In some areas of the US this applies as well. Catholic shools enforce discipline and are often better than the local public schools. When I was a kid it wasn’t uncommon to have a few non-Catholics in my classes. When you get to High School, it becomes even more common. In the area where I live now, most of the elite college prep High Schools are Catholic.
In Ontario, Catholic education has been publicly funded up to grade 10 since there has been a province. In the mid 80’s Premier Bill Davis extended this to grade 13 (now grade 12) as he was leaving office, as a parting gift to Cardinal Carter. This upset a lot of people but there has been relative peace between the two school systems for many years now.
In my school, most students aren’t religious and most don’t practice any faith. We have become pretty strict about not hiring non Catholic teaching staff but probably only 25% of our staff practice their faith. We have a Chaplain and a chapel. We have school masses about 4 times a year. Student must take one religion course a year. In grade 9 and 10, these courses are basically “feel good” courses that explore the meaning of faith. Senior courses might focus on world religions.
When the school opened a lot of students complained about having to take religion. Now, it might be one of the more popular courses especially in grade 9 and 10 because it gives students a forum to discuss issue that are relevant to them.
The regular public school is a five minute walk from our school. It is not uncommon for students to switch schools in the middle of the year to get a fresh start in a new environment.
I don’t want to get into a debate about whether publicly funded religious education is right or wrong but I do know that we have a good school. Religious education does provide another dimension to a students education and no one is beat over the head or brainwashed with it.
To me learning about religious beliefs promotes tolerance, something which our society needs more of.
Many of my fellow students in the Calgary Catholic educational system were non-Christian. Catholic schools there just had the better education ca. mid-80s. It may be different now.
The fact is Solkoe, that publicly funded Catholic schools in Ontario are a relic of the intolerance of the past and should be abolished in favour of all-public schools. Do you realize that the Roman Catholic Separate Schools are the only publicly-funded institution in Ontario that claims the right to violate the human rights legislation of the Province without impunity?
In ANY OTHER publicly funded institution, it would be illegal to refuse to hire non-Catholics. It would be illegal to fire a person for being gay or lesbian. Or for beingdivorced. But the Roman Catholic Church in Ontario claims the right to put itshand in MY pocket for the taxes to support itself, and then turne around and claims the right to use my taxes to teach discrimination against me. It is a scandal and that is why I am fighting with other fair-minded people to have Ontario join the 21st century and, like Quebec and Newfoundland and other Provinces, abolish all religion-based public education. If you truly want to promote tolerance, then stop asking me to finance a Church that is revolting to me with my tax money!
Just to elaborate on something relating to the brainwashing comment, in Saskatchewan, the only religious course included in the curriculum is Christian Ethics. Modern psychology was included in the Grade 11 course to study ethics as a whole (I’ve only taken the Grade 11 and 12 ones), and the entire Grade 12 course was about world religions from Buddhism to Judaism to Zoroastrianism to Roman and Greek mythology. The high school level courses are very much academically oriented and as an atheist I’ve had many in-depth conversations with my instructors about aspects of religion and was never pushed to become a Catholic. Amongst the well-run schools there is no indoctrination or such - Aboriginal spirituality is very welcome at the Catholic schools as well (we have a large Aboriginal population here). Masses were often interwoven with traditional school assemblies and no one is forced to take Communion. I had more teachers pushing me to join secular school clubs than trying to ‘brainwash’ me.
Valteron, gays and lesbians and students of all religions are welcome at any Catholic school I’ve known. Fights start when one guy steals another one’s girlfriend, not because they like other guys. Yes, the hiring policy is archaic, but there isn’t anything stopping teachers from acquiring work in public schools.
I would love if someone could sort this out for me, but when I attended public school in Manitoba (1986-1991), we had to say the Lord’s Prayer every morning. I am not aware of this having been a religious or otherwise separate school or school board. I’m just wondering what justification there was for this practice.
I was in a public school in St.Catharines, Ontario as a kid around the same years you mention (I’m 24 years old) and I remember that we had to say the Lord’s Prayer every morning as well. I remember a few kids (Jehovah’s Witnesses if I remember correctly) were centered out because they’d leave the room during morning prayer. I would have left too, having been brought up non-religious, but instead I just mouthed the words 
As for the justification, your guess is as good as mine. I’m just glad it isn’t happening anymore.
We did that one.
I didn’t want to get into this arguement because I can’t disagree with you. Originally, non Catholics were hired by our school board and that seemed to work pretty well. They must have realized that they couldn’t keep doing that (maybe the courts ruled that they were allowed to discriminate) and they clamped down and started hiring only Catholics. It hasn’t made the school more religous because, as I said earlier, most teachers are not practicing.
That being said, there is a grain of legitimacy to this whole thing. Taxpapers do select where their tax dollars go. So, in essence, Catholics are supporting Catholic schools. Also, we must be doing something right because we have tons of non Catholics as part of our school.
