How do I leave the Church

Peregrinus

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

It's very much part of my business because these ticks under false pretences are used to justify an education system which discriminates against my family and every other non-catholic family.

It's one thing to denigrate the Catholic church for claiming you as a member. Show me that the Catholic church is doing this, and I'll cheerfully support your protests on the subject.

It's quite another to denigrate someon else's self-idenfication as a Catholic. The Catholic church doesn't get to say whether Hotblack is a Catholic if Hotblack says he isn't, and by exactly the same reasoning Hotblack doesn't get to say that someone else is not a Catholic if that person says he is. not

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Why would a supposedly secular state want to know or care about how many people claim to be a certain religion or not?
It should make no difference whatsoever to provision of any state-funded service.

Why indeed? And yet this question is routinely asked in censuses in many countries.

If your question is more than rhetorical and you are actually interested in an answer, you could do worse that head on over to the website of the UK's Office of National Statistics, where a bit of googling will take you the reports they produce following their periodic consultations about the census questions.

They consult relevant stakeholders (central government, regional/devolved governments, local governments, experts, community and special interest groups, commercial service providers) about what should be in the census questionnaire and why. Regarding religion, a majority in all the interest groups consulted agreed that they wanted information on religion, and that what they wanted was self-identification, rather than data on observance or frequency of practice. A minority asked for a question directed to active religious identity, but as a supplementary, not an alternative, to the principal question. The ONS rejected this suggestion, on the basis that it would complicate the section on religion and lead to a greater number of respondents simply declining to answer, that it was difficult to frame a question that would be apt to the varieties of religious identities and that would yield useful information, and that information related to practice could be more reliably and more usefully captured through social surveys.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's one thing to denigrate the Catholic church for claiming you as a member. Show me that the Catholic church is doing this, and I'll cheerfully support your protests on the subject.

It's quite another to denigrate someon else's self-idenfication as a Catholic. The Catholic church doesn't get to say whether Hotblack is a Catholic if Hotblack says he isn't, and by exactly the same reasoning Hotblack doesn't get to say that someone else is not a Catholic if that person says he is. not

I agree with this, though it seems that in this forum there are even more complaints about those who claim to be Christian but aren't 'real' Christians than over on the A&A forum. In my opinion, a person's choice religious identity is personal and can't be dictated by a third party on the the basis it doesn't meet their criteria. I for one hold freedom of religious expression to be a human right.

That said, I don't believe we can imply that because a person identifies as Catholic that their social and moral preferences are in accord with the RCC position. The majority of those that identify as Catholics clearly disagree with their church on topics such as abortion, same sex marriage and divorce. I strongly suspect they also disagree with church involvement in schools and hospitals.

In that sense, the census can and has been used in a divisive manner. I think there would be great value in public debate and vote as to how and if religious institutions should be involved state funded education.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I agree with this, though it seems that in this forum there are even more complaints about those who claim to be Christian but aren't 'real' Christians than over on the A&A forum. In my opinion, a person's choice religious identity is personal and can't be dictated by a third party on the the basis it doesn't meet their criteria. I for one hold freedom of religious expression to be a human right.

That said, I don't believe we can imply that because a person identifies as Catholic that their social and moral preferences are in accord with the RCC position. The majority of those that identify as Catholics clearly disagree with their church on topics such as abortion, same sex marriage and divorce. I strongly suspect they also disagree with church involvement in schools and hospitals.

I agree with you on the former point. I'm not convinced on the latter, but I take the old-fashioned view that the only way we can know about whether the majority of Catholics disagree with church involvement in schools or hospitals is to ask them. Those who make pronouncements about this in the absence of evidence are clearly motivated by faith.

smacl wrote: »

In that sense, the census can and has been used in a divisive manner. I think there would be great value in public debate and vote as to how and if religious institutions should be involved state funded education.

