basically my point.I went to public school and I did not like it…I send my kids to Catholic school and we love it. I really think you are demeaning and generalizing all Catholic schools…I’m sure some are better than others. Just like anything… You are Catholic bashing…nothing new, I hear Catholic bashing a lot, it’s a pasttime of some.
Exactly. He is painting with a broad brush.
This is what is referred to as jumping to conclusions. Catholics are the only group I’ve experienced that wear their feelings on their shoulder regarding Catholic schooling. That does not say that all Catholic schools are bad, nor does it mean that this Catholic school I’m talking about is bad. It seems that Catholics have a culture that is disfunctional and aren’t able to seen it. The rest of us, converts and allm see the inconsistencies in the bahavior of the many Catholics. Logically, you make no sense, you’ve jumped to a conclusion accusing me of Catholic bashing. I’m a Catholic, long liniage of Catholics. The reasons I left many years ago is from recognizing these same inconsistencies and coming to believe that this was evidence for the Catholic Church not being the “one true Church” that Christ founded. My in-laws teach that the Catholic Church drove them [Churches of Christ - “the only true Christians”] underground and they were able to gain ground after the reformation and it took time to “restore” the “true church”. This is their belief and at that time in my life it made sense. I was headed back to the seminary to be a catalyst for change in the mentality of the politically motivated bishops that buried my case under scandal to prevent me from speaking out against the abuses I experienced. It wasn’t until 2002 that my offending priest admitted to molesting me. So, if I sound like I have a bone to pick, you bet ya, not because I want to see the Catholic Church crumble but to see it triumph in holiness. My appeal to the masses of CAtholics that defend no matter what inspite of the writing being on the wall is to beg for “transformation”. Defend the Church but not the poor actions of people in the Catholic Church that continue to be catalysts agains improving a seemingly broken system. The Church is protected from falling but not from having sinners in our ranks. My wife and I love the Church and our clergy. But would you be willing to allow your bishop to change diapers? First, it’s bazaar to say because of the culture and their vocation. But Catholics don’t get this concept. The orthodox do because they have married clergy. It is parents that should be in charge of their children’s education, not some guy that has never raised a child. It takes more than books to know how to raise a child. It takes a village in a sense, as that woman we love to bash says. That’s actually a Catholic concept.
Again, painting with a broad brush is excactly the consistent accussation I run into. This is a poor excuse for not being able to come up with evidence that contradicts what I’m revealing from my own experience so far. The principal in our case should have reconsidered the teacher that is anti-Catholic. you’ve twisted this to be something else, I’m talking about CCD. And you, with your pride have decided to defend your closed mind. Does this reflect a closed heart too? It appears to be so and is the reason the Church is in absolute termoil. Why you and others like you don’t recognize this is beyond me, but not beyond God in His infinite wisdom. Why would you defend bad actions? The same reason when I desperately sought help after being molested from the only source I knew to me, laity surrounding me. The priest just swept my case under the carpet and made excuses for the priest. As my only sergeant major used to tell us in the ranks chewing us out, “there ain’t no right way to do wrong”.
your experiences are apparently better than others. I’m not the only one with problems. And further I believe you already know this but aren’t willing to openly discuss the problems others have maybe overstated. Besides, we’re talking about CCD, not Catholic schools. I may have gone off on a tangent, but that’s not our problem anymore. Our particular Public school.
killing the messenger is not very nice and reeks of hatred towards me because I’m willing to talk about my bad experiences. This line of discussion seems to always be my experience from those that want to make me shutup and/or to make themselves feel better, whether its because they’re a Texas Aggie, Texas Longhorn, Sooner, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Penn State, or whatever organization they belong to. After working with Aggies as much over the past 2 decades I find them to be very closed minded to supporting others from other schools. They typically try to load the deck or staff in this case with Aggies or LSU Tigers or whatever. Guess you can see what part of the states I live around. This is poor favoritism bahavior. In my case, our new director hates Texas Aggies and is quite verbose about it. I find him to be just as obnoxious because he’s a Texas Tech graduate doing the same ole same ole. Schools are one thing, religions are another. Keep them separate because one institution has a promise to stand even against the gates of hell, but the other does not. Catholic schools are NOT a religion, they are an institution designed for a particular purpose that should still continue, but only if it does the right things. Allowing the marginalization or ill treatment of young children is not their purpose and those children should be defended from bad people. It’s much easier to kill the messenger and ignore others pain than to actually do something about it, like offer up encouragement and prayer. Or did you even think to pray for us at all because of your anger towards my openly discussing my experience? I’m Catholic, not Protestant anymore. My wife and I gave up family to become Catholic. Did you give up your family? Probably not.
Probably where you should have stopped is here. Because the following comment is just ourragiously insulting.
This is where you crossed the line and is hateful talk. Are you one of those Catholics that hate converts to Catholicism? I’ve met them on here. Such a judgmental point of view too without considering the consequences of your actions either. I’ll pray for your conversion of heart. Pray for me too and drop the hateful accusations towards me please .
