Fall of the Catholic Church

Lots of churches have Direct Debits and such. I'm not sure it would be effective as people think it would be. People pay gym member ships and never go.

Indeed. Suggested it earlier and seconding it now.

That’s working out about as well as could be expected -

https://amp.dw.com/en/in-german-schools-opt-out-of-religion-at-your-own-risk/a-46806033

https://m.dw.com/en/court-muslim-boy-must-attend-nrw-schools-catholic-service/a-41261543

Meanwhile in Ireland, people complain that they pay too much in tax as it is already. If they had to pay taxes according to the tax codes in other European countries, rather than just your ideas of cherry picking the bits you do and don’t like in other countries tax codes, they too would inevitably be paying much higher taxes than they do now, and still it wouldn’t address the issues you’re both hoping it should address.

It's a mistake to focus on stats. It should be based on a principal. State and religion should be separated.

If people want to fund a private faith ethos school, or non faith school let them.

Would people see it something worthwhile to pay for? Certainly in the past people gave money to the church, sometimes even when they had little themselves. But would that be the case now?

Mass attendance is falling, so banking on voluntary contributions is not sustainable going forward. When people say they are catholic, which is then used as an argument that it should still be in schools because x% are catholic, is that really true? Or is it, that they are catholic in name only?

I do see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think it actually would be any more accurate way of seeing actual membership than the current methods anyone uses which suits their own purposes.

For example, I wouldn’t have any issue with paying for my own child’s education, but the reason I have no issue is simply because I can afford to pay for it. I’m not even going to argue that I should pay less taxes because I’m being expected to pay a Church tax (if that were a thing in Ireland. In Islam, it’s one of the tenets of their religion that they must give a percentage of their income to charity already). I’m not arguing that I should pay less tax because I understand that taxation is necessary to maintain public services.

I also wouldn’t conflate mass attendance with voluntary contributions. I attend mass regularly and I’ve never made any financial contribution in mass, the baskets get passed around as many as three times now in some churches and they’re filled with tenners and twenties, people ain’t exactly shy. I was at a christening yesterday and attendees were fairly flush. For my own child’s christening I told people who wanted to give money, to give it to their favourite charity instead. Done the same for his communion and confirmation. I used to give to Amnesty International myself, I don’t any more.

Anyways, the point I’m making is that while it seems perfectly logical to assume a relationship between mass attendance and religious education, they aren’t synonymous. I’d be the same as @Hotblack Desiato in that if I’d a euro for every parent who I met that says they’re not religious themselves, but they want their children to participate in the sacraments, I’d be minted, wouldn’t have to worry about being able to afford my child’s education.

And that’s really the problem with your hypothesis. It takes no account of the reality of people who are religious, who aren’t in the same position as I am to be able to afford to educate their children privately. That’s where the Church steps in and provides religious education for those people who want it for their children, but cannot afford it themselves. It’s why the State provides for education and enters into a somewhat symbiotic relationship with religious organisations to educate the nation’s children. There are a few Churches I’m aware of in Ireland who have established schools where they focus solely on religious education, and they don’t teach the national curriculum, and therefore they are not recognised schools and receive no public funding. They rely solely on voluntary contributions from their members.

The assumption that religious organisations wouldn’t be viable without public funding would be a mistake, and it still wouldn’t be any indication of how many people consider themselves belonging to a particular religion. The Central Statistics Office has made the point numerous times that the questions about religion and religious affiliation are not a test of the veracity of anyones faith. Their attendance at mass, or lack thereof, isn’t any indication of whether they would be willing or not to fund their Church they belong to either, and you still wouldn’t be any closer to being able to determine who is religious and who isn’t, or to what degree anyone is or isn’t religious.

Well, yes, it IS quite normal. Your problem is that you don’t like what you’re hearing. Have you been indoctrinated?

From the person who compared an RTE report on the climate strike to religious indoctrination in schools, accusations of whataboutery are just a little bit rich.

"And that’s really the problem with your hypothesis. It takes no account of the reality of people who are religious, who aren’t in the same position as I am to be able to afford to educate their children privately. That’s where the Church steps in and provides religious education for those people who want it for their children, but cannot afford it themselves. It’s why the State provides for education and enters into a somewhat symbiotic relationship with religious organisations to educate the nation’s children. There are a few Churches I’m aware of in Ireland who have established schools where they focus solely on religious education, and they don’t teach the national curriculum, and therefore they are not recognised schools and receive no public funding. They rely solely on voluntary contributions from their members."

