Ireland: is Catholic Education Finished?
Catholic and Protestant teachers will train alongside each other in a new institute announced by the Irish Government last week.
The Institute of Education will replace the Catholic St Patrick’s College and Mater Dei Institute as well as the Church of Ireland College of Education and operate under Dublin City University.
The move was announced by the Minister for Education, Ruairi Quinn last week in a document “A New Vision of Education for all the Children of Ireland.”
Speaking at the launch the Archbishop of Dublin, Diarmuid Martin said the new institute reflected something of how the future of education in Ireland is progressing and how people wish it to progress in a pluralist society.
“Pluralism should not produce negative rivalry or antagonism or give rise to elitism or social division, or a culture which seeks to maintain positions based on narrow ideologies,” he said.
The multidenominational institute will train teachers for the Catholic Church, Church of Ireland and other Christian traditions and will provide ongoing development for teachers and educators.
The move has not been welcomed by everyone, with Dr Ciarán Ó Coigligh, at St Patrick’s, describing it as “a takeover” and giving into those who “promote a secularist agenda.”
He said: “It is stated that the core curriculum will be ‘denominationally neutral’. This is a blatant contradiction of the essence of Christian education which requires that the denominational ethos permeates the whole teaching and learning experience.” Source
Comment
Clearly, Catholic education is set to become a thing of the past in Ireland, with no plans to train Catholic teachers to pass on the Catholic religion. A “denominationally neutral” curriculum just doesn’t cut it. But is this really any different from what has been going on in so called Catholic education in the UK for years now? Is the question “is Catholic education finished in Ireland” OR – perhaps more accurately – “is Catholic education finished?” End of. Tell us your thoughts.
Comments (67)
Like in Scotland, people in Ireland have been looking for any (media led) excuse to walk over our lukewarm bishops and spread their anti-Catholic agenda. Sadly, in Ireland they are succeeding.
Archbishop Martin’s blatant pleasure at how the end of specifically Catholic education marks the “progress” of “education in Ireland” would tell us all we needed to know about him, if he hadn’t already revealed his faithlessness in many other instances.
As one of our Irish bloggers said to me some time ago in an email, it seems St Patrick might have missed one or two of those deadly “snakes”.
Although I disagree with the move, it is a natural outcome of the total lack of Catholicity in our once Catholic teacher training colleges in Ireland. During my attendance at one of them, we were encouraged to write our own Gospels. I asked one lecturer how she would teach doctrines like the Redemption, Heaven and Hell to children. Her response? “We don’t share the same worldview.” Too right we don’t. Over a decade later, after having discovered Tradition, I’m teaching at a traditional Catholic school. Couldn’t stick the compromises, ignorance and circuitous- talking cowardice that pose as Catholic obedience in Novusordoland.
In my youthful innocence back then I used to wonder how the rotten books people pretended were catechisms didn’t spontaneously combust overnight to show God’s ire. I didn’t know then as much as I know now that the silence of God is more fearful than His open wrath. When God punishes openly, it is a sign that our hearts are not too hardened, perhaps, to accept His grace. The flood would be less fearful than the poisonous wave of heresy, sacrilege, impurity and blasphemy that threatens to drown our poor world.
Off to say the Rosary, hope of this poor sinner and all sinners.
Editor: very interesting indeed, Mary. However, I’m astonished that this post (from July!) is still open – due to my carelessness. We try to close them at the end of every month or at least within a reasonable couple of months. Anyway, I’ll leave this one open a little longer, to allow bloggers to respond to your very interesting, if worrying, comment. And before I sign off, just to let you know, there are a couple, at least, of readers booked from Ireland to attend our Conference in May, so why not book to join them, before we close the register (tickets are selling very steadily orders coming in every day, so don’t leave it too late. You know it makes sense!)
Mary Murphy,
It is a natural outcome, as you say, to train Catholic and Protestant teachers alongside each other.
I couldn’t believe it when you wrote that you were encouraged to write your own Gospels at teacher training college! LOL! No prizes for guessing what they would be like e.g. “anyone who divorces his wife and marries another is doing nothing wrong, not if he really lurvvves his second wife!” It’s just too incredible for words, what’s going on nowadays.
Mary Murphy, that is one great post! Whereabouts in the traditional Catholic school that you mention? I have a lot of family in Ireland and it would be helpful if I could point them in the right direction regarding schools.
I am so sorry but to my knowledge there is no traditional Catholic school in Ireland at the moment. I did tutor many Catholic children in Ireland for some years but wanted to work in a set-up school with priest, Sisters and all the rest- so I left Ireland and went to work abroad.
You might find the odd well informed Catholic teacher trying his/her best in a secularist system, as lots of well meaning but badly taught teachers who are trying to be Catholic but don’t quite know how. However, a wholly Catholic school in root and branch – none that I know of in Ireland.
A sign of the times. The Summa weans are currently home-schooled and when we arrive in that dear green place we will continue with that practice. It has worked well for us and are loathe to change given the state of education. It’s an anything goes show for immorality I’m afraid. If there was an equivalent of a St Michael’s of Berkshire nearby I would consider it, but it seems not?
I sympathise with those teachers who are forced to toe the line of modernism and liberalism, especially those who teach Health and Religion.
So to address the question directly, yes I believe it is finished for mainstream small ‘c’ Catholic schools.
