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 Belfasts Waterfront hall when he arrived in the country this morning.
If towns remain dividedif Catholics have their schools and buildings and Protestants have theirs, if we cant see ourselves in one another and fear or resentment are allowed to hardenthat 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 whats 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 theyre groping to find a way to discover how to move beyond the heavy hand of history, to put aside the violence. Theyre studying what youre doing. And theyre wondering, perhaps if Northern Ireland can achieve peace, we can, too. Youre their blueprint to follow. Youre their proof of what is possible — because hope is contagious. Theyre 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. Thats 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; theyre essential to it. If towns remain divided — if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs — if we cant 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. Its 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 dont 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 cant think of a foreign visit to a Islamic nation where he told people on his arrival that they shouldnt have madrasas. Can you?
Did he when visiting, say, Israel, say You Jews shouldnt have synagogue schools and you muslims shouldnt have mosque schools. I cant 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.
RE: Obamas daughter are attending a religious school...
OK, what does Obama mean by “religious” schools encouraging division?
Is Sidwell friends a religious school or not?
I am assuming that they, being a Quaker school, adhere to the Bible as the word of God. I also assume that they are Christian.
If they are not, then they probably have their own “religion”.
Whatever it is, Obama seems to be exempting the “religion: of Sidwell friends from this charge if divisiveness.
Most Quaker schools are far left of the public schools.
That's true.
"...who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavoring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world, and through all time;...that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil government, for its officers to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order; and finally, that truth is great and will prevail if left to herself, that she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them. ""I HAVE SWORN UPON THE ALTAR OF GOD ETERNAL HOSTILITY TO EVERY FORM OF TYRANNY OVER THE MIND OF MAN"--The Virginia Act For Establishing Religious Freedom
--Thomas Jefferson, 1786
It’s about uniformity of thought, but with lots of different colored faces thinking the same thoughts. Like the song about the little boxes on the hillside.
It’s why the Nazis outlawed the Boy Scouts, so that there could be one folk, one fatherland.
Obama is incredibly ignorant about Catholic schools, about Irish History, about almost everything.
If he didn’t have Mr. Teleprompter before him, he would have no words.
He is an empty barrel. They make the most noise, as our sainted nuns in Catholic school used to say.
Start with the Madrassahs./s
See #71
Now why is ‘the gov’t’ interested in what people’s beliefs are? Another slam on why America exists to being with!
Where are the Patriots? The IRS tried to muzzle them.
We know how it ends and the only victory is ‘in Christ’!
That’s only to keep them ‘safe’ from the public schools where violence reigns.
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