We often get stories about Catholic schools and how they have
deviated from the faith in what I call Catholic
Identity Theft. So it is not
often you see a story with a headline "College
too Catholic." In fact this is the first one I have ever seen.
STUDENTS at Bexley’s first sixth form college are in revolt because
they claim their Roman Catholic college is too Catholic.
Nearly a third of the students at St Luke’s College, Chislehurst
Road, Sidcup, have protested to headteacher Maria Williams, likening practices
at the college
to "fanatical religious cults".
The 16 to 18-year-olds claim they are forced to attend "evangelical talks" expressing
puritanical views on subjects such as chastity and homosexuality.
They say they were made to walk around the school field carrying
a statue of the Virgin Mary singing hymns and have been hauled into the principal’s
office for holding hands off college premises and told they were a "disgrace".
I can’t believe I enrolled at a Catholic school and then actually
had to be involved in a procession. Unbelievably they even try to preach the
Gospel to us and the truths of the Catholic faith. I mean a Catholic schools
being Catholic is not what we signed up for. Why can’t our school be like so
many other Catholic schools, I mean it’s not fair!
Another student said: "Although we accepted by going to
a Catholic college we would be signing up to the Catholic ethos, we had no
idea we were also joining an institution which embraced many values present
within many fanatical religous cults.
One of their complaints is about a mandatory talk given at the
school by Barbara McGuigan. She is the host of EWTN’s Open Line on Tuesdays
and founder of Voice of Virtue International. I listen to her shows and she
is wonderfully pro-life, a good speaker, and able to talk on the issue with
clarity and charity. I guess these truths were just too much for some students.
29 comments
Warning: This school is actually and fully Catholic. Students who think that undiluted Catholicism constitutes a fanatical cult should think twice about attending.
I used to teach a mandatory religion class at a Catholic university. The students ALWAYS protested it, saying they had better things to do. The majority frequently had little or no comptence in Scripture or Church history.
By the way, does anyone know about St. Michael’s College in Vermont? What is the bishop doing to make it a Catholic college?
I dunno – the ‘holding hands’ bit sounds rather questionable. And, if premarital interdigitation is a disgrace, then it may well be that their talks on chastity are fanatical – not necessarily so, but it lends credibility to such a claim.
Though, the rest of the article does less than inspire confidence in the student body regarding their accusations of religious fanaticism. (‘elp! ‘elp! I’m honoring the Blessed Virgin!)
Pretty funny… too Catholic, yet is “evangelical” and “puritanical?” C’mon, kids, what denomination is it?!
Perhaps the students would be better off at an Episcopal school. They would no doubt learn how to practice “safe” interdigitation!
Laura beat me to the punch on the denominational blurring, but…
Deirdre:
If the place is as bad as these kids dramatize it to be, then maybe the principal is concerned about students attending daily mass at a nearby parish and holding hands during the Pater Noster or shortly thereafter.
No, I don’t think so, either.
I like the “holding hands” comment. I teach at a public school and have sent students to the office for “just holding hands” – between their legs, while one was sitting on the other’s lap, in the middle of the hall – and did I mention these were boys?
Where can I sign my kids up for this school?
Seriously, I don’t believe the “just holding hands” thing either. I’m in my twenties, and I remember what we thought was “just holding hands” in high school – it usually involved holding hands while sitting on the other’s lap, kisses, groping, etc.
So a third of the students don’t like hearing the fullness of faith and truth? The amazing thing is that this is a Catholic College that’s actually worthy of the name, though with the help of the media that may not last very long.
If this is true, I suspose we are in a time of such poor parental education that St. Paul’s words in 2 Timothy ring true. “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but wtih itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from the listening to the truth and wander into myths.(2 Timothy 4:3-4)”
Let us hope and pray that the people in charge of this college continue to stand strong for the faith in the midst of this “rebellion” against the faith.
This is like people who join the military to get a free education, and then protest when they have to go to war…
Caveat Emptor
Via Jeff Miller comes the story of a school where the students are complaining. Students complain at every school, so how is this newsworthy? Simple: the students are complaining that the school is too Catholic.
I’ve heard a lot of complaints ab…
Being an Alum of Xavier University in Cincinnati, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.
