NO NO NO Schools have to include religion classes, forum told

GarIT

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Catholic schools for children of Catholic parents only.

Fair enough.

But then, perhaps only taxes paid by Catholics should be used to foot the bill for the sex abuse scandals, rather than taxes paid by all citizens.

This would have the interesting knock-on effect of testing how strong peoples' faith really is.

That wouldn't really work, theres no way to tax only catholics, If you use money from catholic taxpayers it would be coming out of somewhere else so everyone would suffer anyway. It would be illegal to impose an extra tax on catholics only. I do agree with the idea of removing all state funding for any religious or non state run school.

Knasher

GarIT wrote: »

Nobody is asking catholic children to sit beside anybody, they can still go to any of the schools that remain catholic. We actually want catholic children to go to school with other catholics. We just don't want our non-religious children in a school with catholics.

I am. I don't think schools should have permission to discriminate on religious grounds with regards to their admission policies. Even if there are enough places to provide both secular and religious only schools, I'd object because I believe those sort of policies lead to sectarianism.

GarIT wrote: »

Having been in a non-catholic school I've never seen someone being bullied for being a catholic. I however have no choice of which secondry school I go to and I am subject to regular bullying by preists and catholic teachers. A catholic preist once punched me because I quoted a sceintific report that proved Transubstantion to be fake.

You use the present tense so I have to ask if this is ongoing. Because if it is you really need to contact somebody, because that absolutely isn't acceptable.

Knasher

GarIT wrote: »

That wouldn't really work, theres no way to tax only catholics, If you use money from catholic taxpayers it would be coming out of somewhere else so everyone would suffer anyway. It would be illegal to impose an extra tax on catholics only. I do agree with the idea of removing all state funding for any religious or non state run school.

Interestingly a number of European countries have a church tax which is payable only by members of that church (in some countries non-members then have to pay to a different organisation). Additionally some churches will only allow funerals, wedding, etc for members who have paid up.

It would be interesting to see how many people would remain á la carte catholics if we had a similar tax here.

GarIT

Knasher wrote: »

You use the present tense so I have to ask if this is ongoing. Because if it is you really need to contact somebody, because that absolutely isn't acceptable.

I have done, one teacher has been sacked, from what I hear he now runs a religious retreat. The school settled out of court on the issue with the preist, and to be honest it was more of an angry push than a punch but I was knocked over, fell over a chair, hit the back of my head off a wall and winded. My pe teacher once told me that I'm a bad person and will never be sucessful in sports because of my lack of faith, I say I wont be sucessful because I'm a nerd.

GarIT

Knasher wrote: »

Interestingly a number of European countries have a church tax which is payable only by members of that church (in some countries non-members then have to pay to a different organisation). Additionally some churches will only allow funerals, wedding, etc for members who have paid up.

It would be interesting to see how many people would remain á la carte catholics if we had a similar tax here.

I heard about this but I believed that the church or orginsation brought in the tax on its members, its not a state tax.

philologos

As far as I'm aware in Germany the Government take the tax and distribute it accordingly. I'm willing to be corrected if wrong though.

crucamim

philologos wrote: »

crucamim: Why should the State have to pay for it given that the abuse was perpetrated in the RCC?

Elementary. It was the State which put those victims into the care of Catholic run institutions. The State was indirectly using cheap, celibate labour.

Knasher

philologos wrote: »

As far as I'm aware in Germany the Government take the tax and distribute it accordingly. I'm willing to be corrected if wrong though.

You are mostly correct, except for small churches who collect it themselves to avoid administrative fees.

GarIT

philologos wrote: »

As far as I'm aware in Germany the Government take the tax and distribute it accordingly. I'm willing to be corrected if wrong though.

Google says your right, Its only collected by the government though, the tax is issued by the church. The church collects the money and pays the German gov. admin fees to do it for them.

crucamim

robindch wrote: »

Thanks. And "good god" respectively.Do you think it's a good idea to have an organization with the childcare record of the catholic church running schools?

No child's behind left, I suppose you could say.

Leave it to parents to decide who educates their children.

Secular organisations also have indifferent records. e.g. Kincora House in Belfast and, in the USA, schools managed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs for the children of American Indians.

