If your child is not Catholic

[Tiredallthetimeneedsleep]

And attends a Catholic school, do you go to Holy Mass? I'm not Catholic and have received an email invite to attend Holy Mass. I'm not sure I can go as an agency worker so not sure if I'll be working anyway. Wwyd

My ff has her first day at new school tomorrow which is a catholic school. She is year 3 and we are moving her.

I'm not catholic but not an atheist anymore, I don't think anyway.

We chose this school because it seemed lovely and welcoming and warm and they don't tend to teach gender ideology to the degree other schools do. But yes, I would attend if asked.

It's an invitation not a summons. Most schools are just glad to keep up the numbers of pupils, they understand that not all of the children will be Catholic.
I wouldn't attend mass if I were not that way inclined.

Lifelong Catholic. No one, not even our priest, refers to it as Holy Mass, just Mass

I think saying you “Hate the Catholic Church” …. And they being happy to send a child to a school part-funded by the Catholic Church - is very hypocritical.

Embrace your Hypocrisy, instead of saying it doesn’t exist.

Of course it makes you a hypocrite

Jesus wasn't big on those.

So your kids will be learning to despise you:)

If you send your children to a faith school, because there is no option to do otherwise, then you have no choice.

If you send your child to a faith school because you believe that it is the best school, but you don’t subscribe to the faith, then I think that you are, to a certain extent, using the system. Particularly if there is a range of non faith schools locally.

I have a friend whose child goes to a non faith primary school. They aren’t keen on the local options for secondary and they probably won’t meet the distance criteria for the ones they do like. The option is to spend the next couple of years going to church to partake in a religion they don’t follow and don’t believe, so they will have the acknowledgement from the priest that they meet the criterion.

Same, and I, and my priest call it Holy Mass so moot point.

🤷‍♀️

No we don’t attend mass. There are only a couple or a few in a school year. Not many parents attend- they need numbers though hence the invite.

Im intrigued that people are under the impression there is always a non-faith option for people to choose....
This is not the case. In many villages and smaller towns where theres only 1 primary school often its a CofE school and there is no other catchment school you can choose.

so a moderate point of view

The school won't care if they're not Catholic.
At least 30% of my DS school year didn’t make their communions.
Are you happy for them to be taught about religion. It seems ridiculous that you haven't opted them out, inside of pretending as you seem so against it.
It makes no difference to the treatment or friendship for the child.

I did four weeks of work experience in a catholic school. I am agnostic, but attended the services. I found it interesting and enjoyed being included.

Faith schools are almost entirely state funded now.

I would have loved my village school to not be C of E, but no one asked me! So it was walk to that school in 2 minutes or pay and spend however much time shipping him back and forth on the bus to our nearest non faith school.

No wouldn't attend OP.

I went to a catholic college despite never going to church, never being christened.

I was as expected to attend religious activities within college time - mass and Hail Marys. Nothing outside of that.

recommend watching on YouTube as they came as a bit of a surprise to me! Quite a lot of call and repeat during some of the ceremonies.

My daughter is Catholic, so am I, they have a family mass at the school chapel sometime in November, and no I don´t go. You turn up if you want and don´t turn up if you don´t, why the angst?

My DC are Catholic but I am not, they go to a Catholic school. I go to the odd one where their specific class are doing a song or whatever just like I would go to anything else they were taking part in but not just the bog standard monthly ones.

Mine went to a Catholic school for several years as it was an excellent school academically and we met some lovely people there-I’ve remained friends with several parents from the school and they’re by no means all Catholic.

I did attend some services for special occasions but non-Catholics don’t take Communion, we just stay in the pews.

DC are in a Catholic school. We go to Church on Sundays but they do often go to church during the school day. I usually make the effort to attend school Masses that welcome parents. Most of the children are also from Catholic families, but not many parents can drop work to attend the services. It's normal to not have parents attend.

There are some special masses you might want to attend; mainly the ones where your kid plays a key part, like if they sing a solo verse in a hymn, or read alone, part in the Nativity etc etc.

Catholic here and kids went to a catholic school with lots of multi denominational families there too. Masses that happened during school year parents were invited to but not expected to attend. I did as I enjoyed hearing the kids sing and watch them take part. Most of the kids that weren't catholic attended also as did some of their parents.

If you child/children are going to be receiving any sacraments I do believe that they should attend a certain number of masses in order to participate. Our school now insists on this as the number of children that didn't have a clue but were receiving their communion (more than likely for the party and the money) was unbelievable. The children and their families are now asked to attend 4 out of 8 masses before the communion ceremony and to ensure that the majority do children are given readings, prayers of the faithful or bringing up the gifts in one mass to encourage attendance. I think it's only right if the child is receiving a sacrament they participate.

Also, I have am a middle aged Catholic and don't call it Holy Mass either and neither does anyone I know.

Why? It’s hardly a niche position to have significant issues with the Catholic Church, and its consistent failure to protect or prioritise the safety and wellbeing of women and children, its institution-wide failure to hand paedophile priests over to the criminal justice system etc.

Probably not but with regards to communion, I attended an Anglican church when I was a child and was confirmed, you don't need to be a Catholic to receive communion.

I have a family member who has sent her children to both Catholic primary and high school despite being quite against Catholicism - they were simply the better schools. So she refused to do any prayers or attend anything religious, and told the kids they're not Catholic, they're at good schools and if they wanted to do anything religious then they could crack on by themselves.

I am Catholic and my children went to Catholic primary, but I then sent them to a non-denominational high school because it was a much higher attaining school.

I don't think children get confused if they go to a faith school. I went to a non-denominational school (I became a Catholic as an adult), but way back then you still sang hymns, had the minister in for sermons etc. I found it so boring and just something we did at school. I didn't think more into it than that.

They won't be doing that unless they have been baptised as a Catholic.

Wow 4 out of 8. We are expected to have full attendance every Sunday in First Communion year, although we do attend Mass every weekend others don't so I can see why they arent keen on it being mandatory.