To get my 3 year old baptised in an attempt to get into a Catholic school

[nestisflown]

AIBU on two levels:

1. to want to baptise my 3 year old and start attending local mass weekly in order to get into one of the best schools in the area (and our closest school, although the next closest secular school is also an excellent one). Is this morally dubious? Or do lots of parents do the same?

1. to think that my transparent plan will work and help my child get a place even though we'll have been attending mass for less than a year by the time applications are made...and the applications want proof of "sustained weekly attendance". It doesnt define sustained though

My reasons for wanting my child to go to Catholic school are: (1.) It is a great school academically; (2) it's our closest school; (3) it's the only good faith school close to us (there's a CofE school but it's doesn't perform well academically), and as a non-Catholic but practising Christian, I'd quite like to see faith incorporated into my child's school day...even in a different denomination.

Has anyone done this? Has anyone succeeded?

@Weezol don’t worry, most of us believe that ALL faith schools should be full private schools. the current concept of everybody paying for them, and only a selected few benefiting is deeply wrong (and very unchristian...)

@CampingItUp, you’re right, but aside from their stated criteria an oversubscribed school which is oversubscribed with Catholic’s can require a certificate of Catholic practice from your parish priest, which has extremely strict criteria about minimum length of regular mass attendance etc.

And yes to whoever said there are (a tiny minority of) married Catholic priests. Mostly these are men who converted from being Anglican priests, and the largest single group arrived when the Anglican Communion started ordaining women. A special rite was made to facilitate it.

And the other group is widowers — my parents’ parish has a priest who is a widower with adult children, who had spent some time in a seminary as a young man, and decided to seek ordination after his wife died and his children were grown.

It's kind of funny. We are lazy rubbish Catholics and baptised our dd as Catholic mostly for the families. We couldn't get her into our local primary school and so we applied to the local Catholic one a bit further away. We got in. There was nothing dreadful about the Catholic stuff - not for us, in fact it was pretty low key and inclusive of other faiths and life choices by comparison to what we had had as kids. Plenty of kids from single parent families or with unmarried parents. Fair few nonCatholics too.
She's now at a nondenominational secondary now because, although she was a shoe-in for the local Catholic secondary we preferred this one.
We live in the North and everyone we went to school with was either Irish, Polish or Italian descent. But that was the world we grew up in.

I meant life experiences not life choices. Which probably speaks volumes about residual stuff in my head.

@bellinisurge, my convent school in the 70s and 80s was intellectually sophisticated and open-minded compared to the evangelical Anglicanism being promulgated by our village C of E church now, which unfortunately sleeps through to the village school.

That's just it @GaudyNight . I don't actually recognise this depiction of Catholic schools - not least here in NW England in the 21 Century.
That said, I put my dd in a non-denominational secondary because religion isn't her thing and I didn't want to make her put up with it as I had to.

A practicing Christian is someone who puts the words of Jesus into practice, who puts Jesus into the heart of their family, as opposed to someone who is aware of God's existence.

If you truly think of yourself as as a Christian you are fully aware God sees everything are you will be judged.

Before anyone jumps on me these are not my words but the word according to scripture.

myself good point!

Its very common, we have 6 baptisms this month, every child is 3 and school admissions are this month! None of them will be getting a reference though, they all came for the first time in the last month, one admitted to trying other churches to baptise her son. We have agreed to the baptisms because that's part of ministry but faking admissions forms is not, of course none of them has mentioned admissions yet! The best school in the area is c of e, our own caretaker didn't get a place for his kids because of these sharp elbowed middle class types (they do their own admissions) and pretty sure they discriminated against them, a friend and I offered to help appeal but they are sweet, English second language and didn't want the fuss, so I'm more determined this year!

It's a lot of bother with no guarantee. And it is morally wrong in my view and I say that as an atheist.

“oversubscribed school which is oversubscribed with Catholic’s can require a certificate of Catholic practice from your parish priest, which has extremely strict criteria about minimum length of regular mass attendance etc”

Then they need to say in the Admissions Policy that such a certificate is needed.

I cannot begin to understand how the weekend activities of parents can be criteria for state funded education but there you go.

Then they need to say in the Admissions Policy that such a certificate is needed

Most Catholic schools I know do say that. You apply through the LA as usual but you also need to complete a special admission form and attach baptism certificate and a letter of attendance from the priest.

so I'm more determined this year!

Why not put that determination into campaigning to change the admissions rules so that admissions aren’t based on a parent’s church participation, with known knock on effects for poor children and those with SEN?

A friend is a governor at a CofE school; she is active in the church. She is strongly campaigning to get the admissions rules for her school changed as she feels that the discriminatory effects are at odds with the Christian ethos. I have a lot more tim for a position like hers than hearing someone complain that a system specifically set up to discriminate has discriminatory effects.

I disagree with lots of the Catholic beliefs and practises so I am happy to show my face and nod and smile but couldn't actively participate in the indoctrination of children in beliefs I only 50% hold.

