On the subject of schools and church

We have been looking into schools for the past year or so, having been warned by friends that we should start looking well before school application time.  It was good advice in that there is quite a lot to consider and we had not really thought about what we would value as education for Baby.  Neither of us are religious even though we both attended Catholic schools as kids.  Although we acknowledge that the education provided by Christian schools are generally good, neither of us want to keep up the pretence of being something we are not just so that Baby could attend a 'good' school.  Lying to make one's life easier is not a lesson we want him to learn.

We both love facts so we looked at the data available from Ofsted and came up with a list of schools that we would like to take a look at.    In the mean time we found out that the Christian schools have to offer a percentage of non-faith related places so we decided to include a few on our list of schools to call.  All the catholic schools I have called so far have told me that there was zero chance that Baby would get in as he has not been baptised; I wondered how that could be if there were supposed to be a number (albeit small) of 'free' places for people who are not of the religion.  As a tax-payer, whose taxes go towards the support of these faith schools on the basis that they are not completely closed off, I was starting to get annoyed.  The questions I have are, how many families joined the faith (artifically bumping up membership numbers) so that their kids could go to these faith schools, and how much money is given to these schools in proportion to the number of people of faith in the country?

We visited one Catholic school anyway by way of information, and it was quite scary.  Religious education is incorporated into every facet of teaching, we were told.  And it was, from what we could see.  Two girls we met were doing some colouring in and the pictures were images from the Bible.  The pictures on the walls had religious connotations. For admittance we were told we needed to have Baby baptised, attend the adjacent church for at least a year prior to Baby's school entry, and we needed a letter from the parish priest as proof.  I felt like asking if there was an attendance register at Sunday mass, and whether we were going to be quizzed on the day's lesson, or did the latter not matter as much as just physically being there?  But I didn't.  I also didn't think that was the right school for Baby.

I am Catholic and it is because of this kind of attitude towards faith- forced display of faith, without any real spiritual substance- that I found Catholicism irrelevant to my life.  I am a scientist and the God concept is jarring anyway; the total lack of effect on social improvement has basically turned me off it completely.  Lead by example; closing off and effectively forming a segregated community is not a good example to set to your ethnically diverse neighbours.  What does it say to children?  That 1) their parents are happy to lie given sufficient justification, 2) this Church that is 'good' is happy to take people in on the basis of lies just to increase its attendance numbers.  I can't help but think of the popular BBC series 'Rev' and how the central character, an Anglican priest, is constantly under pressure for attendance and tries to balance what his conscience demands with what he thinks he needs to do to survive.  I do like what I have seen of Pope Francis ; the people who are supposed to work with him are not so appealing so I don't think I will be renewing my membership just yet.  It is perhaps noteworthy that I am the second generation of Catholics who were forced through attendance of Catholic schools to be faithful; none of us go to Church because we were so put off by our experiences.  If the Church is looking to increase the number of faithful- and I mean believers, not just raw numbers- then they are going about it the wrong way and run the risk of being progressively less relevant as a force for good.