Posted on 06/20/2013 7:57:47 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Barack Obama actually made this claim at a speech in Belfast on Monday, but it seems to be gaining traction overnight. His claim, aimed at both Catholic and Protestant “schools and buildings,” came in prepared remarks rather than an extemporaneous response to a question. The Scottish Catholic Observer quotes the argument accurately:
The US President has made an alarming call for an end to Catholic education in Northern Ireland in spite of the fact that Archbishop Gerhard Müller told Scots that Catholic education was ‘a critical component of the Church.’
President Barack Obama (above), repeated the oft disproved claim that Catholic education increases division in front of an audience of 2000 young people, including many Catholics, at Belfast’s Waterfront hall when he arrived in the country this morning.
“If towns remain divided—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,” the US president said.
The US politician made the unfounded claim despite a top Vatican official spelling out the undeniable good done by Catholic education in a speech in Glasgow on Saturday and in his homily at Mass on Friday.
I’ll quote the passage in its full context:
We need you to get this right. And what’s more, you set an example for those who seek a peace of their own. Because beyond these shores, right now, in scattered corners of the world, there are people living in the grip of conflict — ethnic conflict, religious conflict, tribal conflicts — and they know something better is out there. And they’re groping to find a way to discover how to move beyond the heavy hand of history, to put aside the violence. They’re studying what you’re doing. And they’re wondering, perhaps if Northern Ireland can achieve peace, we can, too. You’re their blueprint to follow. You’re their proof of what is possible — because hope is contagious. They’re watching to see what you do next.
Now, some of that is up to your leaders. As someone who knows firsthand how politics can encourage division and discourage cooperation, I admire the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly all the more for making power-sharing work. That’s not easy to do. It requires compromise, and it requires absorbing some pain from your own side. I applaud them for taking responsibility for law enforcement and for justice, and I commend their effort to “Building a United Community” — important next steps along your transformational journey.
Because issues like segregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity — symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others — these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.
Ultimately, peace is just not about politics. It’s about attitudes; about a sense of empathy; about breaking down the divisions that we create for ourselves in our own minds and our own hearts that don’t exist in any objective reality, but that we carry with us generation after generation.
Does that make the context any better? Er … not really. He’s speaking in terms of Northern Ireland, but pretty explicitly calling for that to be a model for the rest of the world. His argument makes two very large assumptions, which is that the conflict in Northern Ireland was about religion, and that parochial schools make people inclined to violence. The first is a gross oversimplification; the conflict in recent times was political, dealing with ethnic conflict and sovereignty issues, with religion used more for tribal identification than a core of the conflict.
The second is just absurd. Catholics and Protestants have thousands of schools in the US, and we don’t have warfare in the streets in the US between the sects. The issue wasn’t the schools, nor the belief systems of Catholics and Protestants that such schools teach. However, this makes a handy mechanism to call for the displacement of private education and religious instruction from education, with nothing left except state-controlled schools that indoctrinate children into whatever norms the governing/ruling class deem acceptable.
My friend Father Z wonders whether Obama will make this call truly consistent:
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a foreign visit to a Islamic nation where he told people on his arrival that they shouldn’t have madrasas. Can you?
Did he when visiting, say, Israel, say “You Jews shouldn’t have synagogue schools and you muslims shouldn’t have mosque schools.” I can’t remember. Did he?
I’d guess … no.
Update: The comments came in a speech on Monday, not on Friday. I’ve fixed it above; thanks to Joel Pollak at Breitbart for the heads-up.
Thanks.
Smells more like extreme fascist infiltration into the Military.
I wonder if TMLC is giving any attention to this.
(where the kids get taught the State-approved information).
With Common Core, all schools will teach the state-approved party line - including homeschoolers - or else.
Choose this day who you will serve.........Devil or Lord? My gosh, how divisive can you get?
I attended a Catholic school up to the 7th grade. I had Jews and protestants in in most of my classes that I can remember.
In Northern Ireland, a Catholic school isn’t the same as a Catholic school in the USA. It isn’t a parochial school where nuns walk around. It’s just a regular school in a certain part of town.
There are Catholic pubs, Catholic stores, Catholic playgrounds, etc. And the Protestants have their own facilities as well.
People are separated more by a cultural identity than a religious fervor.
RE: Somebody should tell Barry Hussein that most of those “immigrants” he wants to legalize are Catholics.
Yes, but he wants them to go to our PUBLIC SCHOOLS, where the Teachers Unions will be the one’s indoctrinating them.
Does that include Madrasas? or only Christianity based schools, Mr. Divisive?
The public school educated type. See how the leftists are filling the ranks of the military? Government employees will shoot American "extremists" when told.
Words cannot describe the loathing and contempt I have for this smegma encrusted reptile..
Why are so many Catholics Democrats.
I have always wondered that myself. Especially with the left’s stand on abortion. Also, why would the Latinos vote against their faith? Just curious.
Don’t Quakers supposedly depend on an “inner light”(a very subjective standard) as opposed to the objective reality of Scripture?
Maobama and his fellow libs define peace as the absence of any opposition to all of their agenda.
freedom is division?
To some extent I agree with Obozo.
All Islamic schools should be banned.
It is ironic the great zero did NOT mention that expensive private schools also encourage divisive reactions with normal private schools and public education among the population. But then his brats are special don’t you know.
The US President has made an alarming call for an end to Catholic education in Northern Ireland in spite of the fact that Archbishop Gerhard Müller told Scots that Catholic education was ‘a critical component of the Church.'Kenyan-born Muzzie ping.
Right -- I totally forgot that. Germany is the avowed enemy of homeschoolers and Obama won't give them any cover here.
FUBO!
is that saying, by incorporating the third slide into the second, that soldiers are prohibited from being Catholic(US/Christian)?
Of course. Liberalism and the Christianity taught in these schools are incongruent. Christianity is the biggest impediment towards liberalism because liberalism is a theory that needs moral relativism, and Christianity believes in moral absolutes.
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