That's a separate question, though. I think we need to start by deciding which question do we want to answer:

1. Do a majority of Catholics (or a majority of citizens) support church involvement in education (or healthcare)?

2. Is it good or bad to have churches involved in education or healthcare?

You can certainly argue that the questions must be considered separately - that even if the answer to Q 1 turns out to be "yes" we should still answer "no" to Q 2. Or you could argue that Q 1 is trivial or irrelevant; that the merits or demerits of church involvement don't depend on how popular it is.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

I agree with you on the former point. I'm not convinced on the latter, but I take the old-fashioned view that the only way we can know about whether the majority of Catholics disagree with church involvement in schools or hospitals is to ask them. Those who make pronouncements about this in the absence of evidence are clearly motivated by faith.

Faith would be unevidenced suspicion of a truth. My suspicion is based on the response from those Christians that I've asked, see the following thread for one example of this. So while this is a very small example from a demographic that is possibly atypical, it is distinct from blind faith. When asked

Following on from a discussion here I'd be interested to know as a Christian whether you're for or against secularism. Specifically whether the church should have a say in how state funded organisations such as schools and hospitals are run, how the church can influence enrolment policy and curricula in state schools, etc... I'd appreciate if any non-Christians didn't vote in this one, as I'm predominantly interested in getting an idea whether Irish Christians are primarily anti-secular as has been mooted elsewhere.

73.3% of those who identify as Christian who responded said they were for the above.

Peregrinus

Yeah, I gotta say I'm unimpressed. It's a small sample - 30 respondents and, although you say they all identify as Christians, I think there may be some, um, data entry errors going on; I see a name or two of posters that I would be reasonably confident do not identify as Christian. And the respondents are drawn from a population - boardies - that, according to my own impression, is not representative of the nation at large. We certainly have no reason to think that it is. And the question is loaded; "I don't think the church should influence the running of the state at all" begs obvious questions about whether education is or should be the exclusive preserve of the state.

Somewhat more useful data can be got from the large-scale consultation that the Dept of Education ran a couple of years back, inviting the views of parents of school-age and soon-to-be-school age children as to their preferred patronage models. The survey wasn't nationwide; it was only conducted in school districts where there was a demographic need for a new school, so it sampled views in areas where the population was growing, and therefore was weighted a bit to more prosperous parts of the country, urban rather than rural areas, places with high immigration rather than net emigration, and so forth. Neverthless it was pretty widely spread. And of course the survey population woudld have been primarily adults between their late twenties and their early forties, with one or more children. And the group that answered the survey were of course self-selected.

So, all those caveats. But, taking it all into account, of much more interest than an online survey on boards.ie. with a loaded question and 30 respondents.

And the result? A clear majority of parents preferred church patronage for any new school, with Catholic church patronage commanding more support than all other models combined, including patronage by other churches. And this preference was widely spread; Catholic patronage was the preferred model in 37 out of the 38 districts surveyed*. Yes, I also found this surprising, but I don't think we can dismiss facts just because they surprise us.

* To answer your questiona about this, Dublin 6, the durty pagans.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Somewhat more useful data can be got from the large-scale consultation that the Dept of Education ran a couple of years back, inviting the views of parents of school-age and soon-to-be-school age children as to their preferred patronage models. The survey wasn't nationwide; it was only conducted in school districts where there was a demographic need for a new school, so it sampled views in areas where the population was growing, and therefore was weighted a bit to more prosperous parts of the country, urban rather than rural areas, places with high immigration rather than net emigration, and so forth. Neverthless it was pretty widely spread. And of course the survey population woudld have been primarily adults between their late twenties and their early forties, with one or more children. And the group that answered the survey were of course self-selected.

I'm assuming you mean this survey from 2013 (more than a couple of years at this point). Even then if you tot up the responses in table 3 you'll note that 45% of respondents favoured a wider choice in patronage in their area at a time when 85% of the population identified as Catholic in the previous census.

I think that my suspicion that religious identity does not correlate with preference for excessive RCC involvement in education still seems well founded.

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

It's one thing to denigrate the Catholic church for claiming you as a member. Show me that the Catholic church is doing this, and I'll cheerfully support your protests on the subject.

They don't have to, they have lots of people self-identifying as catholic who in practical terms have little or nothing to do with the church, it's a historical/cultural identity for many/most, not a religious one any more.
Politicians then use the result of this box-ticking exercise as an excuse to maintain the status quo in the education system.

