School patronage

evolving_doors

tretorn wrote: »

But there is a choice here and most people are very happy with their local schools.

Where is this demand for divestment coming from, I don’t know any parent who wants their catholic school to divest and I know a few Protestant parents and they definitely want their children educated among their own kind.

I don’t care about the new Irish, they can avail of whatever education we offer and be grateful for it, if they have a problem then find another country to go to.

If the majority in the school don’t want change then move to an area where you can get your choice of education, here in Dublin that’s Tyrellstown, Clonee, Mulhuddart and all areas that have large immigrant populations. The department will only build new schools in areas of population growth and all these new schools are ET ones. Most of them are disadvantaged too so everything will be provided free, what more do you want.?

remove religion from education

magicbastarder

'welcome to ireland. now **** off and live somewhere where 'your type' are tolerated.'
do you seriously not know anyone who wants secular education for children? you must have a very closed circle of friends.

evolving_doors

magicbastarder wrote: »

'welcome to ireland. now **** off and live somewhere where 'your type' are tolerated.'
do you seriously not know anyone who wants secular education for children? you must have a very closed circle of friends.

birds of a feather and all that...

just look at the composition of the government cabinet and where they went to school.

magicbastarder

to be fair, i'm kinda amused with the 'well *i* don't know anyone, so clearly the phenomenon is illusory' view.

Hotblack Desiato

tretorn

No, not a single person who cares. They care about the quality of the teacher they get and whether their child can keep up,is happy and has friends etc. They want to know that the school feeds to a good secondary school which has good subject choices and gets good results.

That’s quite a lot to be worried about, for most parents anyway.

Anteayer

seamus wrote: »

Because RC schools are now painfully aware that the primary driver behind religiosity is the grandparents, not the parents.

So they've invented ways to get the grandparents invested into their childrens' religious education to try and pick up the slack of the parents.

There was none of this fuss about including grandparents back in the 90's or earlier.

In our school there had to be a limit on guests for communions and confirmations, many kids could only bring one, maybe two grandparents.

Now they're all about it. Because they know that most parents are going through the motions, having the religious days out for the grandparents.

Good thing they never met my granny. She was a diehard atheist!

Hotblack Desiato

The "quality" of the posts and arguments used to justify the status quo tells its own story.

end of the road

Odhinn wrote: »

So - just to be sure - you think there should be no choice here because of what happens in Saudi Arabia.

basically yes.
give out about muslim countries doing something, rant about muslims apparently wanting the same things in the west, yet then the person giving out asks for the same thing they have an issue with to be implemented.
i'm just not getting the logic.

magicbastarder

it's setting a weird bar for behaviour when you are using something you actively disagree with as a guideline for behaviour at home.

a 'they're assholes and i don't like what they're doing, so we should do the same thing for that very reason' approach.

Odhinn

tretorn wrote: »

But there is a choice here and most people are very happy with their local schools.

Where is this demand for divestment coming from, I don’t know any parent who wants their catholic school to divest and I know a few Protestant parents and they definitely want their children educated among their own kind.

I don’t care about the new Irish, they can avail of whatever education we offer and be grateful for it, if they have a problem then find another country to go to.

If the majority in the school don’t want change then move to an area where you can get your choice of education, here in Dublin that’s Tyrellstown, Clonee, Mulhuddart and all areas that have large immigrant populations. The department will only build new schools in areas of population growth and all these new schools are ET ones. Most of them are disadvantaged too so everything will be provided free, what more do you want.?

What or who constitutes the "new irish", might I inquire?

evolving_doors

end of the road wrote: »

basically yes.
give out about muslim countries doing something, rant about muslims apparently wanting the same things in the west, yet then the person giving out asks for the same thing they have an issue with to be implemented.
i'm just not getting the logic.

I think his final solution is to have as many Catholic schools as possible to do battle against the muslim schools.... in the league tables.

Hotblack Desiato

League tables are a terrible way to gauge the quality of education.

Anyway.

The ETB secondary I'm hoping to get my firstborn into hasn't completed a leaving cert class yet, but the commitment to educational excellence of the principal and the staff are clear to see, and I've spoken with them in depth. It also has state of the art sports and science facilities.

"New Irish", whatever that is, old Irish whatever that is, white, black, brown, yellow nobody in this school community cares, parents and staff are committed to excellence

Not a prayer in sight. But everyone is equally respected, and everyone is equally expected to contribute towards the school community.

robindch

robindch wrote: »

tretorn wrote: »

You are so so naive.

And you are so heading for a clout of the forum’s clerical cluestick if you continue thusly.

tretorn wrote: »

[...] Odious will be along to squeal racism, lol

tretorn has been carded for ignoring a moderator instruction.

