Pope Francis says same sex civil unions are fine.

Hotblack Desiato

If 90% of primary schools in Ireland were Islamic and treated my kids like second class citizens you can be damn sure I'd be worked up about that...

You'll find it's younger people who can afford to just ignore the existence of the RCC, later when they have kids and have to interact with the f**ked-up education system in this country they get a shock.

J.O. Farmer

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

If 90% of primary schools in Ireland were Islamic and treated my kids like second class citizens you can be damn sure I'd be worked up about that...

You'll find it's younger people who can afford to just ignore the existence of the RCC, later when they have kids and have to interact with the f**ked-up education system in this country they get a shock.

Your problem isn't the RCC if your kids are treated as second class citizens it's the school unless your sole reason for claiming they're treated as second class citizens is there's a religion class in which case your definition of second class citizen is a first world problem. Try somewhere like the middle East and you'll see truly second class citizens.

Much of the Catholic teaching is good even if you don't believe in god. For example If you take the last 6 of the 10 commandments I'm sure you have no objection to those.

lawrencesummers

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Your problem isn't the RCC if your kids are treated as second class citizens it's the school unless your sole reason for claiming they're treated as second class citizens is there's a religion class in which case your definition of second class citizen is a first world problem. Try somewhere like the middle East and you'll see truly second class citizens.

Much of the Catholic teaching is good even if you don't believe in god. For example If you take the last 6 of the 10 commandments I'm sure you have no objection to those.

The things that you consider ‘good’ are covered in school and at home anyway.

Like not killing people and not stealing. They are covered in multiple other aspects of life.

The church is about one thing, money.
It ensures the continuing stream of money into its coffers by using one thing. Control.

ohnonotgmail

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Your problem isn't the RCC if your kids are treated as second class citizens it's the school unless your sole reason for claiming they're treated as second class citizens is there's a religion class in which case your definition of second class citizen is a first world problem. Try somewhere like the middle East and you'll see truly second class citizens.

Much of the Catholic teaching is good even if you don't believe in god. For example If you take the last 6 of the 10 commandments I'm sure you have no objection to those.

you dont need the catholic church to tell you not to do those things. Practically every other society managed to figure them out without the intervention of the catholic church.

Hotblack Desiato

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

Your problem isn't the RCC if your kids are treated as second class citizens it's the school unless your sole reason for claiming they're treated as second class citizens is there's a religion class in which case your definition of second class citizen is a first world problem. Try somewhere like the middle East and you'll see truly second class citizens.

Ah right so that's the bar for a supposedly developed Western country, is it? "Not as bad as the Middle East" ?
You wouldn't be saying "first world problem" if in Ireland you had no choice but to send your child to a school that says koran classes are mandatory.

Much of the Catholic teaching is good even if you don't believe in god. For example If you take the last 6 of the 10 commandments I'm sure you have no objection to those.

I don't need any poxy church to tell me or my kids right from wrong, thanks.

ohnonotgmail

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ah right so that's the bar for a supposedly developed Western country, is it? "Not as bad as the Middle East" ?
You wouldn't be saying "first world problem" if in Ireland you had no choice but to send your child to a school that says koran classes are mandatory.




I don't need you or any poxy church to tell me or my kids right from wrong, thanks.

It is like getting kicked in the face and the person doing the kicking saying you should be happy that you are not getting kicked in the balls.

Hotblack Desiato

J.O. Farmer wrote: »

It's like finding fault with the GAA leadership and so Gaelic football and hurling are bad and nobody should play them and also wondering why the local parent down the road is involved in coaching.

To make your analogy fit:

- The GAA is a very powerful global organisation with a long history of committing and covering up child abuse.

- The government allows the GAA to run 90% of primary schools according to its "ethos"

- The government pays the running costs of the schools, including the GAA instruction. The GAA contributes nothing.

- Pupils are taught that all goodness and light comes from the teachings of the GAA, all other sports are in error at best, if not a path to eternal damnation.