Summa,
You will find a small home-schooling group here when you arrive at the SSPX chapel. I was “ticked off” for interrupting a “staff meeting” last week when I spoke to a couple of mothers sharing resources, so they are very enthusiastic and you will find them very supportive and friendly. Unless you interrupt a “staff meeting” that is 😀
Summa,
2 of my brothers went to St. Michael’s in Berkshire and received a great education there. They are also very staunch in their religious observances. However, if you will be living near a homeschooling group that’s the way to go as you’ll keep your family together whilst having the benefit of other like minded people.
Helen/Editor
Thanks. Yes, distance and finances would scupper that idea if fragmentation didn’t already.
“a takeover” and giving into those who “promote a secularist agenda.”
Yup, and with Abp Martin and his ilk in charge I’m willing to bet it was a very friendly takeover!
Have you noticed that those who want to avoid ‘narrow ideologies’ are only too keen to ram their own narrow ideologies down everyone else’s throats – and where better to start than with the
indoctrinationtraining of teachers.How faithless the Bishops are before God in promoting a secular agenda, with blatant pleasure. Archbishop Martin is helping to ensure that both those training to be teachers, and, the children they will teach in the future, will know nothing of the Catholic Faith. Pluralist society indeed!
Has the Archbishop ever heard of an atheistic society? For that is the way things will go in Ireland. A far cry from being the land of saints and scholars.
No wonder we must pray very hard for priests.
TR
I read somewhere not so long ago that Ireland was already among the top ten of atheistic countries in the world.
I agree with all ot the above comments.
There has been NO Catholic education in any of the schools I know of in England since Vat. II’s novelties reached into evey corner of the Church. So many of the north-west schools have large Muslim majorities that even if a truly Catholic teacher were employed in any of them they wouldn’t have an awful let to do. In one report last week the mother demanded a ‘faith school’ when her child couldn’t get into a Muslim one, she was given a place in a Sikh school and is kicking up because they weren’t providing a meat (halal of course) lunch every day.It all helps to advance the day when we’ll all be living in an Islamic state – and I’m not kidding. I don’t even believe that Catholic education is recoverable, and certainly home-schooling is the only option if one wants to raise Catholics.
Christina,
I think home-schooling will soon be outlawed as well. The named person for every child in Scotland will see to that.
Forgive me if I’m reading this wrong but did Archbishop Martin insinuate that the Catholic Church and it’s running of schools ‘maintains division’ and propagates a ‘narrow ideology’? I’m probably reading this wrong but would be glad if someone could clear this up.
Catholic Convert 1,
“did Archbishop Martin insinuate that the Catholic Church and it’s running of schools ‘maintains division’ and propagates a ‘narrow ideology’?”
That’s exactly what he insinuated. Next thing, he’ll be joining the President in the Orange Walk http://www.irishexaminer.com/text/ireland/cwqleyojgbau/
Poor Ireland. Their great saints and scholars must be turning in their graves, watching these half wits.
I saw a report the other day in Irish Central about the invitation to the President of Ireland to participate in this year’s Orange Walk. I was astounded to read that the President was “likely” to accept.
So, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if Archbishop Martin participated, or if he led the bands and even twirled one of those stick thingies which they twirl. Goodness, I wouldn’t be surprised if he joined in the shouts of “No Popery here” – in fact, while I’m in the mood to call a spade a spade, (just this once 😀 ) I wouldn’t be surprised if Pope FRANCIS joined in those shouts, loud and clear – with Mgr Basil Loftus holding the microphone to make sure none of the news broadcasters missed the spectacle. And, no doubt about it, all of those above named persons sure do know how to make a spectacle of themselves.
Grrrr. I need to stop reading this blog. Diabolical disorientation abounds the Church. They are determined to bring the Catholic Church to schism.
Summa,
I think there has been a schism in the Church for a good few years now. There are people who openly reject papal infallibility and many important doctrines, and that includes bishops. I am convinced that was foretold in the Third Secret of Fatima and Our Lady said at Akita that bishops would oppose bishops. I don’t think schism is too strong a word. That’s what we have right now, I’m sorry to say.
CC,
I’d say you’ve hit the nail on the head. The blindness of these bishops is such that they do not actually see how foolish is the position they are holding – to welcome a “pluralist” society and use it as an excuse to kill of Catholic schools is to admit apostasy. This is one archbishop who is saying loud and clear that there will be no attempt to pass on Catholicism on his watch. What confused heads they have – what on EARTH do they think the Church is all about?
Editor
The Catholic remnant in Ireland are indebted to you for highlighting this latest scandal in the destruction of the Faith in the land blessed to be brought that Faith by Saint Patrick.
Scotland, England, America, France, wherever: the devastation and destruction of the Faith wrought by the Invasion of the Modernists is evident to all Catholics possessed of an open mind and God given reason. But if anyone wants an example of how virtually an entire society and nation can be dragged off into some sort of modernist, antichrist Babylonian captivity, then come to Ireland.
What centuries of persecution, penal laws, and famine failed to do, Modernism and Masonry have brought about in fifty years. I don’t know how any of us are going to face the dead generations, the martyrs, who held the Faith and guarded it through dungeon, fire and sword.
No faithful Irish Catholic with a functioning brain is going to be in the least bit surprised by Archbishop Martin’s words. Over two years, His Lordship, in an address to the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association Conference, left no one in any doubt about his attitude:
“The change in Irish society and the change in the life of the Church in Ireland are linked together. There is a growing secularisation in Irish society. This is not entirely a bad thing, if we understand the complex phenomenon called secularisation correctly. Very few of us would wish to return completely to the type of society many of us grew up in, where the Church dominated so much of Irish culture, and where the bishops and the clergy dominated the Church. Irish society and the Church in Ireland have changed and it must be said that the change has in great part been good.”