Mark Hamill

Geuze wrote: »

https://www.cso.ie/en/csolatestnews/pressreleases/2017pressreleases/pressstatementcensus2016resultsprofile8-irishtravellersethnicityandreligion/

Catholics are 78.3% of the pop.

Yes, many Catholics did vote for SSM and abortion, which in one sense is odd, but I like the way Irish Catholics are flexible in that way..............

You may have missed my later post, which addresses this. If someone calls them self a Catholic, but doesn't actually follow the RCCs fundamental positions, then what makes them a Catholic? What does being a Catholic mean if it means nothing about what you believe?

smacl

Mark Hamill wrote: »

If someone calls them self a Catholic, but doesn't actually follow the RCCs fundamental positions, then what makes them a Catholic? What does being a Catholic mean if it means nothing about what you believe?

Surely that's their business and nobody else's as part of freedom of religious expression? In my opinion, people can call themselves what they like and believe whatever they like just so long as they don't try force their beliefs on me or my family and pigeonhole us accordingly.

Peregrinus

Mark Hamill wrote: »

You may have missed my later post, which addresses this. If someone calls them self a Catholic, but doesn't actually follow the RCCs fundamental positions, then what makes them a Catholic? What does being a Catholic mean if it means nothing about what you believe?

Positions on divorce or abortion aren't really "fundamental positions" for Catholics; you'll get a long way into the Catechism before you find any mention of either. The Catholic position on these points attracts much notice and much emphasis because they're at odds with the positions common wider society, but that doesn't make them fundamental to Catholicism.

And Catholicism isn't ultimately about what you believe; it's about what relationship you're in with other Christians. Which is, of course, affected by what you (and they) believe, but it can't be reduced to that.

If they think they're Catholics, and if the Catholic church thinks they're Catholics, that's a pretty strong indicator that they're Catholics, and it isn't really affected by the fact that they may hold unorthodox beliefs on matters that someone else has arbitrarily chosen as the lodestone of True Catholicism™.

seamus

smacl wrote: »

Surely that's their business and nobody else's as part of freedom of religious expression? In my opinion, people can call themselves what they like and believe whatever they like just so long as they don't try force their beliefs on me or my family and pigeonhole us accordingly.

Well yes.

But there has to be a line between, "What the individual decides" and "what the state recognises".

I can declare tomorrow that I am an African-Japanese Gender Non-binary Unicorn. It's patently not the case, but nobody can do anything about it. That's freedom of expression.

However, if I were to put that on a census form, the taker would not be obliged to accept it, and I could potentially be convicted of a crime for providing false information on the census form.

So there is a difference between your right to self-expression, and society's obligation to recognise it. The latter has to draw hard lines.

So in terms of the "80% of Irish people are catholic" guff, we already know that this is blatant nonsense. At least two-thirds of the electorate fundamentally disagree with Rome on basic tenets of doctrine. Which means they aren't Catholic. In their heads they can be. On paper, they're not.

We should be altering the Census so that we have "recognised" religions - proscribed organisations that are obliged to maintain membership lists, to keep them up to date and to provide members with official membership cards to prove it.
If you declare membership of one of these orgs on a census form, you need a card. If you don't have a card, you go into the "Religious non-affiliated" bracket.

Give us some proper data on how many are actually a member of these religions, versus who just likes to call themselves Catholic.

Mark Hamill

tretorn wrote: »

There isnt any choice at all In Muslim countries so why are we removing Christian symbols from our schools in case we offend our “ new Irish”.

But I thought all of your hand wringing about Muslim schools in the UK was because their way of doing things was bad?

tretorn wrote: »

The Irish education system has served us well, why fix something that the majority are happy with.

Ever heard of the tyranny of the majority? And given that a majority of this majority fundamentally disagree with fundamental RCC teachings, how many of them are actually happy with the status quo and how many are just apathetic to it?

While we are it, how much of a majority do you think were happy with racial segregation 100 years ago in the US?

tretorn wrote: »

If you want a choice of ET schools then move to West Dublin, its as multicultural as you can get too, tonnes of immigrants to befriend, it might suit people here.

Are you saying that it wouldn't suit you to have immigrant friends? Is that what this is really all about, you don't like the idea of (your?) Irish kids hanging out with Johnny Foreigner?

Mark Hamill

Odhinn wrote: »

So - just to be sure - you think there should be no choice here because of what happens in Saudi Arabia.

"We should be just as bad as them and that will make us better than them".

Mark Hamill

tretorn wrote: »

But there is a choice here and most people are very happy with their local schools.

Where is this demand for divestment coming from, I don’t know any parent who wants their catholic school to divest and I know a few Protestant parents and they definitely want their children educated among their own kind.

