For John, BLUF: Carelessness is bad in politics. Nothing to see here; just move along.
"OBAMA CALLS FOR END TO MADRASSAS IN MUSLIM COUNTRIES ...NO, WAIT"
I got the link above from The International Herald Tribune. The link my wife sent me was from BIZPAC Review, here.
“If towns remain divided,” said the U.S. President, “if Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we can’t see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to harden—that too encourages division and discourages cooperation.”So, does the President feel the same way about Catholic Schools in the US? What about home schooling? What about charter schools?
Was this a talking point given to the President by Her Majesty's Government? Was this something put into the President's speech by someone in his office, pushing some domestic agenda, rather than a foreign policy agenda? The possibilities are interesting.
Regards — Cliff
Zuhlsdorf said: "Another example of what this man wants: total isolation of any religious values in the private sphere alone."
ReplyDeleteWell, how American of him.
This is much less controversial than the Catholic media are making it. Think about what he said. Segregation makes it so "we can’t see ourselves in one another" and that has consequences. Is this really disputed? The relative strength of segregated institutions might be an indicator for the size of obsticals for healing division. What about this isn't common sense? If your social institutions segregate by religion, is it really any wonder that there would be bitter division on the basis of religion? We learned this lesson in the US long ago and made a conscious decision to build an institution of public non-religious schools.
Some statistics:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland
Why we need a secular Irish education system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O03Sjn0dsz4
"We in Ireland can see from the recent history of Northern Ireland how separate schooling contributed to the problems of children understanding and respecting each other across religious divides."
http://www.michaelnugent.com/best/the-case-for-a-secular-education-system/'
http://www.secularpetition.com/
I am thinking the President was in someone else's neighborhood and should have not been lecturing them. The folks in Ulster have some problems. Forcing the minority to go to "integrated" schools is not the solution. Isn't Marching Season about upon us? The 12th of July being the Battle of the Boyne and all that. How do we fix that? More important, how do we fix unemployment and provide non-sectarian promotions?
ReplyDeleteA mistake. OK to blame SecState? How about the nominee to be US UN Ambassador?
Regards — Cliff
The moment it becomes offensive to even call a problem a problem, we've given up.
ReplyDeleteI'm not too familiar enough with what is going on in Northern Ireland to comment, but I assumed how they interpreted the comment and how I would interpret the comment are two different things.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't the audience, so I wasn't alarmed within the context it was made.
My concerns is for the general public seeing Catholic schools as an alternative to the public schools. I don't see Catholic schools as 'an alternative' to the public schools, rather they are simply Catholic schools.
Why I says this?
From time to time I will have a non-Catholic inquire about the local Catholic schools for their children. They wonder how much religion they will be exposed to, well it is a Catholic School, they go to Mass on Holy Days and have religion classes every day and learn how to say their prayers in English as well in Spanish or French.
There is some debate that students should use public money in the form of vouchers for the school of their choice (including Catholic schools), I'm against this. Essentially the parish school is not longer retaining it's Catholic mission, but rather a public contractor for education.
Whenever possible public money stays in public control.