As I look back on the Theology that I took, I realize now that there were many things that I didn’t learn that I wish that I was more exposed to.
Like The Rosary,Fatima, St. Gertrude The Greats prayer for those in purgatory and The Chaplet of Divine Mercy.
One of these days I think I will write to the current president of old XU and ask why not?
Heh, I think I’m going to apply to that college, sounds like a good place..
these guys deserve to get excommunicated. There going to end up in hell anyways, lets take the unneccesary suspense. Mercy is for those who ask for it… THEY DON”T EVEN WANT TO HONOR THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!
Decapitatem illos
(i hope i said it right)
They’ll be the kids of parents who are, themselves, only nominally Catholic. I wonder why they bother sending them to a Catholic school.
How DOES one measure Catholicity?
Here’s a school that is said to be “too Catholic”.
I recall a few years ago when my neighbor’s son was rejected for membership in the parish Cub Scouts because he was “not Catholic enough”. Last week, this not-Catholic-enough young man was asked by the Bishop to be the spokesman for this year’s Confirmation Class during the Confirmation Mass. His short address sounded more Catholic than many of the utterances of the pastor.
I’m proud to be the Chair of Governors of this College. I have written a letter to the Editor of the News Shopper in reply to the article.
…And I’m even more proud to have just been appointed to teach RE there from September. The atmosphere and ethos is underpinned by the Catechism of the Catholic Church. If St Luke’s is “too Catholic” then what does that make the Holy Father?
Mac,
My prayers and best wishes go with you; it seems that you’ll have your work cut out, although you’ll probably have the principal on your side.
Great school, great atmosphere, great Catholicism and great people. This non-sense is being ‘stirred’ by some with their own anti-Catholic agenda no-doubt.
My girls will be going there within the next thre-four years that’s for sure.
PS – Barbara McGuigan is a fantastic CATHOLIC speaker.
Thanks for the prayers Mary C. Not only will I have the Principal right behind me, I’ll have the support of all the senior team. It’s what attracted me to the College in the first place. Yes, it will be hard work: the Principal told me that the devil is bound to want to fight back!
I go to that college, and I have been to two previous, catholic schools. I was very involved in helping out at masses and did not have a problem. The headline college to catholic, is not what we meant when we wrote to the paper, students and TEACHERS including the whole of the RE department are against a ‘twisted’ form of Catholicism to quote one of my teachers. So you just wait, it is far more than just a few I can assure you and you will see in due course!!!!!!!
Oh just to add the holding hands thing is true and were not even on school premises you don�t go there so how would you all know, I invite you to come and see for yourselves bet you wont though!!!!!
Oh just to add the holding hands thing is true and were not even on school premises you don�t go there so how would you all know, I invite you to come and see for yourselves bet you wont though!!!!!
Reading your comments, some of you are actually quite sick, were all going to hell because we are standing up for what we believe in. It is these sort of arguments that we are fighting against. I want to thank you for giving us more ammunition in our fight against this sort of thinking!!! : )
What you need to ask is the most vital question, there are hundreds of catholic colleges out there, this one had no incidents of stabbings or riots or anything of the sort, why is this one protesting? Do you expect eighteen year olds to be idiots, do you think all of them are spoiled brats who are whining for going to mass? And yes, you do have the principal on your side because not even the deacon or the Chaplin agree with the college, so good luck. There is no God in there. The devil hides itself in many ways, and this is exactly how he does it, so clever as to disguise himself in the will of God and turn young people away from the Church, needless to say, I do not recommend you send your children there if you care for their souls at least. Thank you people for supporting her and the ways of this college, you are doing the Catholic Chruch So many favours
All my Love
The Devil
Hey there.
Right first of all, the holding hands rule is true.
We are not even supposed to hug each other.
A female friend of mine hugged me to say hello and we were reprimanded by the principle.
A male friend of mine hugged me in thanks for returning something he had lost and the same thing happened.
At the college we are adults, we have respect for each other and ourselves, as such I have never seen anyone blatantly making out or groping each other.
We are not hormone driven teenagers.
The most I have ever seen is hugs/kisses on cheeks/ and sitting on people�s laps, (usually in group conversations.)