Saint Oliver Plunkett and Bishop Dermot O’Hurley must be turning in their graves at such scandalous words.
The issue under discussion here is just the near terminal outcome of what has being going on for a long time. Nothing has happened overnight. Since the seventies we have had episcopal retreat after retreat as there has been a complete abandonment of the defence of the Social Kingship of Christ. Contraception and divorce (one bishop notoriously claimed to have voted for it) were the most notable concessions before the indelible, unimaginable stain caused by the effective abandonment of the fight for unborn last year. Hospitals under Catholic patronage will now be part of the killing apparatus. We have sodomy as secular “sacrament” coming over the hill, to be followed no doubt by euthanasia.
We can but speak out, and pray, in response to the apparently craven capitulation of the shepherds in front of the minions of lucifer (and I’m trying to me charitable there). Here’s a “thought for the day” for Archbishop Martin and all other Bishops.
“The bishop should not fear since the anointing of the Holy Spirit has strengthened him: the shepherd should not be afraid since the prince of pastors has taught him by his own example to despise life itself for the safety of his flock: the cowardice and depression of the hireling should not dwell in a bishop’s heart. Our great predecessor Gregory [the Great], in instructing the heads of the churches, said with his usual excellence: “Often imprudent guides in their fear of losing human favour are afraid to speak the right freely. As the word of truth has it, they guard their flock not with a shepherd’s zeal but as hirelings do, since they flee when the wolf approaches by hiding themselves in silence…. A shepherd fearing to speak the right is simply a man retreating by keeping silent.” (Pope Pius VI, Inscrutabile, December 25, 1775.)
And of course there are the words of the martyred Bishop of Rochester, John Fisher:
“The fort is betrayed even of them that should have defended it.”
Leo said… “The change in Irish society and the change in the life of the Church in Ireland are linked together. There is a growing secularisation in Irish society. This is not entirely a bad thing, if we understand the complex phenomenon called secularisation correctly. Very few of us would wish to return completely to the type of society many of us grew up in, where the Church dominated so much of Irish culture, and where the bishops and the clergy dominated the Church. Irish society and the Church in Ireland have changed and it must be said that the change has in great part been good.”
Leo, you must be making this up or I’m in the middle of a bad dream 🙁
This is scandalous. It make novelty look like tradition, it’s so bad!
I can only think that they are either organised enemy infiltrators of the Church or that they have been so unwittingly poisoned by liberalism that they actually believe what they are doing is good for the Church.
God forgive me, but is there anyone in Rome with a …
Summa,
Leo gives the most amazing information in his comments, stuff you won’t read anywhere else. He is a mine of information. Like you, I am shock horrified at those words of the Archbishop of Dublin. It seems too amazing for words that any Catholic bishop would say that the changes from a Catholic state to a secular state has been good for the Church. He must have lost the faith.
Margaret Mary
What is worse, he seems to be in the mainstream. Sadly, his comments are no more shocking than those that come from the highest levels in the Church. In fact you might say his comments are less shocking.
Leo,
Thank you for your kind words at the beginning of your post but it is the least we can do, to try to help inform the faithful of the shocking decline of the Faith in Ireland. So many of us owe our Faith to the Irish people who brought it to us. I’m from an Irish background myself. In fact, when I meet friends in town I always arrange to meet outside the Irish Allied Bank for two reasons: to highlight the fact that I have Irish blood coursing through my veins, and to give the impression that I have money behind me 😀
But this quote from Archbishop Martin (which I’d read before but forgotten) is shocking in the extreme:
“The change in Irish society and the change in the life of the Church in Ireland are linked together. There is a growing secularisation in Irish society. This is not entirely a bad thing, if we understand the complex phenomenon called secularisation correctly. Very few of us would wish to return completely to the type of society many of us grew up in, where the Church dominated so much of Irish culture, and where the bishops and the clergy dominated the Church. Irish society and the Church in Ireland have changed and it must be said that the change has in great part been good.”
There’s just nothing to say in response to that astonishing statement except, tragically, that Archbishop Martin has manifestly lost the Faith, if ever he really had it. I often wish I could speak at some length with these Modernist types to suss out what it was that motivated them to become priests in the first place.
I have often wondered who the suspicious looking characters are who hang around outside the Allied Irish Bank in Glasgow.
I always thought they were trying to nab people`s pin numbers.
Summa
The nightmare just goes on and on.
Following the Irish governments legalising of the killing of unborn children up to birth, Archbishop Martin gave an address to the Irish Catholic media at the Faith of our Fathers conference in Kilkenny on Friday, September 13 last year. His Lordship said:
“We can repeat doctrine ad nauseam. We can denounce moral teaching with clinical clarity. But all of that will be worthless and the Church’s teaching will appear to others like any other ideology, if we do not reflect in our lives – personal and institutional – the loving embrace of the God revealed in Jesus Christ. We have to live the Good News of Jesus Christ; we have to be seen to witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ; we have to share the Good News of Jesus Christ.”
