Our schools were so hard fought for, and did their job but I don't know where the school is that Mr.Sanderson says is "a forcing ground for Catholicism" these days.  Perhaps he hasn't been into a Catholic church and seen that there aren't many young people. If anyone has shot himself in the foot it may turn out to be Mr.Sanderson himself as it would seem that the sooner we stop doing the State's bidding in our schools the better. They are, very largely, schools which succeed in everything except passing on a passion for the faith. Here's a plan:

 If we withdraw from the state system the money saved could be used to create truly Catholic, inspired, enthusiastic and innovative Parish based communities that meet not just for Holy Mass. After school, weekends, everyone (even those who would not help a school get top of the league tables!) and a natural part of our lives. The faith can be strongly taught; the Creed, the Commandments, the Mass, Prayer. Also, different activities depending on the abilities of those in the parish. Who knows they might even produce a sports team that can help children to stop shaking their clenched fists at the other team. Whole parish involvement showing a living faith with everyone learning to be confident in speaking up and showing that we are proud of what we have inherited. Then we stop having young, old, well, sick, clever, stupid or any other label but are all Catholic and able to make a difference in our country.

In my view the secularist argument displays all the totalitarian authoritarian attitudes which secularists often attribute to the Church.   Committed secularists are a minority in the community but their argument is that all public expenditure on education, adoption, health etc. should be spent in a way which is consistent with their minority values and standards.   Committed Christians are also a minority but our argument is only that some portion of the state's resource should be spent in accordance with Christian values and standards.   We are quite willing that those - no doubt the majority - who do not want to receive public service conditioned by those values should obtain services conditioned by a different environment e.g. secular, Jewish, Muslim etc. according to their preference.  So the Christian attitude is that of the democratic open society whereas the secularists are promoting an undemocratic authoritarian closed society.

Christian teaching on marriage may be alien to homosexuals and promiscuous heterosexuals but it does not hurt them whereas an Islamic teaching of a moral responsibility to carry out a jihad to destroy non Muslims would hurt others and should legitimately be banned.

He says he is against indoctrination but  I suspect he is in favour of a secularist indoctrination, but ‘a benign indoctrination’.   We know it by another name, like, toleration, loving ones neighbour, not knifing ones adversary, telling the truth, respecting other people, doing as one would be done by etc. It sounds better to him under the name of  ‘his’ type of secularity

Scandalised by the Cardinal’s pressure on representatives of the people?  What is wrong with that.  Does each MP take a constituency referendum before voting?  If one votes for a Catholic one is represented by a Catholic.  That is democracy. Unfortunately, I haven’t got a Catholic MP and am stuck with it. Anyway, I am sure that all MPs are bombarded with pressure from lobbyists of one sort and another.  Why not a Catholic pressure?

Have I to abort because of what a lot of (what I consider) unprincipled people think  is OK?  Is it right that a Catholic adoption agency should place a child into what it considers a risky situation?   Madness

What better than to use the major UK political parties for comparison:

 

Labour's membership stands approximately at 198,000

Conservative Party membership now stands at around 290,000

LibDems 70,000

NSS - Who Knows?

Total 558,000

 

Approx 2.5 million Christians attend church weekly in the UK, 4-5 million regularly and at major celebrations.

 

Anyone pretending to value democracy will see from this that the unavoidable conclusion in having a Christian dimension in UK politics is both representative and democratic and so I say again what qualifies the NSS to speak for anyone let alone as a pretended National body, a misnomer if ever there was one, and in particular to claim popular support for de-franchising 3/4 of the UKs population.


Terry Sanderson is, by contrast, quite clear as to the tenets and purposes of the National Secular Society. Like Dawkins he delivers his themes with a suffocating gentility. But that contrived interaction with religionists  does not conceal the drive, determination and direction of the combined purposes of undifferentiated Secularists, Humanists, Atheists and Agnostics .In algebraic sum their, purposes add up to the elimination of religion and the propagation of a godless social order which, they have the temerity to purport, will avail peace, harmony, order and every benefit, civil and personal.

There are (or ought to be) instead quite different philosophies of life, depending on whether you accept faith in a creative loving God, especially one who makes himself known through revelation, or whether you adopt a agnostic/atheist position, not drawing understanding and inspiration from any religious philosophy. Current moral debates about "Life" issues demonstrate the point. So those who deny a religious philosophy must implicitly (and often explicitly nowadays) attack or minimise the religious position. So the 70% of secular schools counter religious belief, even if unconsciously, by presumably teaching all subjects as though there was no religious dimension to consider. In that sense they must be judged inadequate or inimical to the serious religious believer.  In practice, therefore, agnostic/atheist people do have their own philosophies of life, which are quasi-religious, often based on 19C utilitarianism, and are themselves open to all the usual secular arguments about "irrationality" of their assumptions.


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