Does any one remember

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Sorry I wasn’t alive then either.

But as the bumper stickers say,

“As long as there are tests in school, there will be prayer in school.”
 
One of the reasons Catholic schools were started in the US was so that Catholic students wouldn’t have to participate in prayers led by Protestants in public schools.

We have gone beyond the days when one could assume that one’s neighbor was some kind of Christian–at least culturally.

How would the people who post here feel about Abdullah Salib leading his classmates in prostrations towards Mecca and beginnging “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate…”?

Or Indira Patil burning incense to Vishnu and reading from the Bhagavad Gita?

Or Stardancer, whose Wiccan parents have abandoned surnames as being patriarchal, leading a few rousing choruses of “We all come from the goddess”?

In other words, where did you get the idea that prayer in public schools would necessarily be Christian ones? (I will admit, I have met a few who assumed that; they quickly saw my point.)

Do you want your children being forced to participate in non-Christian devotions at a public school?
 
dixibehr said:
One of the reasons Catholic schools were started in the US was so that Catholic students wouldn’t have to participate in prayers led by Protestants in public schools.

We have gone beyond the days when one could assume that one’s neighbor was some kind of Christian–at least culturally.

How would the people who post here feel about Abdullah Salib leading his classmates in prostrations towards Mecca and beginnging “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate…”?

Or Indira Patil burning incense to Vishnu and reading from the Bhagavad Gita?

Or Stardancer, whose Wiccan parents have abandoned surnames as being patriarchal, leading a few rousing choruses of “We all come from the goddess”?

In other words, where did you get the idea that prayer in public schools would necessarily be Christian ones? (I will admit, I have met a few who assumed that; they quickly saw my point.)

Do you want your children being forced to participate in non-Christian devotions at a public school?
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Thanks for your answer but I was asking for the year pray was out of school
 
dixibehr said:
One of the reasons Catholic schools were started in the US was so that Catholic students wouldn’t have to participate in prayers led by Protestants in public schools.

We have gone beyond the days when one could assume that one’s neighbor was some kind of Christian–at least culturally.

How would the people who post here feel about Abdullah Salib leading his classmates in prostrations towards Mecca and beginnging “In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate…”?

Or Indira Patil burning incense to Vishnu and reading from the Bhagavad Gita?

Or Stardancer, whose Wiccan parents have abandoned surnames as being patriarchal, leading a few rousing choruses of “We all come from the goddess”?

In other words, where did you get the idea that prayer in public schools would necessarily be Christian ones? (I will admit, I have met a few who assumed that; they quickly saw my point.)

Do you want your children being forced to participate in non-Christian devotions at a public school?
Click to expand...
I was going to a Cathloic school lone B4 pray was taken out
 
I remember once hearing “as long as they teach math, there will always be prayer in schools”. I never had any trouble with math, so I guess I was prayer-challenged during my school years 🙂

I am Catholic. Proudly, totally, absolutely CATHOLIC. Catholics have access to an active prayer life as part of their faith, whether or not their children go to a Catholic school. Prayer and faith should not be the province of the schools. It is the province of the family as well as the individual and we need to do our jobs in that regard.

I submit that, although I personally believe prayer is very important to every individual, this is not an area where we should use whatever resources we have available to do good. Faith and prayer is the province of the Church and all of us as members of the Church. In this time where government is inserting itself into all manner of places where it does not belong, we need to remember that we do not want government inserting itself into even MORE places it doesn’t belong.

We all need an active prayer life, that’s a given. We do not need or want this prayer life to be dictated or controlled in any way by the government. School prayer is, by definition, prayer controlled by the government. We do not need to argue about school prayer.

What we need to do is pray.
 
I was in the sixth grade in 1962. I believe we continued to say the Lords prayer every morning, because in Maryland I believe the law was being challenged in court. There may have been an injunction that delayed its enactment in Maryland public schools.

The next year, we began having a moment of silence. That lasted a few years I think, and then came the thought police law, which held that a moment of silence is unconstitutional.

Something that many people are not quite aware of is that both houses of Congress have never stopped opening each session with a prayer. They have no trouble with hearing opening prayers, by various clerics. Some are christian, some jewish, and there may be others who do the invocation.

I hope there is still a chance to bring back an ecumenical opening prayer for public education. Crime would go down, I am very sure of that.

be good now,

Vincent
 
geometer said:
I was in the sixth grade in 1962. I believe we continued to say the Lords prayer every morning, because in Maryland I believe the law was being challenged in court. There may have been an injunction that delayed its enactment in Maryland public schools.