“We do not need a conformist Church. We need a Church of mature and authentic common commitment and concern for the spreading of the Gospel. That Gospel is perennially new and must always be presented in ways that are new, but we are not called to reinvent the fundamentals of faith. The Gospel is Good News and must always be presented with the enthusiasm which is the inevitable characteristic of those who believe that they are the bearers of good news. The Gospel of Jesus is never alien to the world of any time. What is important is that we understand the real Gospel and never allow ourselves to impose on ourselves or others aspects and rules which really have nothing to do with the Gospel. The Gospel must free from that self-centredness which paradoxically impedes us from being fully ourselves.”
Now compare and contrast the following words of unmistakable Catholic pastoral teaching:
“Let them combat novelties of words, remembering the admonitions of Leo XIII: ‘It is impossible to approve in Catholic publications a style inspired by unsound novelty which seems to deride the piety of the faithful and dwells on the introduction of a new order of Christian life, on new directions of the Church, on new aspirations of the modern soul, on a new social vocation of the clergy, on a new Christian civilization, and many other things of the same kind.’” – Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi
What about the following, from the same sainted Vicar of Christ:
“But stranger still, alarming and saddening at the same time, are the audacity and frivolity of men who call themselves Catholics and dream of re-shaping society under such conditions, and of establishing on earth, over and beyond the pale of the Catholic Church, ‘the reign of love and justice’ with workers coming from everywhere, of all religions and of no religion, with or without beliefs, so long as they forego what might divide them – their religious and philosophical convictions, and so long as they share what unites them – a ‘generous idealism and moral forces drawn from whence they can’ When we consider the forces, knowledge, and supernatural virtues which are necessary to establish the Christian City, and the sufferings of millions of martyrs, and the light given by the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, and the self-sacrifice of all the heroes of charity, and a powerful hierarchy ordained in heaven, and the streams of Divine Grace – the whole having been built up, bound together, and impregnated by the life and spirit of Jesus Christ, the Wisdom of God, the Word made man – when we think, I say, of all this, it is frightening to behold new apostles eagerly attempting to do better by a common interchange of vague idealism and civic virtues. What are they going to produce? What is to come of this collaboration? A mere verbal and chimerical construction in which we shall see, glowing in a jumble, and in seductive confusion, the words Liberty, Justice, Fraternity, Love, Equality, and human exultation, all resting upon an ill-understood human dignity. It will be a tumultuous agitation, sterile for the end proposed, but which will benefit the less Utopian exploiters of the people.”
– Our Apostolic Mandate, 1910.
I don’t recall any centenary commemorations of those two encyclicals.
I note the emphasis on Archbishop Martin’s speech on the Gospel, the Gospel and nothing but the Gospel. What does that remind us of?
Well, there’ll be a reckoning.
Leo, as an afterthought, I have just started reading No Crisis in the Church? by Simon Galloway.
I thought this was relevant to what you just posted…
Ultimately the Catholic faith must make sense logically, or cease thereby to be taken seriously.
And there’s the rub.
You either accept the condemnation of Pope Pius IX on religious freedom, or you accept Vatican II teaching. You can’t have both. You can’t undermine the Aristotle’s Principle of Non-Contradiction.
And from my reading the Irish Bishop is doing what you can’t do. He is telling us to modernise because the Truth is but ideology to the modern world, so let’s deconstruct the teaching of the Church and be relevant, but at the same time let’s follow God’s word in the Gospel.
And when this Irish Bishop says…
What is important is that we understand the real Gospel and never allow ourselves to impose on ourselves or others aspects and rules which really have nothing to do with the Gospel.
… he let’s the cat out of the bag. He is de facto protestant.
Summa,
Such remarks about the “real Gospel” and similar anti-Catholic jibes using a distortion of Scripture, reveal Protestantism in the soul, as you rightly say. Archbishop Martin needs to recall that St Augustine said that “I would not believe the Gospel, if I did not first believe in the authority of the Catholic Church.”
I was taught that the key tenent of Catholic Education was the concept of a “Catholic Curriculum” – ie. the Catholic Faith, in a Catholic school, permeates all aspects of the curriculum.
I tried to put this into practice at St Andrew’s College of Education. For our Social Studies assessment, we were given a question and asked to give a lecture to fellow students. I was given “Who Should Be Responsible For Social Development?”. I lectured on how the Catholic Church had built civilised society through the laws of God, which the ancient laws of society were built upon, and through it’s commitment to education and health care (foundation of ancient universities and religious orders dedicated to teaching and health care). I then went on to show how the Labour Government at the time were dismantling Society, rather than developing it.
Well, at the end of the lecture, the assessor told me that I would fail the assessment as I had given a “religious” presentation . I argued that I had aimed to answer the question honestly, and in line with the concept of a “Catholic Curriculum”. The assessor was horrified. “What on earth made you think that’s what you were to do?”. Ultimately, I passed because I stuck to my guns.
This experience, coupled with my experience in Catholic schools, led my to the conclusion that the “Catholic Curriculum” does not exist in modern Catholic schools. Indeed, I do not believe that Catholic schools exist at all in the authentic sense.
This latest development in Ireland is an extension of what has happened here. Saint Andrew’s College, as poor as it was, was swallowed up by Glasgow University and students, Catholic and non Catholics, merely have the option of attending a few workshops on “Catholic teacher formation”. So, the “Catholic” aspect of teaching is seen as an optional extra.
Parents also have the right to withdraw their child from religious classes in Catholic schools. This should be impossible. The Catholic ethos of a school should be so explicit and permeate all areas that if a parent did not wish their child to experience “religion” then the last thing they would do was send their child to a Catholic school. Sadly, Catholicism is now an optional extra.
So, is Catholic Education finished? Yes it is. For now.