So, if I can't afford private school and I want my children to be educated without wasting their time in religious training, tough luck? That hour a week or day or whatever could surely be better spent teaching more maths/science/history/art.

And, maybe you can clarify - is it the church funding the specific religious education in public schools, including the overhead entailed in, say, an hour a day of custodial/heat/insurance for those classes?

Why can't the religious education be fully funded by the Church at their facilities? There's buckets of churches around and most seem empty most of the time, especially during the weeks and early evenings.

Funding by members is up to them. The RCC has billions (how much are they paying out in pedophilia penalties?) Surely they can afford schooling for the next tranche of cultists.

This thread has dived into education only. @Hotblack Desiato has fortunately for us pointed out the pernicious influence of the RCC in medical care. Getting the RCC out of medical care should be a first.

Let's get the church out of hospitals and schools

No, it’s not tough luck at all. You and anyone else who shares your world views are as entitled as anyone else to establish your own schools and apply for public funding on the same basis as any other school patron if you want to, or forego public funding and be completely reliant on volunteers and voluntary donations as some schools are in Ireland. With all the people who are so supportive of a non-religious education, funding shouldn’t be an issue.

For clarification, yes they are. The Church owns the land and the property and while the schools receive a small amount of public funding based upon the number of students and the type of schools they are, it’s still not enough to maintain a lot of schools, which is why they rely on voluntary contributions from the community. Schools which have DEIS status (Delivering Equality of opportunity In Schools) receive extra supports and public funding than other schools -

https://www.gov.ie/en/publication/a3c9e-extension-of-deis-to-further-schools/

There’s absolutely no reason that religious education couldn’t be fully funded by any Churches though. As you rightly point out, they aren’t short of the money to do it, and I know there are people who would only love to do it. However, the State has a vested interest in education in society, whether that be at primary, secondary or third level, and so it is the case that the Education Act regulates just how much of a controlling interest the State has in education provided by education providers, in particular how the schools should function in order to receive public funding -

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1998/act/51/section/9/enacted/en/html

Keeping in mind of course that when you mention that the funding of Church schools should be up to their members, it isn’t just a question of funding, it’s also a question of management and running of the schools, which is done by volunteers - one doesn’t even have to be a member of the Church, or a cultist, if you like. One doesn’t even have to be a parent with children in the school, to have a seat on the Board of Management of a school. Part 4 of the Education Act 1998 covers the establishment, functions and dissolution of a Board of Management -

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1998/act/51/enacted/en/print#partiv

With regards to hospitals, it really comes back to the same issue as to why you can’t get religion out of schools - for the simple reason that both schools and hospitals which were established by religious organisations, shall continue to be owned, managed and maintained by religious organisations, and separate from that is the establishment of schools and hospitals owned, managed and maintained by the State. In much the same way as schools are run by private organisations open to the public, so too are hospitals, and the State has a vested interest in healthcare as it does in education.

What the State can’t do however, is exercise full control over hospitals it doesn’t own, and in the same way - religious organisations providing healthcare which receive public funding, also only receive public funding under certain conditions. Religious hospitals which operate on a voluntary basis (private hospitals, basically), aren’t subject to the same criteria as public hospitals under the mismanagement of the HSE -

https://m.independent.ie/irish-news/health/church-run-hospitals-told-to-ditch-holy-symbols-37863963.html

In short, the only way to reduce the influence, pernicious or otherwise, of religion in education and healthcare in Irish society, is for the State to establish more education and healthcare facilities, and successive Governments just don’t appear to be too keen on that idea, perhaps because they’re quite aware that they will be punished at the polls by the electorate for what will be perceived to be their out-of-control spending - the National Children’s Hospital, and you can bet the National Maternity Hospital will be another prime example of a considerably expensive lesson which people are far less likely to be so forgiving about, than overlooking abuse when it means other people are suffering - as long as it’s not coming out of their pockets, they really don’t give a fcuk about anyone else.

Do you think it’s normal Andrew that anyone would have respect for someone who wishes to seek their demise? I don’t think it is, but I understand that it’s possible we just have very different values to each other.

Do they give the housing companies the right to openly discriminate, ask about their clients religion and then use that information to discriminate?

It's not the outsorucing that's an issue it's the conditions.

Source?

Why would you want to keep one but get rid of all the others?