"Jesus, Allah, Buddha . . . I love you all!"
Posted on 10/24/2006 5:33:49 PM PDT by blam
Archbishop denounces 'bigoted' faith schools policy
By Jonathan Petre, Religion Correspondent
Last Updated: 2:52am BST 24/10/2006
Head teachers at every Roman Catholic school in the country have been urged to tell their MPs of their "outrage" at Government proposals to force new faith schools to admit up to a quarter of their pupils from families of other religions or none.
The Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, has written to the heads as part of a campaign against the proposals, which he denounces today as bigoted and prejudiced.
The archbishop has launched his attack in an article for The Daily Telegraph, and he will repeat them tomorrow during a personal meeting with Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary.
In the article, the archbishop says that the Government appears to believe that Catholic schools are divisive, when official figures suggest that this is far from the truth.
He also warns ministers that they risking losing the co-operation and respect of the very faith groups they need to build a harmonious society.
Jewish leaders have also condemned the proposals, saying that they undermined the principles of faith schools, which were among the most successful schools in the country.
Mr Johnson, meanwhile, stepped up his efforts to pressure faith schools into admitting pupils from other religions by holding an "inclusion summit" with representatives from all the main faith groups.
He spelt out the implications of the amendment tabled last week to the Government's Education Bill, but also sought to reassure the groups that he has no plans to extend the provision to cover faith schools already in existence.
Mr Johnson also discussed how faith schools could be made more inclusive, citing the examples of Liverpool's St Francis of Assisi School, which has an intake that is half Catholic and half Church of England, and the Guru Nanak School in west London, Britain's only state-funded Sikh school, which is changing its admission code.
Mr Johnson has recently floated the idea of teacher exchanges between religious schools, so that pupils and teachers can be exposed to the ethos and approach of different faiths.
He has also suggested that independent faith schools should do more to co-operate with non-faith schools in their area, as part of their new responsibility to demonstrate that they provide the benefit to the community, which their charitable status requires.
Taking part in the summit were representatives of the Catholic Church, the Church of England, the Jewish Board of Deputies, the Network of Sikh Organisations, the Muslim Council of Britain, and the Association of Muslim Schools.
In his letter to heads of the 2,075 Catholic primary and secondary schools, the archbishop says that "the amendment will, in effect, remove from new Catholic schools control over their admissions".
He adds: "What is more, this amendment is being brought forward without any consultation or discussion by the Government with the Catholic Church.
Kind of negates the whole idea of a "faith school".
See, now what pisses me off about a statement like that is that......
It never gets asked!
Practice what ya preach......lead by exapmle!
Ya schmucks!
"Jesus, Allah, Buddha . . . I love you all!"
Wouldn't that be the point?
Actually, I think that the cowardly politicos are trying in a backhanded way to deal with the problem of Islamic schools and extremist teachings. But they can't come right out and say it, or there might be seething, whining, and bombing.
Dumb idea anyway, what nonmuslim parent would want their child going to an Islamic school?
OTOH, maybe that's what they really want............
FMCDH(BITS)
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