What my students & coworkers say

[AngelRose81]

I’m not sure what to do about this…
I teach at a public high school in a small town. My students, who are mostly Evangelical Protestant or not religious at all, and some of my fellow teachers (including some administrators) IMHO sometimes “attack” Catholicism by saying things referring to the scandals in the Church or saying things about the Holy Father. In fact, some of the things the non-religious ones say are pretty sacrilegious in my opinion. I don’t really ever hear any ugly comments about other religions/denominations from them.

I’m at a loss as to what to do! It’s a public school so I hesitate saying something to the students about their comments for fear it would somehow be seen as trying to “teach” religion to them. I’ve been considering going back to my old job for a while because I had more religious freedom there. I would love to teach at a Catholic school, but the principal of our local one says they probably won’t need anyone in the near future since no one is planning on leaving.

Do I say something to my students and co-workers? Do I ignore it? Just thought I put this out there to see if any of you have encountered similar situations and what you did about it. Thanks!

 

[noclevername]

Tell them to educate themselves on subjects before they talk about them.

 

[Eucharisted]

What noclevername said, and if anyone asks you how or where to be educated, direct them to Church Fathers, the Catechism, and good Catholic websites such as Vatican.va, EWTN, and Catholic Answers.

If curiousity bubbles up, you can ask the school principal if you could do a class debate on Catholicism, with one side of students accusing Catholics of things and the other students defending Catholcism. It’d be both educational and a good way to help your students learn how to research, argue, and share their beliefs and ideas with others. But if you don’t receive permission to have a debate, then just remind the students and teachers, whenever they talk trash about Catholics, about the Church Fathers and stuff, like “Have you read so and so?” or “I read on Catholic Answers that…”

 

[monicatholic]

to students: “In my class (on my hall watch etc.), we respect all persons and all faiths. end the intollerance now.”

to coworkers, “we shouldn’t be bad examples, teaching religious intollerance to our students.”

my homeschool group was fairly anti-catholic, though they didn’t seem to care or perhaps didn’t know it. when i complained about being invited, via email, to too many conferences etc. that linked to anti-catholic sites, i was ejected from the gang.