Interesting, after Mass on Sunday I was talking to the priest about their school which is run by the SSPX in Brisbane. He told me that non Catholics can attend the school but a condition of attendance is the compulsory participation of all students in religious observation through traditional Catholic teaching.
And I thought, there’s a small in the chops to liberalism 🙂
Petrus
In almost all instances these days a Catholic school is merely a secular institution (designated as a ‘Faith’ school) admitting pupils of all or no faiths. The recent ‘Cardiff jihadis’, the two Muslims who revealed themselves in the notorious video, both attended the Catholic Sixth Form College in that City!
In a different town, an exceptionally bright A level student I know, who has studied at the Catholic College there during the whole of his/her secondary education had, after six years in attendance, never heard of the word “Catholicism”, but had in fact received lessons about Hinduism, Buddhism and even Atheism! Apparently, the RE syllabus has to be generalised and non-specific!
Summa
I’m sure you’ll agree that Simon Galloway’s book is very informative and a great resource. For my money, it renders the “hermeneutic of continuity” unsustainable.
You observations, and Editor’s, about Archbishop Martin and the “real Gospel” are right on the mark. Anyone inclined to disagree might try to explain what particular “real Gospel” forms the basis of the yet another scandalous presentation from the Archbishop five months ago. Seriously, we are talking here about sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance.
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/dublin-archbishop-responds-to-gay-marriage-debate-suggesting-gay-civil-regi
“I believe that there are ways in which, civil registrations for example, in which gay and lesbian people can have their rights respected and legally protected,” said Archbishop Martin in an interview with the state broadcaster RTÉ.
“There can be ways in which gay people can celebrate their togetherness, their love for one another, but it isn’t marriage,” he added. “It doesn’t necessarily mean that a civil partnership is somewhat of less value than marriage.”
“Real Gospel”? Editor has already pointed the Archbishop in the direction of Saint Augustine. The following words from the great Saint surely merit constant repetition amongst the Bishops and laity of Ireland:
“If you believe what you like in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe, but yourself.” – Contra Faustum 17,3
That statement of the Archbishop’s came shortly before the notorious Father Timothy Radcliffe’s appearance as a speaker at the Divine Mercy Conference in Dublin, during which he warned that “some people use religion to satisfy their judgemental attitudes” and to “sacrifice people at the altar of their indignation”. No doubt the Dominican dissident took comfort from the words of Archbishop Martin in his sermon at the Conference later that day.
“We are to reach out not with a package of dogmatic formulae or a check list of morality…”
One thing we can be certain of: pre-emptive surrender to the luciferian agenda will not bring about a peaceful life for Catholics, in Ireland, or anywhere else, to say nothing of the judgement of Christ the King.
“And if the watchman see the sword coming, and sound not the trumpet: and the people look not to themselves and the sword come, and cut off a soul from among them: he indeed is taken away in his iniquity, but I will require his blood at the hand of the watchman.” – Ezechiel 33:6
One of the greatest assets of the forces of organised naturalists is the ignorance and apathy of their prey. Bread and circuses are doing their job perfectly. Televised sports and soaps, the cult of half-wit celebrities, or obsession with self-image are turning minds to mush and diverting attention very effectively, while the sheep get herded into a tighter and tighter circle.
And whether people try to stifle discussion with talk about “conspiracy theories” or “paranoia” or whatever, or whether they even care or not, the foundations of Christian civilisation, built over two millennia by the Catholic Church are being systematically and methodically attacked. In reality, it’s the culmination of a program that has being going on, both openly and secretly, in different stages, for at least five centuries.
“And, in truth, the teaching of morality which alone finds favour with the sects of the Freemasons, and in which they content that youth should be instructed, is that which they call ‘civil’, and independent,’ and ‘free’, namely, that which does not contain any religious belief.” – Pope Leo XIII, Humanum Genus, 1884
“With the greatest unanimity the sect of the Freemasons also endeavours to take to itself the education of youth. They think that they can easily mould to their opinions that soft and pliant age, and bend it whither they will; and that nothing can be more fitted that this to enable them to bring up the youth of the State after their own plan. Therefore in the education and instruction of children they allow no share, either of teaching or of discipline, to the ministers of the Church…and that nothing which treats of the most important and most holy duties of men to God shall be introduced into the instructions on morals.” (ibid)
I don’t think any parents should have any illusions about what is happening in education. America has given the lead in many secular developments in the West, over the last century. Here’s an insight into some of the forces at work in education there for several decades.
Rhoda Lorand, a member of the American Board of Professional Psychology, made some observations about the attitudes of educators before the U.S. House Sub-Committee on Education. Her testimony related to House Resolution 5163 having to do with education. Her words are as follows:
“The contempt for parents is so shockingly apparent in many of the courses funded under Title III, in which the teacher is required to become an instant psychiatrist who probes the psyche of her pupils, while encouraging them to criticize their parents’ beliefs, values and teachings. This process continues from kindergarten through the twelfth grade.”- Alex Tanous and Katherine Fair Donnelly, “Your Kids Are Psychic!,” Instructor Magazine, April 1980, 65.
The January/February 1983 issue of The Humanist carried this article titled “A Religion for a New Age.” The author stated:
“I am convinced that the battle for humankind’s future must be waged and won in the public school classroom by teachers who correctly perceive their role as the proselytizers of a new faith: a religion of humanity that recognizes and respects the spark of what theologians call divinity in every human being. These teachers must embody the same selfless dedication as the most rabid fundamentalist preachers, for they will be ministers of another sort, utilizing a classroom instead of a pulpit to convey humanist values in whatever subject they teach, regardless of the educational level preschool day care or large state university.- Frances Adeney, “Some Schools Are Looking East for Answers,” Moody Monthly, May 1982, 19.