It's quite another to denigrate someon else's self-idenfication as a Catholic. The Catholic church doesn't get to say whether Hotblack is a Catholic if Hotblack says he isn't, and by exactly the same reasoning Hotblack doesn't get to say that someone else is not a Catholic if that person says he is. not

I wouldn't care what box anyone ticks if it didn't have consequences for the delivery of vital state-funded services.

Why indeed? And yet this question is routinely asked in censuses in many countries.

The important sentence was the next one, which you omitted. I don't particularly care whether they ask or not, it's what the answers are used to justify which is the problem.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Somewhat more useful data can be got from the large-scale consultation that the Dept of Education ran a couple of years back, inviting the views of parents of school-age and soon-to-be-school age children as to their preferred patronage models. The survey wasn't nationwide; it was only conducted in school districts where there was a demographic need for a new school

Well, that's a massive problem right there. Everyone including the RCC says that divestment is needed to at least some extent - this ignored the divestment issue entirely.

As a non-catholic parent, I find the Dept of Education cannot be trusted at all in relation to religion or patronage. Countless times they have tried to force compulsory religion on kids even though this is unconstitutional (recently, in ETBs for instance), withdrawing a circular that would have obliged ETBs to timetable an alternative to religion, forcing ETB schools to have an RC chaplain, etc. - and that is in schools actually owned by the state!!

So the Dept of Education are far from a fair or neutral arbiter here. There were several other serious issues with the survey :

- Dept of Education did not promote it at all.
- It was not nationwide.
- In some/many parishes the RCC conducted a campaign from the pulpit against it. This biased the result as massgoers were urged to complete it, and in a particular way.
- Due to the lack of promotion by DoES and the overall very low completion rate, the effect of the above bias was magnified.
- People were scaremongered into thinking that it was about changing the patronage of existing schools.
- The default option that most people have a lot of familiarity with, versus other options they have little or no knowledge of (and a lot of media commentators like to quite unfairly denigrate) is not a fair contest.

We saw the same nonsense recently in Malahide, where school principals quite openly lied to parents about what might happen if their school was divested - no Christmas (ETs celebrate Christmas), no grandparents involved in the school (?!), a reduction in child safety on trips (???), no sacramental preparation allowed on the school premises (yet ETs facilitate this.)

hinault

Peregrinus wrote: »

Yeah, I gotta say I'm unimpressed. It's a small sample - 30 respondents and, although you say they all identify as Christians, I think there may be some, um, data entry errors going on; I see a name or two of posters that I would be reasonably confident do not identify as Christian. And the respondents are drawn from a population - boardies - that, according to my own impression, is not representative of the nation at large. .

Agreed Peregrinus.

Rather strange, though very funny, that a survey of 30 respondents is cited as being representative.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Somewhat more useful data can be got from the large-scale consultation that the Dept of Education ran a couple of years back, inviting the views of parents of school-age and soon-to-be-school age children as to their preferred patronage models. The survey wasn't nationwide; it was only conducted in school districts where there was a demographic need for a new school, so it sampled views in areas where the population was growing, and therefore was weighted a bit to more prosperous parts of the country, urban rather than rural areas, places with high immigration rather than net emigration, and so forth. Neverthless it was pretty widely spread. And of course the survey population woudld have been primarily adults between their late twenties and their early forties, with one or more children. And the group that answered the survey were of course self-selected.

So, all those caveats. But, taking it all into account, of much more interest than an online survey on boards.ie. with a loaded question and 30 respondents.

And the result? A clear majority of parents preferred church patronage for any new school, with Catholic church patronage commanding more support than all other models combined, including patronage by other churches. And this preference was widely spread; Catholic patronage was the preferred model in 37 out of the 38 districts surveyed*. Yes, I also found this surprising, but I don't think we can dismiss facts just because they surprise us.

* To answer your questiona about this, Dublin 6, the durty pagans.

Agreed.

The penny has begun to drop with many parents of school going children in our country. These parents want to retain the Catholic ethos of their children's school, especially in light of the Church's offer to relinquish/transfer patronage to the State or to some other entity.