Barbara McGuigan was crying as graphic images of abortion were shown.
She has probably viewed this many times and it obviously still distresses her.
Imagine the impact on impressionable young adults, as they cannot unwatch such things.
There are in fact certain students who due to mentality should not have been subjected to it.
Students would have appreciated been told of the more gruesome subject matter, some students were very disturbed.
However since all she is trying to do is to spread the love I commend her for that.
A comment earlier on offended me slightly, as it seemed homophobic. This is indeed unsettling in this day and age, granted public displays of affection as aforementioned should be dealt with, but without discrimination of sexuality.
When I first started the college we were all told racism and homophobias wouldn’t be tolerated which I completely agreed with.
This comment upset me the most: “these guys deserve to get excommunicated. There going to end up in hell anyways, lets take the unnecessary suspense. Mercy is for those who ask for it… THEY DON”T EVEN WANT TO HONOR THE HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!!!!!!!!!!!”
God is love, God is forgiveness and God is acceptance, we are young people and only just beginning to ask important questions about faith.
I hardly think this is the right kind of attitude.
“There going to end up in hell anyways” (wrong spelling �They�re.)
You are talking about my friends, the people I love and care about.
They are good people who do have respect for religion.
I doubt that God would wish his Catholic followers to condemn, if you will, people to hell.
The upsetting comment I suppose does sound immature.
Belief shouldn’t be forced onto a person that just causes all sorts of problems.
I have attended Catholic schools and Church all my life, so I know what to expect.
The college has good and bad points but that�s the same as anywhere.
xXx
If you want your children to be called sluts by the principal and treated with contempt by her then locked in when there is a mass, forcing believers to feel the contempt of non-believers then by all means, turn them away from Catholic Church, your beliefs are of no consequence to me but I�m sure you care about your own children�s. To be forced to attend abortion talks and not allowed to leave when they are being called evil for being homosexual or having abortions, perhaps some of you agree? Although the Catholic Church hardly resort to calling individuals evil, which is why the terms “evangelical” and “puritanical” are used, so their use of language is correct and not misguided, it’s hardly Catholic at all, Catholicism is associated to us as based within reason and tradition I am shamed to be labelled with the term Catholic on my person with people like you. Hardly any of you can question that there is more than one type of Catholic, those who preach and force the fires of hell unto any unsuspecting persons under their will and those who are more gentle in showing the light of Jesus.
And how dare you question the claim that a couple were just holding hands. Just because their young doesnt mean they’d grope outside the school gates, Lord, there’s a motorway outside the school they would have been giving a right show, it was also witnessed by my peers that they had done nothing wrong except for talking lovingly holding each others hands, because you know, some young adults are actually not interfering with each other non-stop, I personally think this stems from your own experiences of being less than chaste, so go to confession instead of spraying your own guilt on innocent people. How dare you tell us to go to hell and judge us and laugh at us behind our backs, you are like gossiping children, turning your nose up against us. I tell you this for your own good, you’ll have to answer to God for your pride, the only thing I have to answer for is my conscience.
Let’s see.
What are you guys missing.
You all seem to have overlooked the fact that the students are saying, and not just some, a 3rd of them, that they were forced to go to “pro-life” talks. Now you never see any mention of the other side of it, what about pro choice? Did it slip Maria Williams mind that the 16-18 year olds who should have every single aspect of life, choice and decision laid out for them to see clearly, that they should be able to choose at this vital stage in their lives where they are going and what ethics they should take on board, thay they should get to see both sides of it. Personally, I don’t like having things hidden from me. At all, and I’m sure noone does like having other possibilities hidden from them. Like at a superstore, theres fruit there, but its all bashed, and the better ones are round the back. Hiding.
Im sure all of you would be angry if someone forced you to do something. If they forced you to become Taoists, I’m sure you’d be mighty pissed off. “My lord, this heathen religion is just about eating barley and wheat.” or if someone forced you to sit and watch movies or made you listen to music you don’t want to hear.
Moreover, To Mac, Tim Finigan, “Nobody” and Miss Jean.
You people…..you people crack me up. You homophobic, slanderous, assuming, life consuming rapists of peoples freedom and will.
In the beginning the word was God, then you guys took over.
And fucked it up.
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