US president undermines Catholic schools after Vatican Prefect praised them

[LoyalViews]

Oh, look, let’s run through the history if you really want. I can make a shot at justifying English/Scottish/British policy in Ireland over the past 800 years if you like, but I’d really rather not, my heart isn’t in it. The history isn’t your problem, it’s the weight on the shoulders of the people who live there: leave it be, it’s bad enough already.
As to self-serving, well where did you get that from? Self-serving to me would be if Britain no longer had to subsidise NI so heavily, if British soldiers no longer had to die for public order in NI, if my very close relatives in the armed forces were not likely to be the target at any minute of the latest splinter of the IRA, if my friends who were within inches of death in the London bombings no longer face that threat. Don’t give me self-serving: what do you know about it? Why do you think the British government didn’t manage to get out of Ireland a hundred years ago when it tried? We’re attempting to prevent civil war, we in Britain and our close friends in the Republic, so don’t play St Patrick’s Day games with me.
As to your points about how much the Catholic faith means to its holders in terms of their identity, I agree with you absolutely. If it didn’t matter, the difference in faith wouldn’t also be a difference in communities. No one is trying to take it away. They are trying to save the lives and futures of its children. You’re 25 per cent (or is it 12.5 per cent?) Irish? Ask your distant relations a few thousand miles to the east. I suspect they may agree with me rather than with you.

How much do I agree.

 

[manualman]

If you believe that is too much then either you do not really understand the problem or, and perhaps this is it, we are culturally too far apart. I would put those children’s safety from bomb and bullet first.

I can’t quite let it go. In most ways you seem like a sincere guy really trying to have a dialogue. But this above is just dismissive and condescending!

Everybody likes safety and child safety is indeed a handy argument trump card, but one cannot surrender to tyranny for a promise of “safety.” That’s “peace in our time” thinking and you fellas have paid more heavily in history for that mistake than we have. Please give it more thought. Doing what is good and right is always better in the long run than doing what is expedient.

 

[Nordar]

Oh my, here we go. You tell him, mate. From NY. Just don’t pretend you speak for those of us eastwards of the Pond.

I’m not pretending anything? why so nasty? I simply was repeating what my relatives and friends eastward of the pond ( as you put it) have been telling me.

 

[Slaney]

Anywhere.

And, for that matter, what freaking good did his comments in Ireland serve? They stirred up a hornet’s nest, that’s all, in a country where he had exactly zero right or need to weigh in at all. Our illustrious American Emperor just likes to hear himself talk.

I’ve seen paper bags that were more diplomatic than No-Bama.

 

[Slaney]

What in the heck is the President talking about? He has no idea what he is talking about. Its not a Catholic vs Protestant thing. Its a republican vs loyalist thing.This all a charade to promote his world view of State Uber Alles.

Holy smoke, someone that actually understands Ireland …

 

[Picky_Picky]

I can’t quite let it go. In most ways you seem like a sincere guy really trying to have a dialogue. But this above is just dismissive and condescending!

Everybody likes safety and child safety is indeed a handy argument trump card, but one cannot surrender to tyranny for a promise of “safety.” That’s “peace in our time” thinking and you fellas have paid more heavily in history for that mistake than we have. Please give it more thought. Doing what is good and right is always better in the long run than doing what is expedient.

I wasn’t suggesting surrendering to tyranny: what you had rejected was churches and education authorities coming together to find a way to integrate education.
But look:
Yesterday was a difficult day. The Web was packed with people rehearsing their weird Obama obsessions and halfwittedly or, it seemed to me on occasion deliberately, misreporting what he had said. That’s annoying. More annoying were all the usual (in this context) snarling half-truths about my own country all over the forums which I had to restrain myself from correcting because, well, (a) because unfortunately half-truths are half true! and (b) because it would derail the discussions and (c) because what N Ireland least needs now is yet another trip down Memory Lane. In the end I was just too tired and too fraught to continue “sincere dialogue”, so I chucked the iPad into the corner, poured myself a Scotch (well, Irish is so expensive) and tried to calm down. So I missed your comment above, which is a shame because you were not responsible for the things that had wound me up, and I would not have wanted to end the discussion insulting you.
Part of the problem, of course, is that I indeed do believe that segregated education in the long run costs lives - if I didn’t, why would I be making the argument? But implying that children’s safety was secondary for you was unnecessary and, I am absolutely sure, untrue. It was a cheap shot, and I ask you to accept my apologies.

 

[livingwordunity]

I view him as anti-Catholic & anti-christian… we get what we vote for, & sometimes what we don’t vote for. The Catholic Church in Ireland won’t bow to this person moralizing to Ireland when he sanctions the deaths of US citizen’s, when you get that sorted Mr Obama Sir, then comeback and moralize to us and tell us how evil we all are here, because you never fooled me or many here in Ireland who refuse to be your shoe shine boys.

It seems that Obama thinks that he’s the king of the world and not just president of the United States.

 

[saveusfromhell]

Oh my, here we go. You tell him, mate. From NY. Just don’t pretend you speak for those of us eastwards of the Pond.

why do claim to speak for us. east of the Pond.Atheists should refrain from trying to decide what way catholics educate our kids.
anyone who describes themselves from the UK living in the Ireland is obviously coming from a unionst background and extremly arogant to tell catholics to stop educating themselves as catholics.

 

[Slaney]

It seems that Obama thinks that he’s the king of the world and not just president of the United States.

We could read the body language of Mr Obama & Mr Putin a mile away, it said it all, we have our own battles here now, and i’m starting my one man battle, that is print postcards with the truth about these people, Clare Daly, Enda Kenny, Kermit Gosnell & the whole shooting murdering gallery.

