Utah, USA: Uproar and apologies when public school teacher forced Catholic student to wipe Ash Wednesday cross off his forehead

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The student explained and that explanation could have easily been verified.
 
If it was me I’d have looked into it. People sue organizations for upholding Catholic principles all the time.
 
Honestly, the first time I’ve ever seen (or maybe just noticed) ashes on someone’s forehead was when my wife took our oldest to Ash Wednesday during his first communion year. That would have put me at about age 36.
 
This doesn’t surprise me at all.

I grew up in that area, and St. Olaf’s was our parish.

Mormons do not like negative publicity, and, most of them are fine people.

Some neighborhood kids took my mom’s Mary statue out in the street and shattered it one day. She was ENRAGED.

She laid into the police and the city council. By the time the dust settled - the sheriff, governor, and US senator Orin Hatch had spoken to my mom. They had her go to the closest church-goods store and pick out another statue, which they bought for her.

Years later, in my view, the kids were probably just vandals and not Catholic bigots (which is what my mom was convinced of).

Sounds like the district handled things well. The teacher, not so much - but I’m sure simply out of ignorance, not anti-Catholic bigotry.

Also, to those who suggested the kid wash his head before Mass - you are wrong, the sacramental of imposed ashes is both an acknowledgement of sin by the penitent, AND a powerful witness symbol to the larger community.

Leave them on all day, and gladly testify to Christ if someone says, “you’ve got a smudge on your face.”

A sinner I remain,
Deacon Christopher
 
vz71 said:
If the student is wanting special treatment for religious reasons; it is perfectly reasonable for the teacher to request a report by the student to plead the case.
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What you call “special treatment” the Supreme Court has consistently called “reasonable accommodation”, and this stems directly from our 1st Amendment rights. This of course is assuming there’s even a rule in that classroom or school that states students are not to have ashes on their skin, or something else like that.

Your teacher was absolutely wrong to assign you extra work just for practicing your “sincerely held faith.”
 
AlbertDerGrosse said:
What you call “special treatment” the Supreme Court has consistently called “reasonable accommodation”, and this stems directly from our 1st Amendment rights.
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You assume specific knowledge.
One cannot assume the 1st amendment applies whenever a child brings disruption to a classroom.
It is perfectly acceptable to request evidence of the child causing the disruption.
 
vz71 said:
It is perfectly acceptable to request evidence of the child causing the disruption.
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Sure you can but you can’t do it through assigning extra work to the student. That is in violation of their first amendment rights. A note from home or a quick internet search more than suffices.

Actually, more and more, it’s coming down to the schools being ahead of the game and knowing more about religous customs. My wife’s school went through a huge thing a year or two ago when “pastafarians” became a recognized religion.
 
Sure…she got away with it, but it is a rights violation, whether you want to believe it or not 🤷‍♂️

If this situation were to go to court: I needed to do extra homework to practice my religion, and if the teacher didn’t like the homework I could be disciplined…the school district would probably just settle out of court because they’d have no chance in it.
 
Ya, maybe I did misunderstand something.
vz71 said:
“Turn in a single page report on Ash Wednesday tomorrow. If I am satisfied with it, you get extra credit…if I am not, disciplinary action for class disruption.”
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TC3033 said:
Ya, maybe I did misunderstand something.
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You did.

Most schools I attended, the satisfaction of a teacher towards a paper had more to do with the presentation of the facts as well as solid research and sources then a personal like or dislike.

Your mileage may vary.
 
No, you are assuming malice when you have no information to indicate such.

As to singling out, you don’t think ashes prominently displayed on the forehead hasn’t already done that? Really?
 
I was going to question whether this teacher was faking her ignorance, but then again some girl just got attacked by a jaguar at a zoo after climbing a barrier to take a selfie.
 
There’s really nothing to get upset about.
The US started as a nation where austere Protestantism that lacks rituals and Deistic beliefs were influential, which have been replaced by secularism and Hollywood religion. So a lack of understanding of Catholic and high church Protestantism was always present.
 
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