And Protestant schools also have indifferent records. Remember Dr Lindsay Browne of Bangor Grammar school.

Abuse of power is a widespread human problem.

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

I've never found an anti-catholic teacher. I've never found any teacher that was against any religion.

Lucky you.

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

Maybe not in Irealand, but they certainly did in many third world countries.

What has the behaviour of Catholic institutions in many Third World countries to do with the liability of the Catholic Church in Ireland?

crucamim

robindch wrote: »

Thanks. And "good god" respectively./QUOTE]

Now that I remember, Mary Rafferty of RTE, writing in the Irish Times, suggested that the Catholic Church transfer some of its schools to the State to recompense the State for the sex abuse costs. She did not explain why Catholic children should have to endure bullying by anti-Catholic teachers just because some priests had misbehaved.

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

We are greatfull to the church for the service it has provided but we now want to be able to be independant and educate our children ourselves.

Good. Now get on with it and stop interfering with the right of practising Catholics to have their children education in a totally Catholic environment.

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

They have however denied the right to education to non-religious children making them drive for hours to find the nearest non-religious school.

You seem to be insinuating that the Catholic Church has a duty to educate the children of non-Catholics. If so, I disagree with you.

Amateurish

Would it be simplistic or has it already been suggested the child be given religious education according to the parents wishes outside of school hours and at the expense of the church/parent? The basic and constitutionally afforded education could continue as normal during the regular hours.
The state would/could assume ownership of the school. It being biblically difficult for a rich man to gain access to heaven I'm sure the church would appreciate the opportunity to offload these assets.

philologos

crucamim wrote: »

You seem to be insinuating that the Catholic Church has a duty to educate the children of non-Catholics. If so, I disagree with you.

RCC according to 2006 Census - 86% of the population
Non-Catholics according to the 2006 Census - 14% of the population
Amount of primary schools in RCC patronage - 92%
Amount of secondary schools in RCC patronage - 49%.

92% is still too many primary schools. If it isn't the responsibility of RCC schools to teach non-Catholics we have a huge problem.

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

The people that comitted a crime are responsible. I think youll find that using the constitution and the laws of state the state can delegate responsibiliy.

I agree that the people who committed the crimes are responsible. Unfortunately, many anti-Catholics are trying to hold all Catholics responsible. And are trying to use the sex abuse scandal to prise ownership of schools from Catholics.

And I disagree with your view that the State can delegate responsibility. No person or organisation can delegate responsibility. He (or It) can delegate authority, not responsibility. If you are my employee, I am responsible for your misdeeds in the course of the employment. It could be argued that the Catholic priests were acting on "frolics of their own" rather than in the course of their employment but, for some reason, the Catholic Church did not avail of that defense. Probably becasue, it would have been bad public relations.

crucamim

The Mad Hatter wrote: »

Catholic schools for children of Catholic parents only.

Fair enough.

But then, perhaps only taxes paid by Catholics should be used to foot the bill for the sex abuse scandals, rather than taxes paid by all citizens.

This would have the interesting knock-on effect of testing how strong peoples' faith really is.

And, perhaps, that principle could be extended to many other matters. Should taxes be imposed on Protestants to compensate Catholics for the Penal Laws?

crucamim

GarIT wrote: »

I do agree with the idea of removing all state funding for any religious or non state run school.

How will the Protestant churches re-act to that? How would that fit with the Constitution?

CerebralCortex

crucamim wrote: »

And, perhaps, that principle could be extended to many other matters. Should taxes be imposed on Protestants to compensate Catholics for the Penal Laws?

Poe's law definitely! Textbook!

Amateurish

crucamim wrote: »

I agree that the people who committed the crimes are responsible. Unfortunately, many anti-Catholics are trying to hold all Catholics responsible. And are trying to use the sex abuse scandal to prise ownership of schools from Catholics.

And I disagree with your view that the State can delegate responsibility. No person or organisation can delegate responsibility. He (or It) can delegate authority, not responsibility. If you are my employee, I am responsible for your misdeeds in the course of the employment. It could be argued that the Catholic priests were acting on "frolics of their own" rather than in the course of their employment but, for some reason, the Catholic Church did not avail of that defense. Probably becasue, it would have been bad public relations.

