Fall of the Catholic Church

Except for the thousands of parents left with no choice but to send their child to a religious school.

Different schools have different rules. Some schools have told parents to come and take their kids out if they don’t want them to partake in indoctrination.

Religion is supposed to be a mandatory part of every day in church primary schools.

But it’s not just the formal classes/ it is the prayers, the statues, the nativity play, the school masses- all intentionally excluding many students and families.

That happens in primary schools all over Galway too. I know one large school in Galway city that put the non-Catholics at a table outside in the corridor when the teacher was teaching the class communion stuff. They were all told to do their homework or whatever. Sometimes an SNA teacher would sit with them or mind them. And would you believe it, a parent complained that they were getting extra tuition so they were brought back into the classroom and told to colour or read instead.

That's not true at all. ET schools do not have religious instruction. They have religious education where the pupils learn about all religions and none and are not taught that any of them are factually true or untrue. It's about learning what other people believe and don't believe and there's no harm in that.

If ETs did not offer religious education at all then the Dept of Education would cut off their funding. It is a legal requirement!

Most ETs provide religious instruction after hours but that is an arrangement with the local parish and is entirely voluntary. Many other schools have after-school activities taking place within them which some kids take part in and others go home. It's not part of the school day.

ET schools are secular. There's just far too few of them.

That's great, but again be wary of extrapolating your experience to everyone else, there are some right horror stories on this site, Atheist Ireland, teachdontpreach.ie, etc... My kids' primary was mostly OK (by Irish standards) but there was one particular teacher who got snarky with the kids opting out and we had to have a word with the principal. That's not acceptable.

There are many other catholic schools which continue to spend considerable time during the school day doing sacramental preparation during the two years (out of 8 - so that's a quarter of their primary education significantly impacted by this)

Not specifically my kids' school (apart from the Friday morning service, and one snarky teacher, already mentioned) but many other people have described experiences similar to that.

Many Irish atheists / agnostics also describe that their kids' school is tolerant of Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc. but not people of no religion, especially those who grew up in Ireland and are assumed to be just "lapsed Catholics" "going through a phase" so their belief position is not respected in the way other non-Catholic beliefs are.

If someone goes to considerable effort to reply to me at length in a reasonable manner I think its good netiquette to reply. Even its falls into my law of "have the last word Charlie". 😉 To be pedantic I didn't say what (or who) I was done with.

The point was simple and its along the lines you've said. The church does things like operate as business or do charitable work, that aren't unique to being a church. But people are saying these are a negative. But they are simply a function of how an organization doing these things work. So its rather pointless observation. Other than everything the RC church does is bad due to association. But I'm not going back down that rabbit hole.

It remind me more of those business (of such) rules what have so many ifs and buts, and exceptions as to make the original rule mostly redundant, or unnecessarily verbose and complex. So that every time its referred to. A load of qualifications to the rule are needed.

Cash isn’t the real problem though.

Religious bodies desperately clinging on to their last domain of control, because they know well that their future survival depends on the future supply of indoctrinated recruits is the real problem.

Get religion out of schools.

If cash is not the problem then do you think that in a given school area, that the local population don't want change? Because, for sure if the local demand is there and in the majority, then I can't see why it's not happening.

It doesn't imply anything about other religions, it is solely about Catholic church. I even mentioned it a number of times and its in the thread title. All that I mentioned in my post is 100% the catholic church (it may be the case in other religions but that is not the topic here.

The problem the church has is not that pedophiles existed within their ranks, they exist everywhere. I certainly don't blame the local priest for something that happens in another parish. But, the catholic church went to great lengths to cover up the abuse, moving priests around to new areas (and allowing them continued access to potential victims), coercing & intimidating victims to stay quiet, destroying evidence, refusing to cooperate with police investigations. So quite apart from the dangers of the adults themselves, if one is faced with the situation the catholic church has shown itself bereft of compassion and will instead do everything in its power to protect the abuser and the church itself. The victim is a secondary concern (if even that).

Do I believe it still goes on? I would like to think it doesn't, however the church has been found to be covering up so many times at this stage that it is very hard to not be cynical. Is that unfair on the good men and women in the church? Probably, but I would much rather be overcautious that lament my trust.

100% agree that the core of religion is god (well those religions that believe in God I suppose) but the Catholic church showed through their actions that the core of their religion is protection of the church itself rather than a thought of what God would do.

It's shocking how people just believe things with no independent thought or research.

Where is this reality you speak of?

Never understood this need for some Catholics to want to hang onto every last vestige of Irish society they still have a stake in. Turning every school into a secular, religion free zone doesn't stop people practicing their faith. Those who truly believe and want to be part of a church will continue to do so. Those who were only fair weather catholic when it suits them types won't bother but what of it? At least those who remain will still be able to carry on as normal and possibly build a stronger church as a result. It's an odd old thing to be living in a very secular, socially liberal society where in the day to day scheme of things religion doesn't be on the radar then see this kind of debate rear its head again and again when it comes to hospitals and schools.

What moral order would that be?

Nobody has any problem with people voluntarily enrolling their kids in religious instruction etc. The problem is the entitled attitude of this church's hierarchy and certain followers that they have the right to inflict this on everyone's kids whether their parents want it or not. Anyway, it's not helping arrest the rapid decline of their church, and getting many people's backs up into the bargain...