Why, exactly, should any of these people be pandered to though? If a majority of people didn't want their kids to even play with kids of other religions, does that mean we should have religiously segregated parks and playgrounds? If a majority wanted segregated Garda forces, segregated hospitals, segregated shopping centres, should they all be provided too? Why should segregation of children be the one segregation we still bend over backwards to accommodate?

Of course, all of these questions are easily answered when you accept that that majority of people don't actively want the status quo, they are apathetic to it (by RCC design, to keep what little power they have left in this country).

Mark Hamill

tretorn wrote: »

They care about the quality of the teacher they get and whether their child can keep up,is happy and has friends etc. They want to know that the school feeds to a good secondary school which has good subject choices and gets good results.

That’s quite a lot to be worried about, for most parents anyway.

None of which is predicated on the school being controlled by the RCC.

Mark Hamill

smacl wrote: »

Surely that's their business and nobody else's as part of freedom of religious expression? In my opinion, people can call themselves what they like and believe whatever they like just so long as they don't try force their beliefs on me or my family and pigeonhole us accordingly.

But then, to repeat myself, "What does being a Catholic mean if it means nothing about what you believe?".
With your interpretation of "freedom of religious expression", Catholic and all other religious labels mean nothing. All religiously associated words mean nothing. This comes up every time there is a new census - labels don't exist in a vacuum, they have to have common meanings for society and even basic communication to function. If you fundamentally mislabel, not only do you run the risk of a group who you may not support at all trying to direct what you do, but you run the risk of that group getting the power to direct what anyone does.

smacl

seamus wrote: »

I can declare tomorrow that I am an African-Japanese Gender Non-binary Unicorn. It's patently not the case, but nobody can do anything about it. That's freedom of expression.

However, if I were to put that on a census form, the taker would not be obliged to accept it, and I could potentially be convicted of a crime for providing false information on the census form.

So there is a difference between your right to self-expression, and society's obligation to recognise it. The latter has to draw hard lines.

I disagree. If the implication on the census that those who self describe as Catholic follow the dictates of Rome, why would the state hold a referendum to legalise abortion. The onus here is that if the state wishes to gather this type of information for the purpose of decision making, it should properly qualify the questions to remove any such ambiguity. For example, with respect to schools, I know a number of strong Catholics who are also ardent secularists.

If you ask some if they're a Catholic and they answer in the affirmative, all you know is that they self-describe as a Catholic. Anything beyond that is unqualified assumption. Assuming that they follow the dictates or even moral guidance of a Pope in Rome is demonstrably specious as illustrated in recent referendums. The misuse of religious information to make decisions at state level is an error of the state, not of the individual.

Mark Hamill

Peregrinus wrote: »

Positions on divorce or abortion aren't really "fundamental positions" for Catholics; you'll get a long way into the Catechism before you find any mention of either.

So? The sacraments come a few sections before the 10 Commandments, is the Catechism supposed to be ordered by absolute importance.

Peregrinus wrote: »

The Catholic position on these points attracts much notice and much emphasis because they're at odds with the positions common wider society, but that doesn't make them fundamental to Catholicism.

And Catholicism isn't ultimately about what you believe; it's about what relationship you're in with other Christians. Which is, of course, affected by what you (and they) believe, but it can't be reduced to that.

If they think they're Catholics, and if the Catholic church thinks they're Catholics, that's a pretty strong indicator that they're Catholics,

I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion a load of times before. Your point boils down to "Catholic means nothing except you identify as Catholic". Which makes it completely meaningless. Which is of course useless and dumb, but many people will accept it because of apathy and the RCC will pretend to accept it because it affords them the last semblance of power in this country.

Peregrinus wrote: »

and it isn't really affected by the fact that they may hold unorthodox beliefs on matters that someone else has arbitrarily chosen as the lodestone of True Catholicism™.

Cannon Law on Abortion:

Can. 1398 A person who procures a completed abortion incurs a latae sententiae I]automatic[/I excommunication

The bible on homosexuality:

Leviticus 18:22 wrote:

You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination

Leviticus 20:13 wrote:

If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them

Jesus on divorce:

Matthew 19 wrote:

“Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
4 “Haven’t you read,” [Jesus] replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’[a] 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

But sure, what authority do the Catechism and the Bible have over being a Catholic?:rolleyes:

smacl

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But then, to repeat myself, "What does being a Catholic mean if it means nothing about what you believe?".
With your interpretation of "freedom of religious expression", Catholic and all other religious labels mean nothing. All religiously associated words mean nothing. This comes up every time there is a new census - labels don't exist in a vacuum, they have to have common meanings for society and even basic communication to function. If you fundamentally mislabel, not only do you run the risk of a group who you may not support at all trying to direct what you do, but you run the risk of that group getting the power to direct what anyone does.