The church did not avail of that defense because in moving priests from parishes where crimes had been perpetrated against children, the church became at least equally as morally and legally culpable as the paedophile.

crucamim

philologos wrote: »

As far as I'm aware in Germany the Government take the tax and distribute it accordingly. I'm willing to be corrected if wrong though.

I think that you are correct. And I suspect the same might be the case in Austria and Switzerland. I am not at all sure that the tax is used to finance schools but I admit that my knowledge of those countries is vague.

crucamim

Knasher wrote: »

I am. I don't think schools should have permission to discriminate on religious grounds with regards to their admission policies. Even if there are enough places to provide both secular and religious only schools, I'd object because I believe those sort of policies lead to sectarianism.

I disagree with you. More important, so does the Constitution of Ireland. Catholic schools admit Catholic children in preference to others but accept non-Catholic children when all the Catholic children have been catered for.

The Protestant schools are more restrictive. They also give preference to their co-religionists. But, even where they have vacancies left, they still exclude outsiders in order to protect the ethos of their schools. i.e The Protestants do not allow Protestant children attending a Protestant school to be swamped by hordes of Catholics. And right they are.

crucamim

Amateurish wrote: »

The church did not avail of that defense because in moving priests from parishes where crimes had been perpetrated against children, the church became at least equally as morally and legally culpable as the paedophile.

What has moving priests from parishes to do with abuse in Institutions?
The State did not compensate people who were abused by parish priests or parish curates. Why should it? The State is responsible only where it was negligent. i.e. Putting people into institutions and not properly supervising those institutuons.

And it was not the Church which moved priests from parish to parish. It was individual bishops. It it they who should be sued - as well as the delinquent priests.

crucamim

philologos wrote: »

RCC according to 2006 Census - 86% of the population
Non-Catholics according to the 2006 Census - 14% of the population
Amount of primary schools in RCC patronage - 92%
Amount of secondary schools in RCC patronage - 49%.

92% is still too many primary schools. If it isn't the responsibility of RCC schools to teach non-Catholics we have a huge problem.

Are you suggesting that it is the responsibility to the Catholic Church to educate the children of non-Catholics? If so, I disagree with you.

If, as you claim, 86% of the population are RC, why are only 49% of the schools controlled by the RCC? Presumably, it is because only 49% of the secondary schools are owned by the RCC. And why are only 49% of the secondary schools owned by the RCC? Has the Department of Education been discriminating against Catholics?

dvpower

crucamim wrote: »

And it was not the Church which moved priests from parish to parish. It was individual bishops. It it they who should be sued - as well as the delinquent priests.

The protection of abusers goes a whole lot higher than individual bishops.

Amateurish

crucamim wrote: »

What has moving priests from parishes to do with abuse in Institutions?
The State did not compensate people who were abused by parish priests or parish curates. Why should it? The State is responsible only where it was negligent. i.e. Putting people into institutions and not properly supervising those institutuons.

And it was not the Church which moved priests from parish to parish. It was individual bishops. It it they who should be sued - as well as the delinquent priests.

Sorry I've only just begun to post here and 800 odd posts is too much for me to read over. I didn't get that its about institutional abuse only. Having said I believe that the institutional abuse largely took place because of the churchs then esteemed position in society. Re the parish based abuse -If the individual cardinals moved priests would that make the church assets fair game? The pope? The church in representing itself as the one holy church and interpreter of God's laws has no business in hiding behind man's law. I'll nail my colours to the mast and say the church has no business owning property of any kind actually. Any other posts I might have made would really have been leading to this argument anyway.

Amateurish

dvpower wrote: »

The protection of abusers goes a whole lot higher than individual bishops.

Protection is one thing, shameful as it is. Complicity is a whole other level of nasty.
Throwing them into a monastery where they would od no harm and come to no harm would have been protection, Moving them around as happened was complicity in my book.

dvpower

crucamim wrote: »

If, as you claim, 86% of the population are RC, why are only 49% of the schools controlled by the RCC? Presumably, it is because only 49% of the secondary schools are owned by the RCC. And why are only 49% of the secondary schools owned by the RCC? Has the Department of Education been discriminating against Catholics?

0% of our Garda divisions and none of the social welfare offices are controlled by the RCC - its a disgrace I tell you.