Does anyone seriously think that the rest of the Western World has escaped the clutches of the education ideologues? I know what I’m betting on when it comes to the case of Ireland. In the wake of abandoning the unborn, this country is a cursed land. If we can’t see right from wrong when it comes to taking life, why should it be any different in education?
As with so many other issues, the challenge is to once again establish the Social Kingship of Christ over our lands.
“When a country’s Christianity is reduced to the proportions of domestic life, when Christianity is no longer the soul of public life, of the power of the state and of public institutions, then Jesus Christ will treat such a country as He Himself is treated. He will continue to bestow His Grace and His Blessings on those who serve Him but He will abandon the institutions and authorities that do not serve Him, and such institutions, authorities, kings and races become like the sands of the desert or like the dead leaves in autumn which can be blown away by a gust of wind.”- Cardinal Pie of Poitiers.
“The security of the State demands that we should be brought back to Him who is the way, the truth, and the life, not as individuals merely, but as human society through all its extent. Christ our Lord must be reinstated as the Ruler of human society. It belongs to Him, as do all its members. All the elements of the commonwealth; legal commands and prohibitions, popular institutions, schools, marriage, home-life, the workshop, and the palace, all must be made to come to that fountain and imbibe the life that comes from Him.” – Pope Leo XIII, Tametsi, 1900
“In a word, the communists claim to inaugurate a new era and a new civilisation which is the result of blind evolutionary forces culminating in a“humanity without God”. – Pope Pius XI, Divini Rdemptoris, 1937
There is no doubt that the control of education is another significant battle in the on-going and escalating war against the Kingship of Christ and Christian civilisation that is being conducted by the lucifer’s useful idiots amongst the present Irish government, or rather the commissars in charge of the Irish outpost of the UN’s and EU’s New World Order.
And of course, pushing the Church out of education is a very important part of the antichrist agenda. Here’s an informative link, over two and a half years old, on what’s going on in Ireland. I think the plan is very clear.
http://donum-vitae-blog.blogspot.ie/search?q=GOLDFISH+IN+Heaven#!/2011/11/goldfish-in-heaven.html
(to read the full story click on the photograph of Education commissar Quinn)
I wonder how any half sane parent would react when some atheistic teacher refers to their little darlings as “scraps of energy, randomly generated.” And I thought it was all about boosting kids’ self-esteem these days. Said teacher might be advised to bring some means of self-defence to the next parent teacher meeting.
The secularist education agenda, like that of abortion, is all so blatantly in line with the virus like spread of cultural Marxism throughout the Western World. Indeed the errors of Russia continue to spread far and wide.
If anyone thinks that talk of Communists and the New World Order is over the top, or is in any doubt about how important education is in the battle being waged by the forces of organised naturalism, just do the research on the Frankfurt School, or Saul Alinksy and his disciples, or the Communist Manifesto, or the Humanist Manifestos.
I would also recommend reading the following very informative article by Cornelia Ferreira. There is a second one on New Age education and two on Catholic education that are also very well worth reading.
http://www.canisiusbooks.com/articles/art_na_ed1.htm
Leo said … I wonder how any half sane parent would react when some atheistic teacher refers to their little darlings as “scraps of energy, randomly generated.”
I just wanted to pick up on this comment regarding a reference to reductionism. I never really twigged about this myself for a long time, but it runs to the core of the contradictory nature of atheism, liberalism, humanism.
In my opinion, the underlying argument in the last century from atheism has been supported almost exclusively by scientific argument around an atomic and genetic reality of our being. They reduce everything to the cellular level: emotion, physic, disease, life, death, intelligence, thought etc.
I will leave aside the obvious annoyances that they fail to deal with like explaining love, sacrifice for complete strangers, humility, altruism, charity, art etc.
What gets me is that there is this scientific virus infiltrating everything that is observable which accounts for life in the most reductionist manner but at the same time these same people call for all manner of human rights and freedoms: note that I say human rights here, because even though they reduce humanity to the cellular level in complete unison with other non-human organisms, explaining the differences solely through DNA makeup, they do not afford any rights to those close DNA cousins, which is rather strange to me, given their underlying cellular reductionism.
Unbelievably, they explain life at the level of the gene yet at the same time refuse to disbelieve the notion of free will. They account for human acts at the cellular level yet have laws that rely on human accountability. They refuse to believe in God, yet are obsessed by spirituality.
The contradictions abound. You really can’t hold two contradictory ideas and believe both.
Leo,
once again I have to thank you for all your comments on this blog. They just get better and better and are so informative it is getting harder to find words to stress how helpful I find them. The quotes you post are fantastic.
My mother well remembers the time yonks ago when the Irish Government tried to introduce the “Mother and Baby Bill” which would, in effect, have violated the family rights of parents to provide for their own children without state handouts. At least I think that was the jist of it. Anyway, the then Archbishop (? McQuaid ) opposed it vigorously and won the day. What a difference between great prelates like him and the wishey washey one they now have! God help Ireland.
In my opinion the Catholic Church overstepped the line on this matter. I feel it is a terrible shame the hierarchy blocked this bill, that would have provided free health care to mothers and children. There were divided opinions even in the hierarchy over it. Of course, you are entitled to your own political opinions. The Catholic Church in Ireland ran those Magdalene Laundries as well.
