Photo: OSV News photo/courtesy St. Agnes School Letter of the week
ETB schools neglecting faith formation
Dear Editor,
The article by Fr Martin Delaney in the July 4 edition of The Irish Catholic was very apt, articulate and welcome. It was most timely for many of us: pastoral leaders, concerned parents and board of school management members, who are trying our best, to convince the ETBs about holistic education.
True education is holistic; it addresses and deals with body, mind and spirit. If the spiritual is left out, it is not true education, whatever it is. So, formation in faith and morals, of our dear young people is not part of the current ETB regime.
This is pastorally painful for concerned priests, parents, teachers and faith community members, as well as the youngsters themselves in parishes where these schools are situated. The ETB needs to wake up.
In the past when VECs were in charge of the post-primary vocational schools, an arrangement was copper fastened with the bishops, whereby each student had three classes a week in faith formation. This worked admirably.
I and many other priests and trained catechists worked alongside the delighted staff, in these schools, with great joy and fruitfulness. This involvement resulted in good school discipline and in the eventual outcome of fine young men and women of calibre, entering the wider community and making a mature, adult, holistic contribution of worth. Why can this arrangement not be repeated?
Well being and wellness are being dealt with in civic-like classes in the space that should be for faith formation. This is balderdash as it has nothing to do with the faith and spirituality and more to do with new age clap-trap.
I am a reluctant member of the BOM for 20 productive years beforehand, but I see myself working on the inside, to try with others to change the scene as soon as possible. Can we plead for help from concerned parents, teachers and indeed pupils, who know that faith formation is the only way forward in the context of education?
Yours etc.,
Fr Patrick Moore PP VF,
St Michael’s Parish,
Castlepollard,
Co. Westmeath
Actions and consequences
Dear Editor,
I agree with Fr John McCallion that Fr Gabriel Burke has done his job and I thank him for it. On the other hand I do not agree with Deacon Frank Browne’s statement that Fr Burke has “undermined all of us in ministry who want to create a more inclusive Church that welcomes all”.
Minister of State Colm Burke was not being made unwelcome to attend the funeral. Rather it was he who created the issue in presenting for Holy Communion when he had already been refused before on, reportedly, two occasions.
It was rather convenient that a photographer was present to take the up-close photograph. The Minister was not simply a supporter of abortion, the slaughter of the innocents in the womb, but an active promoter in voting for it to be legalised.
Deacon Browne asks if politicians should “legislate for the few who share their values or the many they serve”. I would contend that legislators have a duty to support the common good and what serves their people best and it certainly cannot be said that abortion does either.
Yours etc.,
Mary Stewart,
Donegal Town,
Co. Donegal.
When God’s mercy is absent
Dear Editor,
The public discourse following the recent RTE programme on Bishop Eamonn Casey, is regrettably lacking in mercy.
It is quite astonishing how many, describing themselves as Catholics are willing to launch into a tirade about him without any mention of forgiveness, the very essence of the Gospels and our most basic prayers: “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive …” and “I detest my sins above every other evil …”
Pointing the finger at someone is not the way of Jesus. He told us “Do not judge”. Doing so only gets us embroiled in a Pharisaic ‘holier-than-thou’ mentality of condemnation.
Television made Bishop Eamonn Casey into a celebrity, a cleric that was ‘modern’, ‘open’ ‘with it’ and then spectacularly he was pulled down from this pedestal, amid much gloating over the scandal uncovered.
Each of us must ask ourselves: How long shall we cling to our outrage and our identity as victims, and its associated unhappiness? Only God’s mercy can unburden us and set us free.
Yours etc.,
Gearóid Duffy,
Lee Road, Cork.
RTE’s blatant bias
Dear Editor,
RTE’s Liveline programme has spent the whole week lambasting the Catholic Church, its doctrine and its traditions.
Every single caller spoke out against the Catholic Church. This level of bias would not be allowed in any other country. RTE and Liveline have a long history of prolonged programmes condemning the Catholic Church.
If such programmes were aired about Muslims or any other religion there would be an outcry and it could be labelled hate speech.
RTE should apologise for this programme.
Yours etc.,
John F. Hyland,
Killiney, Co. Dublin.