Catholic Church should not transfer any schools to State
The Catholic Church owes it to the Irish people, especially to Irish parents and children, not to transfer any of its schools to the state.
For one simple reason: the secularist state has no clue what education is about. Worse. Its secularist agenda destroys not just the minds but also the souls of children.
Today’s godless, despair-based vision of life has already corrupted Irish politics and media. It has done the same with the state-funded 3rd level education system.
Why would we hand over our schools to people with such a hopeless vision? State authorities avoid even asking what the purpose of education is because they know they can provide no satisfactory answer.
As a result, many of our brightest young people leave college with a fancy degree, a set of job skills and a bag of worthless opinions about topics from French literature to Stoic philosophy.
But the issue of truth stumps them. The deepest mystery of their own being does not even interest them.
Qualified to be cogs in a global economic machine which is driven by relentless desire, they fall to the level of gibbering idiots when it comes to the fundamental issues of life.
Control
Because the state does not know what education is about, what its purpose is, our debates in this area focus on funding, qualifications and, above all, control. And our stupid media cooperate with this political farce.
State authorities tell us that education is to prepare young people for life.
But these authorities have no idea what life is about, what its purpose is, or how we achieve it. Hence the incoherent mess that is secularist education.
Fired with a desire for total control, the state, instead of recognising its limitations and its ignorance, insists on imposing its destructive agenda on parents and children.
The Catholic Church has a clear, ennobling vision of human dignity. Our young people are not just “a chemical scum”, ultimately of no value, as secularists would have them believe.
They are children of God made for the truth, for life in community and for eternal happiness. And the primary aim of education is to help them understand their dignity and achieve life’s purpose.
Heavenly call
Young people with a strong sense of their value and their heavenly call can face any difficulties in life. Surely wise and loving parents would want their children to have that.
Everywhere else in the world even non-Christian parents recognise the value of a Catholic education and want it, where possible, for their children.
Loss of confidence in its mission is a disastrous weakness in the Church today. It is undermining the Church’s whole work. And nobody seems willing to tackle it.
But tackle it we must, and now. This is no time for complacency or timidity. Every Catholic school in the country urgently needs to review how it is fulfilling its mission, and communicating its vision to parents.
It needs to be proud of the education it is offering and determined to defend it.
Self-serving hypocrisy
The separation of daily life from faith, what we used to call “Sunday Catholics”, has always been an issue for the Church. In the past we at least recognised this separation as a major problem.
Today many people do not recognise the problem. Many Irish politicians, for example, claim to be Catholic yet insist that their faith does not influence their decisions.
Pope John Paul II stated clearly, “the split between the faith which many people profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”
Allowing this split in our lives is self-serving, short-sighted hypocrisy, it is treachery against the Lord. In public figures it is a grave scandal.
For one simple reason: the secularist state has no clue what education is about. Worse. Its secularist agenda destroys not just the minds but also the souls of children.
Today’s godless, despair-based vision of life has already corrupted Irish politics and media. It has done the same with the state-funded 3rd level education system.
Why would we hand over our schools to people with such a hopeless vision? State authorities avoid even asking what the purpose of education is because they know they can provide no satisfactory answer.
As a result, many of our brightest young people leave college with a fancy degree, a set of job skills and a bag of worthless opinions about topics from French literature to Stoic philosophy.
But the issue of truth stumps them. The deepest mystery of their own being does not even interest them.
Qualified to be cogs in a global economic machine which is driven by relentless desire, they fall to the level of gibbering idiots when it comes to the fundamental issues of life.
Control
Because the state does not know what education is about, what its purpose is, our debates in this area focus on funding, qualifications and, above all, control. And our stupid media cooperate with this political farce.
State authorities tell us that education is to prepare young people for life.
But these authorities have no idea what life is about, what its purpose is, or how we achieve it. Hence the incoherent mess that is secularist education.
Fired with a desire for total control, the state, instead of recognising its limitations and its ignorance, insists on imposing its destructive agenda on parents and children.
The Catholic Church has a clear, ennobling vision of human dignity. Our young people are not just “a chemical scum”, ultimately of no value, as secularists would have them believe.
They are children of God made for the truth, for life in community and for eternal happiness. And the primary aim of education is to help them understand their dignity and achieve life’s purpose.
Heavenly call
Young people with a strong sense of their value and their heavenly call can face any difficulties in life. Surely wise and loving parents would want their children to have that.
Everywhere else in the world even non-Christian parents recognise the value of a Catholic education and want it, where possible, for their children.
Loss of confidence in its mission is a disastrous weakness in the Church today. It is undermining the Church’s whole work. And nobody seems willing to tackle it.
But tackle it we must, and now. This is no time for complacency or timidity. Every Catholic school in the country urgently needs to review how it is fulfilling its mission, and communicating its vision to parents.
It needs to be proud of the education it is offering and determined to defend it.
Self-serving hypocrisy
The separation of daily life from faith, what we used to call “Sunday Catholics”, has always been an issue for the Church. In the past we at least recognised this separation as a major problem.
Today many people do not recognise the problem. Many Irish politicians, for example, claim to be Catholic yet insist that their faith does not influence their decisions.
Pope John Paul II stated clearly, “the split between the faith which many people profess and their daily lives deserves to be counted among the more serious errors of our age.”
Allowing this split in our lives is self-serving, short-sighted hypocrisy, it is treachery against the Lord. In public figures it is a grave scandal.