that?

[General Relativity]

Originally Posted by robindch

And in Notre Dame, the US's largest "catholic" university, an overweight bishop who's on the Board of Fellows poe'd himself by comparing Obama to Hitler and Stalin, raising the ire of large number of faculty.

I read this so wrong.

I couldn't belive it, so, I Google'd; Notre Dame Bishop poo'd himself. After no notable results I re-read your post. That amount of dissapointment will never be felt again.

[MetalDog]

Just when I thought those f**ckin snakes in the RCC couldn't sink any lower, but then again, they are experts in using children for their own ends.

[robindch]

Originally Posted by General Relativity

Notre Dame Bishop poo'd himself.

No doubt he did when he saw the letter from the university staff

The text of the original sermon is here and the follow-up is here.

I'd say he's angling for promotion. Or he's batshit crazy. Which amounts to the same thing I suppose.

[magicbastarder]

Originally Posted by MetalDog

Just when I thought those f**ckin snakes in the RCC couldn't sink any lower, but then again, they are experts in using children for their own ends.

to be fair, using kids to sign a petition isn't quite as low as abusing kids. so it's not as if they've sunk lower. they've set a particularly low bar for themselves...

[Dades]

Why am I reminded of the census?

[doctoremma]

I attended a state Catholic school in the UK - I can't imagine my teachers ever getting behind this stuff but, m'eh, it was a long time ago now and it might be way more conservative these days.

I'm unsure how much weight any number of signatures from children will hold when trying to persuade the government to retract a new law (or what will shortly be one). Maybe they'd have more success if they got their adult parents to sign up? I suggest they target weekly mass - that's provided the parents are even there and haven't just signed up to Catholicism to get their precious ones into a decent school.

And it's not like Catholicism is the state religion or anything. The C of E seem pretty down with it.

And, as far as I'm aware, nobody is forcing churches to marry gay couples.

[robindch]

Originally Posted by doctoremma

I'm unsure how much weight any number of signatures from children will hold when trying to persuade the government to retract a new law [...]

The aim here isn't to sway the government, but to indoctrinate kids and convince them that they can and should base their choices for state policy on personal religious belief.

[doctoremma]

Originally Posted by robindch

The aim here isn't to sway the government, but to indoctrinate kids and convince them that they can and should base their choices for state policy on personal religious belief.

An update:
http://www.humanism.org.uk/news/view/1032

Secretary of State for Education Michael Gove has ordered an investigation into whether or not the Catholic Education Service (CES) has broken laws against political balance in encouraging secondary school pupils to sign a petition against same sex marriage...PinkNews.co.uk has reported a spokesperson for the Department for Education as saying that: ‘Schools have a responsibility under law to ensure children are insulated from political activity and campaigning in the classroom. While ‘faith’ schools, rightly, have the freedom to teach about sexual relations and marriage in the context of their own religion, that should not extend to political campaigning.

[koth]

Based on a recent speech by representatives of the Holy See at the UN, the schools were acting in a manner that the Holy See doesn't support.

Within the educational process, the Holy See delegation reminded members that states should ultimately respect the choices made by parents and avoid attempts at ideological indoctrination.

Source

[robindch]

^^^ The exact quote is worth noting:

Originally Posted by The Vatican

In this educational process, the State should respect the choices that parents make for their children and avoid attempts at ideological indoctrination.

The Vatican's full statement is here:

http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=zenit&id=34700