The American bishops, rather, got it right when in 1919 they supported universal health care, having been used to picking up the bill for the poor and uninsured.
Miles,
my aunt worked as a volunteer in the Legion of Mary in one of those laundries. She said the girls and women were well treated, found jobs where possible and even sent for further education if they were able. She said any punishment meted out was well deserved and no worse than any school of the period where corporal punishment was used. Those nuns picked up the pieces that “good, holy Catholic families” had discarded!
Helen,
The girl who first “blew the whistle” on the Laundries was later shown to be an out and out liar and even her own family said she was not to be trusted.
I profoundly disagree and repudiate your estimation of the ‘Magdelene’ asylum and industrial school system, and in fact, I feel unsettled by your comment. I can only attribute it to your ignorance.
I think it is prudent I stay away from the blog for a while because this is a volatile subject.
Your subjective anecdotal knowledge does not discredit the mass of condemnatory evidence of the numerous human rights abuses (I won’t elaborate) which have occurred.
To attribute this to a ‘secular media conspiracy’ is naive and irresponsible. I am aware this is likely to cause offence to yourself and Nicky, which is one reason I think it best to stay away.
Miles,
My goodness, for someone who knows nothing about the situation your comment is amazing. Maybe my comment is “subjective anecdotal knowledge ” but, my aunt was there, you were not.
Miles Immaculatae,
If you check the facts about the Magdalene Laundries, you will soon discover that if this is a “volatile subject” it’s only because people have fallen for the demonstrable lies told by Kathy O’Beirne. If you read this report and this report – you will see that the objective data, the hard facts of the case speak for themselves.
Having an eye witness account of the conditions in these places over a long period of time, sounds to me like a tad more than anecdotal evidence. Thanks Helen.
Summa, thank you for that very perceptive post (11.13pm yesterday). I’m no scientist, and I’d never so clearly seen the contradictions inherent (in atheism etc.) that you have highlighted and explained here.
Your welcome. I was blinded for a very long time by tyranny of science, especially Dawkins’ ideas around genetic biology. To quote him from his book the Selfish Gene… “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.
A very intelligent gentleman, although I have come to see him now as blindly dogmatic that Science can tell us everything or eventually will. He actually relies on a kind of faith in a religion of science, which of course he would deny.
Miles
Another link might help to clear up your confusion about the Magdelene Laundries.
http://www.catholicleague.org/myths-of-the-magdalene-laundries/
Published July 15th 2013 and written by Bill Donohue.
Yes, there are just too many people there who were inmates of the establishment, who not only didn’t witness any abuse, but didn’t even hear rumour of abuse. Coupled with widespread reports from inmates of indeed the opposite: love, charity, shelter; then the picture emerges that we have another sensational fabrication in lieu of the truth.
Bill Donohue’s piece seemed fine and dandy until I got to this bit:
Left-wing and right-wing Catholics of a strong bent have something else in common: when bad news about the Church breaks, they congratulate themselves for holding to their convictions. At bottom, it is their appalling self-righteousness that unites them; they have more in common than they know.
I think he means traditionalists when he speaks of those with a strong right-wing bent. I’ve never come across a single one who believed in the tales about the Magdalene Laundries.
I think I have to come in here as someone who actually worked in a Magdalene laundry in Dublin as a student in 1978. I worked all my holidays and became familiar with the women and the nuns. I NEVER saw a woman being abused in any way. On the contrary, they, the women, were encouraged in every way to make the most of themselves. Some were very difficult to manage and some had simply been abandoned by their families when they became pregnant and often by married men or men in important positions. The shame of Ireland was taken on and dealt with by these devoted nuns. Shame on anybody who says differently. I could write a book on it and if anybody, especially Miles, wishes me to elaborate, I will.
Crofterlady
I, for one, would be honoured if you would deem to elaborate,on any of your experiences whilst working in a Magdalene laundry as a student in 1978. Thank you in advance.
Mikidiki,
In my last year at school the teacher asked a friend and I to work in a Magdalene laundry during the holidays. The head nun at the laundry had requested 2 girls of very good (ahem…) character to try and be an inspiration to some of the unmarried mothers working there. These girls ranged from 14 to around 23 years old and most of them came from rural Ireland. They were a mixed bag in that some were themselves orphans reared by nuns who had got positions for them in big houses or institutions; others were from families who had mostly disowned them when they became pregnant out of wedlock. The strange thing about their circumstances was that there was rarely a boyfriend spoken about and it seems that most girls who got pregnant by their boyfriends ended up marrying them. Many of them had been taken advantage of by the men in the families where they were employed and then discarded like rubbish when they fell pregnant. Never a word about punishment of the aforesaid men! Also, many of the perpetrators were married men and men of “good standing” in their communities. I could relate some harrowing stories but I’ll be banned from the blog if I do…..
Some of these girls were very difficult, unruly, liars and thieves and others were gentle and innocent who couldn’t comprehend their predicaments. The former regularly picked on the latter and bedlam ensued! I befriended some of them and used to take them home to tea. The nuns were very good to them bearing in mind that society was very different then and corporal punishment was widely used and acceptable. Having said that, I never saw a nun being cruel to any girl and indeed, they were treated with more respect than meted out to them by their families! I never saw even one girl being visited by her family; they were simply abandoned and, even if one of them wanted to keep her baby, there wasn’t the infrastructure to do so. They worked fairly long hours depending on their condition but, they were well fed, dressed and given pocket money for their days out. They were not slaves or prisoners.