- GAA teachings are mixed in with all other subjects

- Only GAA sports are allowed, and all pupils must take part in mandatory GAA classes even if at home they play another sport, or they'd rather not play one at all.

- Teachers have to attend a GAA-approved teacher training college, and pass special GAA examinations to get their teaching qualification.

- To be employed in a school they have to convince the local club committee that they attend GAA events every Sunday and will obey and carry out the instructions from Central Committee and the County Board without fail.


Getting a bit closer now

J.O. Farmer

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

To make your analogy fit:

- The GAA is a very powerful global organisation with a long history of committing and covering up child abuse.

- The government allows the GAA to run 90% of primary schools according to its "ethos"

- The government pays the running costs of the schools, including the GAA instruction. The GAA contributes nothing.

- Pupils are taught that all goodness and light comes from the teachings of the GAA, all other sports are in error at best, if not a path to eternal damnation.

- GAA teachings are mixed in with all other subjects

- Only GAA sports are allowed, and all pupils must take part in mandatory GAA classes even if at home they play another sport, or they'd rather not play one at all.

- Teachers have to attend a GAA-approved teacher training college, and pass special GAA examinations to get their teaching qualification.

- To be employed in a school they have to convince the local club committee that they attend GAA events every Sunday and will obey and carry out the instructions from Central Committee and the County Board without fail.


Getting a bit closer now

Firstly couldn't care less about the GAA but it's a way to seperate a sport and organisation.

The history of child abuse was wrong, thankfully it shouldn't happen now. Historical child abuse has nothing to do with school today and I don't think it's promoted these days in school.

Secondly you have real issues if you think church teachings are in every subject but maybe I only learned the Catholic maths etc. If you mean science or something I don't remember creationism either. History I remember Greek mythology being taught. Not much religion there.

The religious curriculum must have changed since I was in school it must now be more like the seminary but I don't recall much comparison with other religions at all really. I don't think they even go on as much about eternal damnation at mass these days.

Remember stuff about Ghandi don't think he was Catholic though.

I think the teaching courses will be a state requirement. Surely you want properly qualified teachers and most irish teachers attend Irish colleges. There's also some requirement about the Irish language.

Are you saying that schools discriminate against teachers based on whether they attend mass. Surely the parish priest isn't on the interview panel.

I think you can opt out of religion classes but because most children dont and reality must be it doesn't bother most parents that much (look at communion day, most turn up so presumably not too bothered by relation class). The problem is there's nobody in school to babysit the children so they can't leave the room. Maybe it'd be better done outside school but unfortunately it's not.

Hotblack Desiato

"you have real issues" :pac:

There is this thing called the "integrated curriculum". Internet search engines will enlighten you.

Teachers have to have a thing called a "certificate of catholic education" if they don't want to limit their chances of employment to less than 10% of primary schools. Oh and most of that ~10% only want graduates from the Church of Ireland College of Education.

"Are you saying that schools discriminate against teachers based on whether they attend mass. Surely the parish priest isn't on the interview panel."

Ooh, the naievete. Yes, they can, and it's legal, and why wouldn't they when the parish priest is the chair of the board of management - which is the norm.

So mandatory catholic classes doesn't bother "most people" and that makes it okay for the state to fund and facilitate it? Strange way of thinking. We are not supposed to live in a theocracy where the majority religion uses the machinery of state and tax money to propagate itself upon the unwilling.

You have a lot to learn about the non-catholic experience of living in and bringing up kids in this country...

Galwayguy35

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Ah right so that's the bar for a supposedly developed Western country, is it? "Not as bad as the Middle East" ?
You wouldn't be saying "first world problem" if in Ireland you had no choice but to send your child to a school that says koran classes are mandatory.




I don't need any poxy church to tell me or my kids right from wrong, thanks.

I was in secondary school in 1987 and an English girl in the class had no belief in religion, she wasn't forced to take part in the religion class so are you saying 33 years later in 2020 students are being forced to learn religion against their will.