My take on it as a secularist is that religious beliefs and all that go with them are personal and subjective. What they mean to any given person is none of my business, but neither should the be allowed influence the decisions of the state for the same reason. I think the issue here is misuse of census information, which unfortunately happens all too frequently. We shouldn't be attempting to define people's preferences by their nominal religious affiliation, we should be asking them about their secular preferences on the census in addition to the religious affiliation.

I posted a poll on the Christianity forum a few years back with this in mind, asking non-Christians not to vote, and 73% of respondents said that they were against the church influencing the state. The question was further qualified in relation to schools and hospitals.

tretorn

People like being part of a community, they like the celebrations, the rite of passage for their children, eg the communions, the confirmations and they like the school where their children spend most of their time to be involved in these happy occasions. People also like to be buried with a meaningful mass with the rites observed, the conveyer belt thingy in the crematorium just doesnt fit the bill.

Ireland is a Catholic country and thats why when people are asked to say what religion they are they say Roman Catholic, most baptise their children into the faith because its what they know. Its completely irrelevant how they vote in SSM and in fact many of the votes cast in the SSM referendum came from people who travelled from abroad, they dont actually even live in Ireland but yet could vote on laws here. There was a huge NO vote to SSM but we dont know where the no voters all Catholic, probably not because the COI leaders were not in favour of SSM either.

The North Dublin parents are being some of their schools are to be divested, most of the parents probably love their school and they dont know whats going to happen if a school is divested. They know the teachers and Board of Management dont want any change and a school will go down hill very rapidly if management are forced into something that for some reason or another they dont want. It wasnt just one school who organised the letters, this was a joint approach between the schools so it was serious organised opposition.

Peregrinus

smacl wrote: »

I disagree. If the implication on the census that those who self describe as Catholic follow the dictates of Rome, why would the state hold a referendum to legalise abortion. The onus here is that if the state wishes to gather this type of information for the purpose of decision making, it should properly qualify the questions to remove any such ambiguity. For example, with respect to schools, I know a number of strong Catholics who are also ardent secularists.

If you ask some if they're a Catholic and they answer in the affirmative, all you know is that they self-describe as a Catholic. Anything beyond that is unqualified assumption. Assuming that they follow the dictates or even moral guidance of a Pope in Rome is demonstrably specious as illustrated in recent referendums. The misuse of religious information to make decisions at state level is an error of the state, not of the individual.

Gotta point out that the reason we are having this discussion is because th powers that be aren't assuming that those who self-describe as Catholic in the census want Catholic patronage. The school boards have been directed to survey the parents to find out what they want.

tretorn

Mark Hamill wrote: »

But I thought all of your hand wringing about Muslim schools in the UK was because their way of doing things was bad?


Ever heard of the tyranny of the majority? And given that a majority of this majority fundamentally disagree with fundamental RCC teachings, how many of them are actually happy with the status quo and how many are just apathetic to it?

While we are it, how much of a majority do you think were happy with racial segregation 100 years ago in the US?


Are you saying that it wouldn't suit you to have immigrant friends? Is that what this is really all about, you don't like the idea of (your?) Irish kids hanging out with Johnny Foreigner?

I have no interest in immigrant friends and to be honest the immigrants I know, eg, the Chinese, the Filipinos,the Poles etc all stick to their own groups too. I have never seen Chinese people hanging out with Nigerians or Muslims for example and while my children are in school with lots of nationalities they dont socialise outside school with anyone but their own nationality. The other nationalities are quite happy with this too, there is very little integration going on, the non nationals tend to live in big groups together where housing is cheap and then locals move out so eventually ghettoes are formed and this is the way the non nationals want it, ie their own customs in a western European country that gives them a better standard of living than they would have if they stayed at home. Look at every other country in Europe, its the same from Sweden to the Netherlands, to France and Spain and the UK, we havent the numbers yet but these ghettoes are already forming in Balbriggan and West Dublin and seemingly there is a huge non national population in Longford and Mullingar, I find that hard to believe but I have been told by locals this is the situation.

I am sure there are lots of ET together schools in these places now so as I said eventually ET schools will be the only choice available where there are big increases in population. If anyone wants an ET school and feels hard done by because their child has to walk by a statue of the sacred heart then for the sake of your blood pressure just move to where there is a choice. I dont want to livein an area with a large non national population because I dont want my child in a class with people with poor english and with customs I abhor so if that happened where I live I would sell up and live elsewhere or else I would just put up with whats available and stop whinging.

smacl

Peregrinus wrote: »

Gotta point out that the reason we are having this discussion is because th powers that be aren't assuming that those who self-describe as Catholic in the census want Catholic patronage. The school boards have been directed to survey the parents to find out what they want.

That's not quite true. The powers that be are only recently looking at divestment due to ever increasing pressure from the voting public for secular education. Those against divestment continue to attempt to prop up their arguments with census figures relating to religion, despite abundant information that this is not a reliable marker for secular preferences.