It is the State which has been slow to accept the offer to assume patronage of existing Catholic ethos schools.

It is worth recalling that the admission lists to Catholic ethos schools throughout Britain, increases year on year. Waiting lists get longer, prospective pupils don't gain admission to these schools due to demand for places. Parents in Britain recognise the value of education in a Catholic-ethos school.
Parents in Ireland are starting to recognise this more in Ireland too.

NIMAN

https://www.notme.ie/

sondagefaux

guyfo wrote: »

So like many I was forced by my parents into being confirmed completely against my will, I managed to push it back a few years but was finally forced to when I was 16.

In my eyes baptising or even worse confirming a child is one of the lowest things you can do. It is basically saying I'm going to indoctrinate my child to this religion and then confirm them into the church before they have a chance to figure it out for themselves. I had it figured out from before I left primary school and made this clear but it didn't matter, I was forced into it, even though confirmation is supposed to be you personally confirming your faith and intention to join the church.

I've been trying to figure out how to leave but with Ireland being like it is the only church that matters is the Catholic one and when you search "how to leave church of Ireland" all of the results are about the RCC.

Can anyone help me here as to how I can formally leave the Church of Ireland?

Tell people you're voting Shinner.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I'm assuming you mean this survey from 2013 (more than a couple of years at this point). Even then if you tot up the responses in table 3 you'll note that 45% of respondents favoured a wider choice in patronage in their area at a time when 85% of the population identified as Catholic in the previous census.

I think that my suspicion that religious identity does not correlate with preference for excessive RCC involvement in education still seems well founded.

Ahem.

Your earlier suspicion was that "I strongly suspect they [Catholics] also disagree with church involvement in schools and hospitals."

You're now shifting your ground to a preference about excessive RCC involvement in education. Not church involvement; just RCC involvement. And not any RCC involvement; just excessive RCC involvement.

That's very different. I'm pretty sure that a huge majority of Catholics and non-Catholics alike would oppose excesive involvement by any patronage body, since that pretty much follows from the whole concept of "excessive". Now all you have to do is to establish what degree of involvement they consider to be "excessive". And maybe think again about your other suspicion, that they disagree with church involvement, full stop.

Hotblack Desiato

hinault wrote: »

It is the State which has been slow to accept the offer to assume patronage of existing Catholic ethos schools.

Apart from a handful of primary schools where for historical reasons the Minister for Education is the patron (all of which are either RC or CoI ethos), the state is not the patron of any schools and not proposing to be.

It is worth recalling that the admission lists to Catholic ethos schools throughout Britain, increases year on year. Waiting lists get longer, prospective pupils don't gain admission to these schools due to demand for places. Parents in Britain recognise the value of education in a Catholic-ethos school.

Which is all about snobbery and a hint of racism, nothing to do with religion.

Peregrinus

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Which is all about snobbery and a hint of racism, nothing to do with religion.

Well, it may or may not be, but either way I don't think it's particularly relevant to the Irish context. With 90%+ of national schools under Catholic patronage, demand that is driven either by a preference for the ethos or by "snobbery and a hint of racism" is likely to be eclipsed by demand that simply reflects the lack of any practically accessible alternative.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Apart from a handful of primary schools where for historical reasons the Minister for Education is the patron (all of which are either RC or CoI ethos), the state is not the patron of any schools and not proposing to be.

State bodies (in the form of ETBs) run a signficant number of secondary schools, and recently the ETBs have started to acts as patrons of national schools as well. I think there's about 25 of them now.

A_Lost_Man

If you have a play station 4 or ps4 pro with 55inch Led purchase a few ps4 games you could easy leave the church

Hotblack Desiato

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, it may or may not be, but either way I don't think it's particularly relevant to the Irish context. With 90%+ of national schools under Catholic patronage, demand that is driven either by a preference for the ethos or by "snobbery and a hint of racism" is likely to be eclipsed by demand that simply reflects the lack of any practically accessible alternative.

No and anyone who brings it up in the Irish context as a justification for the RCC continuing to dominate education is being entirely disingenuous.