In the future, I’m sure, the Catholic school system in Ontario will disappear probably for the reason presented by Valteron but not without an enormous battle.
This wouldn’t bother me too much as long as public schools offered religious education as an option. How can ignoring the spiritual dimension to a persons life help promote personal growth and cultural understanding?
The claim was that gay students could attend separate schools. When was Hall denied his right to attend school?
The claim was that they are welcome at the schools.
I didn’t read through the whole discussion but having gone to a catholic highschool in ontario, I thought I’d share my experience. I am not actually a catholic but the only reputable french language school in my area happened to be catholic. I was a bit weary at first but as it turned out, the only things that made it catholic was a prayer in the morning and a requirement to take one religion course. This course, for me, was a genral study on world religions and not actually concerned with catholic brainwashing or anything. As far as things went for homosexuals, I don’t think there was any more of a stigma against them than any other school. The topic of homosexuality in relation to the church came up in one class and the teacher basicly said that that the church doesn’t really condemn homosexuality (which the bible explicitly does, but there are allot of things in the bible that catholic relgion doesn’t follow).
So my impression is that our catholic schools are like american schools with christianity fifty years ago.
Just to clarify and expand on kushiel’s pont, not all provinces have eliminated the separate Catholic and public school systems. In Saskatchewan there are still two systems. It’s not uncommon, for example, to have a public high school and a Catholic high school located in close proximity. And as mentioned elsewhere, as I recall, one elects whether to be a public school supporter or a separate school supporter.
In fact, on the west side of Saskatoon they’re about to build public and Catholic high schools right next to each other, to the point of sharing some facilities (gym and suchlike, not sure what all is included in that). This is actually somewhat remarkable, as the two school boards haven’t historically got along together all that well.
Really? They do not condemn homosexuality? You could have fooled me. What do the terms “inherent moral evil” and “grave moral disorder that cannot in any case be condoned” sound like to you? These are the exact terms that the Catholic Church uses to condemn gays. The Church has also issued a letter in the 1990s read in Churches by all American bishops stating that it is acceptable to discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring and accomodation. That letter was largely inspred by Cardinal Joe Ratzinger, the present Pope.
The Catholic Church in its separate schools in Ontario reserves the right to fire gay and lesbian, or divorced teachers, in direct violation of the Ontario Human Rights Act. Marc Hall, who had to get the Courts to order the Catholic School Board to let him take his boyfriend to the Prom at his Catholic School, wold be surprised indeed with your assertion.
Today, the Catholic Church is actively fighting to oppose any and all measures to recognize the rights of gay couples. Not just the right to marriage, which they ferociously opposed in Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Canada, but even the right to “civil union”. The Present Pope recently made it clear in a speech to European lawmakers that gay couples must not be granted any rights that would recognize their relationships or make them equal to others.
Gays and lesbians are today what the Jews were in the 30s. A small minority that are easy for right-wingers and Catholics to beat up on. Just think, someday an intellectual descendant of tomndebb will be reationalizing and justifying their hateful actions of today. Plus ca change. . . . . .
You need to lay off the coffee; frosty asserted nothing of the sort, but reported that someone else had made this claim.
What the hell did tomndebb say to deserve your backhanded insults?
I will concede Marc Hall’s situation, but I don’t think his situation is the norm. I’ve known more gays supported in the Catholic division here than rejected. Then again, I had the sort of environment where we could make gay jokes about certain religious figures in class and no one had a fit, a girl had her puppy as a grad escort, and when asked who her favorite Apostle was when elected to the Faith Council my friend blurted out ‘Judas!’ and everyone including the teacher advisors laughed. shrug Religious schools aren’t exactly the strict places they were 50 years ago.
Would you like to see some of the nice, homophobic comments by people like Bishop Henry of Calgary and other Catholic leaders fighting against same-sex couples’ rights in Canada?
Frankly, I am up to my ears in this “nobody here but us liberal, tolerant Catholics” bullshit. If you want to support a repressive and reactionary Church, by all means do so, but have the guts to admit it.
If you would like me to quote you some chapter and verse of the homophobic garbage coming out of the Catholic hierarchy in Rome and here in Canada and the United States, I will be happy to do so. It will be very long to type it all, but if it puts an end to the idea that cases like Marc Hall are some exception, it will be worth it.
By the way, I note that the Catholic Church also disapproves of divorced Catholics who remarry in a civil ceremony. May I ask why they are not fighting to have THIS group denied civil marriage, just as they would deny it to gays and lesbians? Pethaps because they are not a small an easy-to-bash group?
You’re right. Many Catholic leaders speak against homosexuality. Fortunately, there is much more tolerance amongst mainstream Catholics. You would rarely find a priest in our school so the more liberal values of the teachers usually prevail.