Obama: Religious schools encourage division

Hotair ^ | 06/20/2013 | Ed Morrissey

[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.

[Chgogal]

Obama is talking about the madrassases right?

[Iron Munro]

Only liberals can see racial discrimination in something like genuine religious schools.

I wonder if Obama is also speaking of muslim madrasas.
Or are they classified as military training facilities?

If sincere, Obama could take measures to end the kind of school discrimination he claims he sees in the USA.

He can start by taking his own children out of the elite and private "Sidwell Friends School" in Washington, D.C. and
enrolling them in the low grade government schools that children of the common folk (who pay the bills) have to attend.

[Rennes Templar]

What he really means is religion causes division. He’d like to eliminate it all, a la’ Karl.

[anoldafvet]

According to cBS, it was “several hundred”.

[Raycpa]

Matthew 10:34-35

New International Version (NIV)

34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—

[LeonardFMason]

Why are so many Catholics Democrats. Liberals and Leftists HATE the Catholic Church and most of what it stands for,

[Veto!]

The religious schools that DO encourage division, hatred and war are Islamic schools. Sunni vs Shia.

In a report on Lebanon earlier this week a BBC News reporter wrote, "A Lebanese man called Ahmed Niami, visiting a group of Syrian refugees in the Bekaa Valley, told me that sectarian tension was infecting every part of life.

"If the conflict in Syria is going to go on longer, Lebanon is going to be in a worse state than Syria is in today. If there's a car accident on the street, people run to ask, are you Sunni or Shia… Sectarian divisions have become very, very deep, and it's going to get worse."

Maybe I should post the whole piece on its own thread.

[SeekAndFind]

RE: Why are so many Catholics Democrats. Liberals and Leftists HATE the Catholic Church and most of what it stands for,

Being baptized as a Baby is no guarantee that you’ll follow the faith when you grow up...

[cookcounty]

Leftists cannot cope with diversity of opinion. To them, disagreement with the Democrat Party is a horrific heresy.

He probably got this idea from monothinker Frank Marshall.

[SMARTY]

“O” REEEEALLLLLY needs to STFU, now!

[boycott]

Regardless of the subject, obamar is a know-it-all dirtbag.

For a clown that never had a real job, he pretty much knows everything.

[cookcounty]

"As someone who knows firsthand how politics can encourage division and discourage cooperation,"

The name "Saul Alinsky" springs to mind. And his acolytes in high places.

[LibsRJerks]

Ok, so basically he’s saying that Catholics stay all cloistered in their schools and don’t integrate with others.

But the reality is, the invitation is ALWAYS there for anyone to a. become a Catholic, b. practice the Faith, and c. send your child to a Catholic school. We have different beliefs ...that is HIS problem.

He basically wants Catholics to abandon their beliefs, then ...Abandon them, join the “group” and then everyone is going to get along like a rainbows and skittles type of thing?

I think we all know what would really happen ...it’s human nature ...one group is ALWAYS going to dominate ....and we know who that would be.

Obama doesn’t understand religion or Christ, or Christians WHATSOEVER. He doesn’t get it. It just doesn’t work that way . ..he is not above Christ — he and many others really seem to have a hard time with that.

[boycott]

They should be called secular Catholics just like some Jews are secular Jews.

[servantboy777]

I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Christ Jesus the Righteous Lamb of God.

[cookcounty]

"Obama’s daughters attend a Quaker school..."

Ozero has zero experience with public schools...not as an elementary student, not as a high-schooler, not as a college student, and certainly not as a parent.

[CSM]

If it weren’t for the American Catholics and American Jews who voted for him, he wouldn’t be POTUS today. It is sad that those who support him do so at the expense of their own churches or homeland.

[Soul of the South]

“Up to between 7,000-10,000 on the USA Capitol grounds yesterday. Saw for a while on CSPAN.”

Seven to ten thousand is too small to be noticed by the media. If it isn’t covered in the mainstream media, most Americans won’t even know it happened.

[Old Sarge]

Beat me by THAT much...

[Biggirl]

That is my guess. Wish it was heild on this coming Saturday. More would go.