State bodies (in the form of ETBs) run a signficant number of secondary schools, and recently the ETBs have started to acts as patrons of national schools as well. I think there's about 25 of them now.

True but that is not the same thing as having the DoES run schools directly. Individual ETBs have quite a bit of autonomy, as non-catholic parents have found out to their cost when trying to get their local school to permit opt-outs.

soycuba

Hoboo wrote: »

Walking out, stop associating etc is fine.

What pisses me off is when the RCC announces there are X billion Catholics in the world, and I'm part of that stat. My name is being used to promote the club I left and want no part in.

How it's legal now ive no idea, surely you've a right to be deleted. But the RCC say once your babtised you can't undo it.

And that's magic.

You are well within your rights to discuss this further with the data protection commission. My understanding is that the transfer of data to the Vatican for inclusion within these statistics is not legal. In fact, I believe the Data Protection Commission are on the cusp of undertaking an investigation into the handling of personal data by religious dioceses. I'd wager a few more mails to them might harry the process

Hotblack Desiato

As if. We can't even get an investigation under way as to where exactly 800 babies and infants were buried.

hinault

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Which is all about snobbery and a hint of racism

Oh dear.:rolleyes:

soycuba

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

As if. We can't even get an investigation under way as to where exactly 800 babies and infants were buried.

Received moments ago ..

'The Data Protection Commission has commenced an own volition inquiry into the Archdiocese of Dublin, the inquiry will examine the circumstances of the storage and retention of church records of data subjects who no longer wish to have their personal data processed in any or all church registers'

Hotblack Desiato

Link?

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Ahem.

Your earlier suspicion was that "I strongly suspect they [Catholics] also disagree with church involvement in schools and hospitals."

You're now shifting your ground to a preference about excessive RCC involvement in education. Not church involvement; just RCC involvement. And not any RCC involvement; just excessive RCC involvement.

That's very different. I'm pretty sure that a huge majority of Catholics and non-Catholics alike would oppose excesive involvement by any patronage body, since that pretty much follows from the whole concept of "excessive". Now all you have to do is to establish what degree of involvement they consider to be "excessive". And maybe think again about your other suspicion, that they disagree with church involvement, full stop.

It is a fair point, there are without a doubt a large number of people who are happy with the churches involvement in education and the current status quo. The point remains however that this does not correlate with the numbers who identify as Christian on the census and thus the census figures are not useful in the decision making process here. Taking the figures from table 3 in the report we see that just 41% of those asked were in favour of maintaining the patronage system as is.

Number of responses in support of a wider choice of patronage in the area|7223|33.9%
Number of responses that would avail of a wider choice of patronage in the area|5157|24.2%
Number of responses not in support of a wider choice of patronage|8911|41.9%

The criteria also managed to exclude the most populous parts of Dublin, i.e.

report wrote:

All of the areas to be surveyed under this process fit the following criteria:
 Population of between 5,000 and 20,000 inhabitants according to the 2011
census
 Population has increased by less than 20% during the intercensal period 2006
to 2011

So it is questionable as to whether it is representative of the population as a whole or is skewed. Looking at a density map for schools, I'd think the latter. (Source)



Not seeing anything out there on hospitals but I've seen nothing to support the idea that people are happy with religious involvement, and plenty in the press suggesting the contrary.

Hotblack Desiato

Whether people are happy with their denomination controlling state-funded schools and hospitals is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many of them support it, it's still wrong.

By all means promote your religion using your own resources, but don't steal the taxes of others to proselytise them or their kids.

uck51js9zml2yt

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Whether people are happy with their denomination controlling state-funded schools and hospitals is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many of them support it, it's still wrong.

By all means promote your religion using your own resources, but don't steal the taxes of others to proselytise them or their kids.

My taxes are paying for my kids to be in a Catholic school and they definitely aren't being prosletised. The don't do RE along with another 20% of the school population

smacl

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Whether people are happy with their denomination controlling state-funded schools and hospitals is irrelevant. It doesn't matter how many of them support it, it's still wrong.

By all means promote your religion using your own resources, but don't steal the taxes of others to proselytise them or their kids.