Hotblack Desiato

Why do you think your experience in one school tells us anything at all about the thousands of other schools out there?

Also you say she wasn't forced to take part. Was she allowed to leave the classroom? Get another subject timetabled for that time? Do homework or study during that time?

https://www.teachdontpreach.ie/2020/10/right-to-leave-classroom-during-religious-instruction/

Most Irish schools insist that children, whose parents do not want them to attend religious instruction, must sit at the back of the class while religion is being taught. This is unconstitutional.

440Hertz

I grew up in a non religious household and I feel I was genuinely and quite nastily bullied by schools here.

Just as a few examples: I was called into the office by a principal in primary school and sat down in front of a priest who basically told me that my parents were “neglecting my spiritual upbringing” and that he was “concerned about me.”

I was 10 at the time and it frightened the crap out of me and I started refusing to go to school.

Later on I was threatened by the same priest that if I “didn’t go to mass” I “wouldn’t be allowed make my confirmation” and would “not be allowed to attend any secondary school” and that would be the “end of my career - no university would let me in.”

I was basically forced to go to mass by a teacher who used to demand to know what the gospel was on Sunday. I used to have to figure out what it was by asking people.

Then there was prayers constantly. We had a prayer in the morning when you got in. We had prayers before lunch and before you went home. Hail Marys etc and you had to say the Our Father before we went home. When I tried to opt out she made me stand in the corner facing the wall!

They also went through period of playing the full @Bells of the Angelus are calling to pray” in an awful synth bell thing over the intercom. It eventually must have annoyed the staff as it “broke” and was never repaired.

We had singing, which was entirely religious. I don’t remember ever learning anything that wasn’t a hymn.

I very strongly remember a song called “suffer little children,” which at that age I didn’t understand and assumed it was actually about making children suffer and it went unexplained.

In 6th class I would say 50% of the year was spent on confirmation preparation, which I just went along with for the sake of peace. We literally did nothing else, yet at that stage, in the 1990s there were secondary school entrance exams, which I was taking seriously.

In secondary school it was a bit better, in the sense there was more opportunities to opt out of this stuff, but we still had several teachers who would make us stand up and say prayers. A maths and an Irish teacher for example who wouldn’t begin classes without an our father or prayers in Irish.

We also had compulsory mass a few times a year (I got detention for skipping it one year) and the usual odd ones like a nun coming in to bless our throats with crossed candles.

Other than that just the odd bit of abuse from teachers, including being jokingly referred to (constantly) as “the heathen down the back” by one of my secondary teachers who thought he was a stand up, but was about as funny as a particularly badly written Mrs Brown sketch.

So yeah, overall I felt right at home in Irish schools, more or less an outcast because I wasn’t Catholic enough for them.

I know people will respond: “well why did you go to a Catholic school then?”

There was no real alternative in the 1990s. There’s hardly even much alternative now, unless you’re lucky enough to be near one of the handful of Educate Together schools and their second level schools are only barely beginning to emerge now.

Basically my experience of education here was it made me feel like an outcast or an outsider in my own country.

I genuinely feel less Irish because of how I was treated and there’s no other way of putting that.

The sense I had was that I was just barely tolerated.

University, which was totally secular (UCC), made up for it and my views of Ireland changed substantially, but I think had that not happened, I’d very likely have emigrated. It was certainly the sense I had when I left secondary school.

I don’t really think the majority in Ireland appreciate how cliquey and conformist this place is, if you’re on the outside of those groups looking in and are expected to somehow just shut up and somehow use public services like education that are clearly aimed at someone else, who isn’t you.

Same with aspects of health. You get a bit fed up with the “and what religion are you” question when you turn up in the Mater, a public hospital, with an eye issue or something that very definitely does not need them to be aware of what last rites to give you!

Immediately I’m thinking: are they going to prioritise catholics? Am I an inconvenience? Should I just say RC to make this a non eyebrow raising moment?