And yet you're prepared to send your child to a school that will indoctrinate your child? 🤷🏼‍♀️

I'm a C of E priest and I've read a fair few admissions policies of Catholic Schools. They take a bit of getting your head around which is why I've had to look at them for some of my English as a second language parishioners. However, the criteria are usually pretty clear once you think like an RC. One very oversubscribed school had baptism by 6 months as one criteria. The usual excuse was that the parents had delayed so that the family could all get together for a party. That got very short shrift from the admissions team.

Most, but not all, of the policies I have read require regular attendance of at least a year and by regular attendance they mean every week. Most have a box asking for the reason why parents haven't been regular attenders. Many secondaries prioritise attendance at RC primaries. All this needs to be signed off by the priest.

I refuse to,sign. If someone hasn't been in church every month for three years I'm not lying to say they have.

but couldn't actively participate in the indoctrination of children in beliefs I only 50% hold.

This makes me wonder why you want to send your child to the Catholic school, especially since there is a good non-faith school only half a mile away.

It's like saying, you have sweets I want, so I'm jus going to pretend to be your friend to get them once I get them you won't be my friend anymore because I really only wanted the sweets. You can throw in your conditions such as proverty and SEN all you like but there are regulations and rules in place for a reason- What about the kids that are doing well but struggle in certain subjects, what about the families who are really struggling because they have paid there bills and have nothing left to fill their car with petrol- but they arent seen as poor because she works? There are ALOT of boxes and alot of criteria that people fit into but AGAIN it's YOU as the person that needs to adapt your own situation and deal with it or change it, NOT tramp on others because their situation is better than yours or worse off! I'm very sad to hear that families do struggle but sometimes we are dealt with situations that's we just have to work round blaming someone else isn't going to change anything.
3 of my kids go to a Catholic school and we practice our faith. I'm not part of the PTA but I will try and participate when fundraising. I believe children are given work/parts in plays to suit there ability. I don't believe it is discrimination. I believe there are schools that are awful- but again i believe this is due to no morals or values or people trying to out do each other. Just shitting on people to get to the top.
My oldest has SEN and the school are fantastic in helping him and other children. Funding is the governments issue not the Catholic schools. Some of Catholic ideas are mad but they are very slowly changing!
Our school works as a community and work together with fundraising because let's face it the government is just screwing everyone over. We shouldn't sit on the fence passing out problems and taking no responsibility. Look at options and problem solve!
We live in the country and our school has a fantastic Catholic community. Why? Because of the Catholic belief, morals and values.
Bringing back to this thrend- how she is behaving is morally WRONG! She could put a catholic child's position at risk but that's ok because no other school is good enough for her child. Looks like she is creating a child perfect for a government job and so the cycle shall continues of no morals! So she is being very unreasonable!

would you genuinely feel no remorse for this after insisting that you were a genuinely practicing Catholic in order to get in, only to later turn around and say not only are you not, but that you actually disagree with some of these beliefs?

No. I don’t see the state feeling any remorse for rigging the system against the non religious (and the church for colluding in that).

You can’t expect people to play fair in an unfair system.

Also, in my experience, most practicing Catholics don’t 100% agree with the Catholic church’s beliefs. The official view on homosexuality for example. There’s a lot of hypocrisy going round.

It's like saying, you have sweets I want, so I'm jus going to pretend to be your friend to get them once I get them you won't be my friend anymore because I really only wanted the sweets.

The pertinent question is why did you get sweets in the first place and I didn’t?

The sooner admissions criteria that discriminate on the basis of religion are banned the better.

Aaaaaaand this is why we moved back to Scotland. The system in England - especially SE England - is fucked.

I don't disagree, @Camping, and I think all state schools should be fully secular the crass stupidity of the evangelical Anglicanism DS gets at our village school is depressing but I think Catholic schools do generally say that proof of Catholic practice will be required -- but it is ultimately up to the priest in question as to how strictly he applies the criteria.

And that this requirement is driven by 'opportunistic' baptisms/mass attendance due to a perception that Catholic schools are 'good'.

I grew up Catholic and was educated at convent schools, but am a non-believer who has not baptised my child, and even so I get irritated by blatantly anti-Catholic rhetoric on threads like this one from posters who see nothing wrong with sending their children to Catholic schools.

It's also worth pointing out that Catholic schools in the UK in general have more students from ethnic minority backgrounds, and more children from deprived areas than the national average, in part because their catchment areas are typically far larger.

“One very oversubscribed school had baptism by 6 months as one criteria”

Afaik that has been changed by some RC schools in our area because it was discriminatory against immigrant families from countries where it is not culturally usual to baptise by 6m.

The pertinent question is why did you get sweets in the first place and I didn’t?

It's more 'why did the stodge that people used to mock as superstitious/backward/suffering-obsessed/Rosary-wielding mumbo-jumbo suddenly turn into delicious sweets once parents realised that said schools got good academic results?'

If you disagree with Catholicism, why bother?