Show me where I said that all Catholic schools are the same. PLEASE, get off your high horse. Just because you are having a good experience is not a reason to bash me and falsely accuse me of “Catholic bashing”. This sounds almost like when the Pharisees [teachers of the law] accused Jesus of doing Satan’s evil works. The particular school we send our teen is significantly different than your most likely. He was taking 13 classes compared to 8 semester hours. Most of the teachers weren’t paid or certified and the school was pushing towards making a higher grade on the SAT instead of teaching. The irony of this is that they were teaching to the test as I’ve heard public school teachers accused of so much. This was a very different setup. The huge Catholic school down the road also called a college prep school is no better than our particular Public school academically speaking. But it is a publically known fact that the durg situation is far worse at that particular private school as in many. Why? Because not all of the children that attend these schools are sending them to be holy. They are sending them for the prestige and easy convenience of getting Catachesis out of the way instead of on a week night or Sunday CCD program. Nothing wrong with that. But when the Catholic school children are placed above the CCD children that’s where I draw the line. No Catholic school attending child should ever be treated above a CCD attending student. Someone has to bring the good news to the world, Catholic school Children are hiding in their closets in a sense, but that is also necessary I believe. I’m sorry if you find another way to bash me for speaking so openly truthful about this message. This seems to be the crux of the matter. Who is greater than who? They should be treated fairly…the same. But neither should be treated so aweful by adults. It’s not the Catholic Church that is beating these children up. It’s the parents, teachers, principals and DREs. Children need examples to follow. And if is their example, then shame on them for setting such a poor example. Have you ever wondered why 50% of Catholic students that attend Catholic schools fall away from Catholicism compared to the 25% of Catholic students that attend public schools? Somethings wrong here. I believe it is the adults faults, not the children.
This is where you crossed the line and is hateful talk. Are you one of those Catholics that hate converts to Catholicism? I’ve met them on here. Such a judgmental point of view too without considering the consequences of your actions either. I’ll pray for your conversion of heart. Pray for me too and drop the hateful accusations towards me please .
Actually, I am a convert…I don’t think I’m being hateful, it seems to me you are generalizing and you do seem extremely angry…I didn’t insult another religion or my religion, it seemed to me like you were insulting people that go to Catholic schools…sorry if i misread you
Let me clarify. The principal that owned the school and not under the bishop had children that were cheating on the exams. That is what appauled us. Not that they were behind. I avoided saying this clearly for a reason, but realize it came across the wrong way. It wasn’t even that they were cheating it was his defending them that irritated us. Some of the teachers obviously had problems as well with how things were being run. Those teachers were volunteers. Over all I think its a great school, but the principal constantly threatened to eliminate the students saying that he could only keep 3 or 4 out of 8 students. It was abusive. The state would consider this abusive. And the law suites against him became evident very quickly because of the way he thinks. Our pastor, who is very supportive of Catholic schools, even said it was a wise choice to remove him. The big Catholic school down the road has a reputation for drug problems. I’m more interested in our children’s spiritual life than their academic performance or opportunities that result from attending such schools. That is worldly thinking and we reject it. I’m proud of my son for speaking up so boldly against this sinful behavior. He refused to help another student cheat on an exam and she turned to another student to do it for her…grading each others tests. The atmosphere would have probably been better in a different college preparatory school. But we were avoiding moving him around so much for his own stability. The child comes first. Besides he’s back in school in honors, playing football like he wanted with his friends from the boys he grew up with from the elementary school our next child attends and our youngest attends next year. This particular elementary school is the best in the area and happens to be as good as any good private school, if not better. It’s an exculusive community. No, we’re not wealthy, but we are rich in love and happened to find a fixer up home in a very nice community. That’s how we made here. I did demographic research when I chose where to move, based on schools mostly. We have an unusually high population of asians along with a normal balance of the other racial and ethnic groups. But the underlying decision was based on performance on the testing. We are the only exemplary school in our area. The reason is the parental involvement in the public school that supports the teachers and administration like family. We have the best of the best of teachers. There are lines of people trying to transfer their children to our school. The waiting period if openings become available is estemated to be at least 2 years now. This school is a good as a private Christian Academy we send our oldest to once because of the public school we used to be part of. You see, I realize it depends on which schools you send your children to. Have you ever run across a teacher that says they know on the first day which students will be good and which ones won’t based on the way they look and act on the first day of class? No a very nice way to make decisions. Those teachers end up giving that student they pick on a very hard time and try to get rid of them if they can up front. We’re experiencing the same in my wife’s school with new twisted thinking teachers who probably won’t last long because of this attitude towards children…that said from watching many of them get fired. Just like parents, teachers are now being held accountable for whether or not they can effectively manage classrooms.
My anger is only because of the children being treated as second rate citizens of Rome.Actually, I am a convert…I don’t think I’m being hateful, it seems to me you are generalizing and you do seem extremely angry
I’m not insulting any religion, just trying to bring awareness of a problem that definely exists. I do not insult people that take their children to schools and especially I do NOT insult the children. The children aren’t the problem as some of you guys have attempted to insinuate. If anyone it is the teachers that aren’t doing a good job of policing the children. But even then where is the charity? No one is perfect. “let him who has no sin cast the first stone”. I’m saying that if a parish offers CCD it should treat the students that attend CCD with equal respect and equal belonging to the same classroom. The parents are usually ignorant of what’s actually taking place and most of them are subject to poor public schools where they live. I happen to live in an area with good public schools ironically run by mostly practicing Protestants - some are Catholic too. People generalize on the public schools too you know. I know I can’t throw out all of the Catholic schools. I’m not. I’m defending a principal of equal treatment under the law… this case the “law of the Church”. If an institution offers a program I expect them to be just and fair about its distribution. If Catholics don’t want the children to learn, which feels true sometimes, then not doing anything is the best course of action. That’s my point. Please don’t defend those that are afraid to do the right thing. I know it’ll never be perfect, but we must try at least.As you earlier imply, it can be difficult to discuss issues on line through forums, because communication is MORE based upon inflection of voice and gestures, rather than the actual words. It is very difficult to catch these by passing notes back and forth. The “smilies” can be helpful if you are being sarcastic or teasing or want to include your thoughts that may be similar to a “gesture” when talking face to face. If people misunderstand you here, you can always explain what you meant - those who understand how this forum work will understand, as we all have written something taken out of context or misunderstood…
)Dude,