There is hardly a decent party here now to vote for… I may abstain along with my family & I’ve already told the party that I voter for that my vote isn’t guaranteed, they all told me lies, their loss…

I pray the USA goes back to " In God we Trust " God should be primary, & a God fearing leader will be blessed by God, but the so-called mighty He will throw from their man-made thrones… there ye go, rant over, don’t get me started

 

[NewEnglandPriest]

From Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League:

There are plenty of reasons to be critical of President Obama’s policies as they relate to the Catholic Church, and I have not been shy in stating them. But the reaction on the part of conservatives, many of whom are Catholic, over his speech in Ireland, is simply insane. Never did Obama say he wants “an end to Catholic education.” Indeed, he never said anything critical about the nature of Catholic schools. It makes me wonder: Have any of his critics bothered to actually read his speech?

Obama was not condemning Catholic schools—he was condemning segregation. He was calling attention to the fact that where social divisions exist, the prospects for social harmony are dimmed. How can anyone reasonable disagree with this observation? Moreover, it should hardly be surprising that a black president would be sensitive to segregation, whether based on race or religion.

 

[Slaney]

From Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League:

To be fair, the school were Mr Obama went to, isn’t standing all that many years, protestant & catholic children attend, they play and study together and are taught their own faith, it seems to work well…

 

[manualman]

Picky Picky, Any guy who both appreciates Bass Ale and can do an excellent apology is OK in my book. I think we both probably get worked up on issues we feel strongly about. Beats lukewarmness any day, eh?

I’m a bit agog over Bill Donohue’s comments. Usually it’s me rolling MY eyes over his over-reactions and exaggerations. I’ve read the quote over and over again and can’t find any other way to read it other than that Obama considers the fact that catholics are educating their own children separately in their own schools to be part of the problem and that it would be an improvement if they were all schooled together. Admittedly, I’m reading into that that the STATE would be in charge of said schools and what is taught there, but it’s hardly a stretch, is it? (consider the source)

 

[Picky_Picky]

Picky Picky, Any guy who both appreciates Bass Ale and can do an excellent apology is OK in my book. I think we both probably get worked up on issues we feel strongly about. Beats lukewarmness any day, eh?

I’m a bit agog over Bill Donohue’s comments. Usually it’s me rolling MY eyes over his over-reactions and exaggerations. I’ve read the quote over and over again and can’t find any other way to read it other than that Obama considers the fact that catholics are educating their own children separately in their own schools to be part of the problem and that it would be an improvement if they were all schooled together. Admittedly, I’m reading into that that the STATE would be in charge of said schools and what is taught there, but it’s hardly a stretch, is it? (consider the source)

Well at least we can agree about my personal excellence

As to your penultimate sentence, if it read “the fact that catholics and protestants in Northern Ireland are educating” etc etc I would say that was a plausible reading of that part of his speech. As to your final sentence, and the State’s Evil Grip, I’m afraid you are too late: most Catholic schools in the UK are state-funded and state-inspected and teach the state-curriculum. I have no religion at all, but my taxes help pay for Catholic and Anglican and Muslim schools and that is no big deal here. Of course we don’t have the separation of Church and State as a constitutional principle; rather the opposite, in fact: our head of state is not inaugurated but anointed.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Can you hear the doublespeak in all the attacks on religious liberties?

 

[bojom]

Obama is practicing for when he becomes the supreme earthly ruler, self appointed

 

[oldcelt]

From Bill Donohoe of the Catholic League:

One of the rare times when I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Donohoe. This was a very poor attempt by some to create an issue where none existed, and it makes them look very small.

 

[Lochias]

The hornets nest is here in this forum, not in Northern Ireland. “zero right or need” is nonsense. Senior American politicians have played valued roles in the peace process and they are entitled and expected when in N I to push the process along.

Bollocks, horse-dung and ****-tastic. No-bama only goes to places so that he can push his own pet agendas.

 

[Picky_Picky]

Bollocks, horse-dung and ****-tastic. No-bama only goes to places so that he can push his own pet agendas.

The quality of your argument, such as it is, is not greatly enhanced by the quality of your manners.

 

[Picky_Picky]

I’m not exactly sure if he is against religious schools or segregated public schools but I think it’s always wrong for the president to consider the state and not the parents having the primary responsibility of education of children.

You may perhaps not be aware that in the United Kingdom the vast majority of religious schools are voluntarily part of the public school system, state funded and teaching the state curriculum, whether they be Roman Catholic or Anglican or Presbyterian or Jewish or Muslim or whatever. I suppose that gives us all a greater right to debate the influence of the school system on the public weal, but then I think we have that right anyway.
Of course what is being discussed here in our ongoing debate about how to add some stability to the precarious peace in Northern Ireland is not any forced amalgamation – apart from anything else, the practical effects of that would be disastrous. But it doesn’t seem too outrageous to propose that we should continue to build new integrated schools where there is a demand for them, and that churches and education authorities should be encouraged to discuss with each other ways of bringing the young people of Northern Ireland together rather than keeping them apart.

 

[LoyalViews]

Holy smoke, someone that actually understands Ireland …

YES.

You see now, this is where the end of separate schooling wouldn’t cause peace but rather bring a mightier uproar! Imagine, both loyalists AND republicans COMINGLING? INTERTWINING? That can’t possibly happen, my God no!

Of course it’d be grand, and the children might possibly get along for the most part - in fact there’s a few schools on the sidelines which are a witness to this, but, the violence and rage will that happens on ground, will be brought into the school.

Children will turn against each other, as they’re taught the loyalists are evil and wrong, and the loyalists are taught taught that the republicans are evil and wrong.

I’ll say it again. Obama doesn’t know what he’s talking about at all.