InnocentIII:
Although other children are mentioned as having been “banned” no other parent is interviewed. Thus the entire story is presented through the prism of this one parent who appears to have a particular axe to grind and who appears to have been the one to have involved the media in the first place.
This priest has canned 300 students based on a computer algorithm. I guess one way to say it is he has used technology efficiently to assist in pastoral duties. One database query and we get a nice list of who to dismiss to make the problem go away.
You are right we haven’t heard the priest’s side of the story directly.
Therefore in all charity, a charity which you clearly are not prepared to extend to the priest, we all need to step back and avoid delivering personal criticisms either about priest or parent.
LOL you sound so funny. “In all charity, which you are clearly not prepared to extend…”
Do you know what you sound like? “Gee Alan,
I’m going to say this in a loving way because I have judged you as unwilling to be loving.” How cute you are when you get that way.
On the issue (completely apart from the personalities involved) I speak with some knowledge as an RE teacher in the Catholic System. Many parents send their children to catholic Schools or CCD programs as a matter of form, while discouraging any true connection to the Church. Here in Australia, parents are required to attend the pre-sacrament courses with their children, and in some dioceses are required to show regular attendance at a parish.
This is God’s way of giving His Church access to these children even when the parents aren’t keeping up their end. If they go to church, they might find out that some people are not indifferent to their faith. Where are they going to learn that when they are at home because the Church and their parents are having a tug-of-war?
In theory, we should be able to evangelise the child separate from the parents but in reality the children pay more heed to their parent’s actions than to the words of the CCD or RE class. In its document “The Catholic School at the Threshold of the Third Millenium” the Congregation for Catholic Education says
Yes, and they’d do better if they all got to bed on time, ate right, had a certain IQ and a lot of other things. You work with what you have. Nobody says the parents shouldn’t be involved.
The priest is certainly NOT hindering the child from receiving the sacraments of the Church, he is however making clear to the parents that they should not delegate the education of their child but should be actively involved in it.
No he’s not actually denied sacraments, only the preparations for them. He’s denied Catholic education.
The child’s situation is sad but that does not absolve the parents of their responsibility, nor the priest’s responsibility to encourage the parents to take that responsibility seriously. If the priest denied the child absolution, communion, or baptism I would agree with you, but in this case I think you are making a mountain out of a molehill and using the child to make an emotional argument rather than a reasoned one.
OK, then let’s hear some of that reasoning.
So far all I’ve heard as to why it’s good for children to withhold spiritual education is that is teaches them a lesson that We’re Not Just Kidding about going to Mass. This is a worldly mentality, plain and simple.
Tell me how the children are better off spiritually, then come back and tell me how many of the 300 people the computer kicked out are so much better fed. Explain to me how the Church, acting under Jesus’s charge to Feed My Sheep, is justified in this sort of thing.
By “emotional instead of reasoned” I suppose you mean that because I am on the side of continuing to minister to children who may be as spiritual orphans without good Catholic parents’ role models, then I’ll take the charge. If you mean that my argument is flawed, then please explain to me how any teaching of the Christ of His Church “logically” leads to the conclusion that you would use children as leverage against their own parents. That is abortive mentality to the mystical family of Christ.
Wow. Where are all the “absolutists” when I need them?
Now, you have said that I am being unloving toward the priest, that parents are slackers, and that I am arguing emotionally instead of logically. My logic includes both theological and mystical reasoning. I’m still waiting for a justification stronger than “IT’S THEIR FAULT NOT OURS” to excuse our misplaced aggression toward the parents. You are welcome to try to prove me wrong; that’s OK if you do because I’d rather stand corrected than stand wrong.
Also I do not deny this priest his right to conduct his affairs however he sees fit. Maybe I can benefit from it by writing software for him.
Alan