I agree very strongly with the above. While I fully respect the democratic right of others to receive the education they want for their own children, offering those parents who do not want a religious ethos based education no other choice is a breach of their right to a state education that also respects their right to freedom of religion. From a paper published by the The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission

A children’s rights analysis of the subject of today’s conference - education and religion – clearly shows not only that the Irish educational model falls short in substantive terms. I would make two final points here:

First, it appears to me that compliance with children’s rights standards in education – whether concerning religion or generally – is difficult if not impossible – without first addressing the constitutional framework. The current proposals to insert a new Article 42 into the Constitution which recognises the state’s duty to respect the individual rights of the child gives cause for hope here, not least because two of the right given as examples here are the right to education and the child’s right to have his/her voice heard.

The second point relates to the duty, as a matter of process, to ensure that children have a right to a say in matters that affect them. No research in Ireland has measured children’s experiences or views of religion in the school context. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has expressed concern about the impact of the opt-out clause on children in the school system and there are clear arguments why this is not an appropriate solution to the problem, not least where the integrated curriculum is employed. Although devising a solution to the apparent problem is a matter that falls to adults, why not engage young people directly in this debate around the need to reform the patronage model or more generally to secure more effective ways to ensure the best fit between the nature of the schools on offer and children’s
rights both to education and respect for religious freedom?

uck51js9zml2yt

smacl wrote: »

I agree very strongly with the above. While I fully respect the democratic right of others to receive the education they want for their own children, offering those parents who do not want a religious ethos based education no other choice is a breach of their right to a state education that also respects their right to freedom of religion. From a paper published by the The Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission

Parents have the right to withdraw the kids from RE.
What's the problem?

smacl

Mayson Nutritious Lineman wrote: »

Parents have the right to withdraw the kids from RE.
What's the problem?

Firstly, lots of parents finding it impossible to opt-out as discussed in this Irish Times article.

Secondly, in religious ethos schools promotion of that religious ethos occurs outside of RE classes.

Thirdly, religious instruction should be opt-in not opt-out. The default should never be to infringe a child's human rights on the assumption that they're of a given creed without ever asking.

antiskeptic

smacl wrote: »

Firstly, lots of parents finding it impossible to opt-out as discussed in this Irish Times article.

Secondly, in religious ethos schools promotion of that religious ethos occurs outside of RE classes.

Thirdly, religious instruction should be opt-in not opt-out. The default should never be to infringe a child's human rights on the assumption that they're of a given creed without ever asking.

Human rights? From whence? Let me guess, the god of the United Nations or some such?

They are taught what their parents think it fit to teach them. They are taught to say please and thank you because their parents want to encourage their belonging to the creed of the grateful. They are taught about objective right and wrong because their parents want them to belong to that creed as opposed to its 'what I decide is right for me .. and if that be the United Nations then that's my choice' alternative

Your opt in is 'leave 'em to my creed' very thinly veiled

smacl

antiskeptic wrote: »

Human rights? From whence? Let me guess, the god of the United Nations or some such?

They are taught what their parents think it fit to teach them. They are taught to say please and thank you because their parents want to encourage their belonging to the creed of the grateful. They are taught about objective right and wrong because their parents want them to belong to that creed as opposed to its 'what I decide is right for me .. and if that be the United Nations then that's my choice' alternative

Your opt in is 'leave 'em to my creed' very thinly veiled

You seem to have some rather strange notions about what a god is or isn't.

I agree that faith formation should come down to parental preference, but then there should also be accompanying parental responsibility. The notion of opt-in rather than opt-out is also one advocated by the Archdiocese of Dublin, as described in this recent IT article. I think from the RCC perspective this is a drive to get some of the supposed flock back into church more than once or twice a year though I could see it back-firing. Cynically, you could say that many nominally Catholic parents want all the faith formation stuff left in schools because this requires no expenditure of time or effort on their part. If they actually had to become involved, it might separate the wheat from the chaff so to speak.

soycuba

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Link?

Received to my personal email following a query I raised with the DPC.

OU812

harrylittle wrote: »

Hell is real

It’s really not.