The next year, we began having a moment of silence. That lasted a few years I think, and then came the thought police law, which held that a moment of silence is unconstitutional.
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This is what I remember, too. I attended public elementary school and wondered why only some of the students made the sign of the cross, and why the others said the Doxology at the end of the Lord’s Prayer.
 
"When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward.

But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.

In praying, do not babble like the pagans, who think that they will be heard because of their many words.

Do not be like them. Your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

Matthew 6:5-8
 
lol I have to laugh at it. Back when I was a protestant, and before that, in school we always had “Moment of Silence” and what’s hilarious is all our teachers, except very few, would say something along the lines of “Bow your heads in prayer” and they never specified what type of religious prayer, but I am pretty sure that they meant a Christian prayer, since the school had never had anything but Christian Teachers, and probably around 95% of the students were Christian.
 
David makes a good point, even if he is an atheist.

When we pray the way Our Lord taught in the gospels, no-one would even know.

Back in the day when I was in high school, we had a prayer over the intercom every day, and they were never the Our Father, nope they were Baptist “Dear Heavenly Father…in Jesus’ name Aymin” type prayers. This was many years after 1962, a long time.

These prayers were, preaching, proseletyzing prayers. Never once was an Our Father, Hail Mary, or any other litugical prayer allowed.

The preaching prayers were directly the opposite from what Our Lord said. He said go into your closet and pray to the Father in secret, do not be like the Pharisees and pray loudly, on the street corners for eveyone to hear, they have already had their reward.

Honestly I am a little surprised to see this in a Catholic context, this complaint about “outlawing prayer” usually comes from right wing Protestants, who complain their “right” to pray verbally will end their attempt to Proselystise Catholics away form their faith and get them “saved”.

And of prayer was never taken from the schools or outlawed, just the preaching Protestant prayers that everyone was forced to listen to, and I for one am glad to see them go.
 
pipper said:
And of prayer was never taken from the schools or outlawed, just the preaching Protestant prayers that everyone was forced to listen to, and I for one am glad to see them go.
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At our schools, we recited the Lords prayer. the catholic children were not required to say the magnificat after reciting the Our father. “For thyn is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory”, is still part of catholic littergy in catholic churches were I grew up. Those words are part of catholic prayer, but they were moved, so they are heard a bit later in the service.
 
Actually the part “for thine is the Kingdom” is called the Doxology, and in the Mass it follows a part said by the Priest alone.

“Deliver us Lord from every evil, grant us peace in our day…”
 
pipper said:
Actually the part “for thine is the Kingdom” is called the Doxology, and in the Mass it follows a part said by the Priest alone.
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Well, it may be the Doxology but is called a magnificat by Mother Angelica. I myself have no axe to grind, and I don’t know latin. Latin is central to a lot of magical controversy in the history of europe. Medical pathologies get latin names, its offputting…
 
I was in public school. After the ban we still had morning prayer & Bible reading. Eventually it stopped of course. It was in the Southern US. Folks here did not complaine that the law was being ignored. Some public schools still have Bible clubs & gosple choirs. These are largely in the Negro communities. I think it great they will stand up like this. No one makes a big deal about it so they go about their business unmolested.
 
I live near a black University campus and one of the professors tells me that the students are very prayerful, and say prayers quite often in their classes.
 
geometer said:
Well, it may be the Doxology but is called a magnificat by Mother Angelica. I myself have no axe to grind, and I don’t know latin. Latin is central to a lot of magical controversy in the history of europe. Medical pathologies get latin names, its offputting…
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I don’t want to argue with you really, but the Magnificat in the Book Of Common prayer starts like this, I know because I was Novice and we sang it daily.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, My Saviour. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his hand maiden”.

Magnify is english for Maginificat.

And I know the BCP is Episcopalian instead of Catholic, but it sure is purty, ain’t it>:D

In latin it says “Magnificat anima mei Dominum”.
 
pipper said:
I don’t want to argue with you really, but the Magnificat in the Book Of Common prayer starts like this, I know because I was Novice and we sang it daily.

“My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, My Saviour. For he hath regarded the lowliness of his hand maiden”.

Magnify is english for Maginificat.

And I know the BCP is Episcopalian instead of Catholic, but it sure is purty, ain’t it>:D

In latin it says “Magnificat anima mei Dominum”.
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Well, the Episcopalians and Anglicans have had prayer in English for a very long time 😃 whereas Catholics had to hurry up and translate (and some, including my Pastor would say they did a “clumsy” job of it!) several decades ago. So of course their English is purty 🙂
 
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