After the babies had been adopted most of the mothers would be matched to a job in the community, sent to a secretarial college (and these were private places paid for by the nuns), sent into service, employed as domestics in one of the many hospitals run by nuns etc.
A priest friend has a housekeeper trained by the Magdalene nuns and she couldn’t sing their praises highly enough. However, after the media coverage, she was contacted by a journalist who said she was entitled to money “for the abuse” she received. She asked:”What abuse? I wasn’t abused in any way. The nuns were very good to me.” They (the journalists) kept pestering her saying the money was there for the asking if she wanted it and guess what, eventually she took it.
Those poor nuns have been terribly maligned for their selflessness and one day their reward will be great in Heaven or there’s no justice.
Crofterlady
Thank you so much for sharing your experiences. I read them with a huge degree of mixed emotions
—- sadness at the total abandonment of these unfortunate girls and young women by their ‘shamed’ families,
—- distress and disgust at the actions of many of the men, who were so securely entrenched in positions of authority that they were able to use and despoil them, and then cast them aside,
—- enrichment at the thought of the wonderful kindness and care lavished by the nuns in such traumatic circumstances,
—- and conjecture at how many of the families of those victimised girls were advised or urged by well meaning (?) pastors to deposit their wayward offspring into such institutions and so remain free from peer condemnation? Migration from the countryside was so common that the disappearance of a teenage daughter could easily be accounted for by saying she was working away in England and suchlike.
My wife had an aunt (one of thirteen children) who was sent into domestic service in London in the late 1940s where she was impregnated on two separate occasions by two different ‘toffs’. With the help of her extended family the aunt was enabled to return home and struggle and keep and raise both daughters. It may, or may not, be relevant to mention that “home” was not in Catholic rural Ireland but in a chapel village in the South Wales coalfield.
Thanks again.
I, too, read Crofterlady’s post with a mixture of emotions but I also think we ought to beware of demonising every Irish family.
There would surely have been many who supported their daughters and illegitimate offspring. I think we have to watch not to do what has been done to the priesthood, which is to tar all priests with the same brush and all families with the same brush, as if every Catholic priest and Irish family is or was an abuser.
Fidelis
With respect, I cannot see how a specific account of Crofterlady’s experiences, and my subsequent comments, could lead anyone (notwithstanding those with axes to grind) to generalise about demonising every Irish family. The McAleese Report estimated that only10,012 girls and women, rather than the widespread exaggeration of 30,000, were processed through the laundries. Consequently, it is obvious that there were indeed some Irish families who abandoned their offspring, whilst conversely, there may have been other families who did shelter, protect and care for their own unmarried daughters who became mothers.
So, why the warning to beware of “demonising”? And to whom is the warning directed? Surely you cannot actually believe that any contributor to this Catholic Truth blog would be so foolish, so insensitive and so malign as to think in such a perverse way, either about the families or the priests?
But perhaps you do.
Mikidiki,
I didn’t mean to cause offence. It’s just that not everyone reading this blog is necessarily a friend of it or of the Catholic Church. I only wanted to make the point that you have made actually much better than I did that not every Irish family would turf their pregnant daughters out into the street or put them in the Laundries.
Sorry for having upset you. That wasn’t my intention, honestly.
Fidelis
As a comparative newcomer to this blog I have no problem bowing to your greater knowledge and assertion that we have amongst our readers and contributors people who harbour enmity towards the Faith. I cannot say that I, myself, have noticed such persons, but if they do exist (and you affirm that they do) then certainly your warnings about “demonisation” needed to be voiced and are valid. The universal condemnation of priests, brothers and sisters is grossly misplaced, and we can all remember many holy, dedicated and inspirational pastors and nuns who brought Christ into our lives, whereas few of us will have had personal contact with a clerical abuser.
Mikidiki,
There are, indeed, enemies as well as friends who read this blog, although they do not always contribute comments. So, we take nothing for granted.
Maybe you’ve missed, for example, our semi-regular trolls who comment and disrupt our discussions (won’t name them in case they take that as an invitation to return) and there is no doubt that media folk keep an eye on us, so it’s wise to always note that by acknowledging wrongs and immorality, in this case in Ireland and among families, this behaviour in no way applies to all or even a majority.
I would add that the common claim that “most abuse takes place in families” – and not just Irish families – is a tad misleading because, although, shockingly, there have been cases of natural parents abusing and even murdering their offspring, more often than not, when we read the small print, the abuser/murderer is a step-parent, a boyfriend of the mother.
And we should never forget the very important point which you make, that the universal condemnation of priests (and families) is to be avoided.
Well said to all those who defended the nuns of the Magdelene Laundries. The wicked lies being peddled about them is really quite shocking. Thank God for people like Crofterlady who is willing to speak up.
I second Petrus’s comment, because it is shocking to find people, including Catholics, who still believe the lies told about those good nuns. That girl who started the ball rolling, has something to answer for, God help her.
Almost as if the Arian Heresy in modern times. For in the Arian Heresy, where Priests and Bishops went along with Arius who preached the Heresy that Jesus was only a Perfect Man and not God, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint John Chrysostom remarked and it still applies today “The Road to Hell is Paved with The Skulls of Bishops”, which was True then and True, Currently.
A Roaming Catholic,
Very true currently. Very VERY true!