Catholic schools and pseudo-Catholic education

Not so long ago, I travelled to a Catholic post-primary school – and was rather taken aback.

At the entrance, beside the traditional Catholic images, was a Pride emblem which seemed to promote the interests of the LGBT agenda. The school was focused on inclusivity – and there was also a trans-themed poster on the girls’ bathroom door that said everyone was welcome in this space. As I was a guest at this school, some distance from Belfast, I said nothing.

I met a personable student who had the school motto in Latin sewn on their blazer. What does it mean? I asked.

The pupil had no idea.

My experience made me think about the state of Catholic education and where it is going.

After all, soon it will be compulsory for post-secondary schools in Northern Ireland to teach about access to abortion. While this move was sharply criticised by the Bishop of Derry, there are Catholic teachers who would disagree with him.

Then there’s last week’s unsettling judgement by the UK Supreme Court on religious education in Northern Ireland.

In effect, the court ruled in favour of a child, whose ‘broadly humanist’ father objected to the way Christianity was taught in her primary school (which was a ‘grant-aided/controlled’ state school).

The parents were upset when the child began to say grace before meals at home and felt she was learning Christianity – not about Christianity.

They refused the option of withdrawing her from some religious activities on the basis that she would be ‘stigmatised’.

The judgement – which has implications for the way religion is taught – stated this “was not about secularism in the education system”.

Teach

Under current law, passed in 1986, grant-aided state schools – with some exemptions – have a duty to provide religious education according to Holy Scripture (which tells us Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life).

They are also required to provide collective worship – such as prayer at assembly.

While the Supreme court decision does not purge Christianity from schools, or indeed school assemblies, it does require that religion be taught in an “objective, critical and pluralist manner”.

It also means that schools must teach about a range of faiths.

The court further noted that religious education – including Christianity – would continue to be taught at school. “The family strongly supports the provision of religious education, provided it does not amount to indoctrination.”

The court defined indoctrination as evangelisation. But surely one person’s idea of indoctrination may be another person’s advocacy for faith?

One wonders, generally speaking, if those who deny the existence of God aren’t engaging in their own form of cold indoctrination.

Christians are concerned about a dilution in how the Christian faith is taught in future as new curriculum guidelines will now come into play”

The judgement has caused a furore among Christians, though Bishop of Down and Connor, Bishop Alan McGuckian, has made clear that this judgement specifically applies to grant-aided state schools.

Lord Stephens (originally from the Bar of NI) in the judgement clarified: “Denominational religious education and collective worship is not prohibited in Catholic maintained schools.”

In his subsequent pastoral letter, Bishop McGuckian reminded secularists that individual freedoms and rights underpinning Western civilisation stem from Christianity and biblical teaching. “Those who seek to have Christianity sidelined in our shared society are cutting off their noses to spite their face.”

Christians are concerned about a dilution in how the Christian faith is taught in future as new curriculum guidelines will now come into play.

The current curriculum was written by the four main churches, including the Catholic Church, and has not been updated since 2007.

It already allows for a pluralist approach and Catholic educationalists – indeed most religion teachers – currently educate students about a range of faiths – and indeed accommodate children of other faiths. Children as young as eight or nine learn about Islam and Judaism.

Change

But the culture has changed dramatically since 2007 – with almost 20% of the population claiming no religion, according to the 2021 census.

The Department of Education, headed by DUP minister Paul Givan, himself a Christian, will have to provide guidance fairly quickly – amid genuine concerns about a chill factor for Christians that will only get worse.

Educational expert Dr William Kitchen told the BBC Talkback that he is concerned that, in terms of ethos, it is becoming increasingly difficult for schools to advocate for a particular religious view.

“I think the troubling thing about this is that there is a blurring of the lines between advocacy of religion and indoctrination.”

Amid demands for the “holy grail” of diversity, he argues that faith-based schools must be allowed to retain their advocacy position provided they are upfront about the school’s religious ethos and purpose. As a Protestant, he says he is impressed with the ethos that permeates the Catholic schools he visits.

Good Catholic schools equip us to think for ourselves and to know why we hold positions on certain moral issues. They also challenge us on the truth of the existence of God who gives us free will.

But along with dramatic cultural shifts, changes in Vatican II have had an impact on our schools. The catechism was dropped in favour of a new version which took decades to agree – and even Catholic teachers do not always fully understand their own faith.

I was schooled at convent school in Toronto, where a retired teacher told me he got involved in a small independent Catholic school because he had become increasingly uncomfortable with state-funded Catholic post-secondary education. A landmark legal decision in 1984 had forced the government to fully fund Catholic secondary schools.

“We needed,” he said. “To get back to core values of Catholic education. What I saw were crosses on the wall and mottoes and it was pseudo-Catholic – Catholic in name only if you will. We had uniforms but it wasn’t Catholic.”

His students in the independent sector were certainly not indoctrinated – recalling questions and lively debates with agnostic teens over abortion and other moral issues”

“I would hear priests say – ‘Thank God for our Catholic schools’. Priests were living in a fantasy world.”

He said his students in the independent sector were certainly not indoctrinated – recalling questions and lively debates with agnostic teens over abortion and other moral issues. Pupils watched and discussed The God Debate between famed atheist Christopher Hitchens and esteemed Catholic apologetic Dinesh D’Souza, studied world religions as well as atheist philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham.

“We don’t do a good job of indoctrination,” he said. “There is free will that was given to us by Christ. What is the point of indoctrination? You just get blind faith without logic. The Catholic faith is logical.”

Rationality

We need that rational thinking in an increasingly secular culture where diversity and pluralism are more valued than faith, where abortion is considered safe healthcare, where sexuality is fluid, where ego is king, where emotions trump logic and academic excellence outweighs spiritual development.

Yet in May 2024 the trustees of the Toronto Catholic school board – which allows the flying of the pride flag over schools in June – rejected a proposal to fly the pro-life flag over schools. This is seriously muddled thinking.

The late pop star, George Michael, in his 1990 hit ‘Praying for Time’ famously sang ‘…you find that what was over there is over here’.

Our schools must stay rooted in traditional Catholic teaching or become pseudo-Catholic. As my friend’s Jesuit teachers used to say: “True education is not to give a man a standard of living but a standard of life.”