To think that actually, i am the lesser hypocrite here (church schools, sorry!)

[LucyEllensmummy]

OK so, I have just submitted my application for my DD to go to the local church school. My reasons are as follows. 1. It is BY FAR the best school in the local area. 2. I am a catholic and want my DD to go to a catholic school and three, and possibly the most important reason 3. My father, who died before he met DD would have been thrilled for her to go to that school and have the whole churchy upbrining.

So, here is the difficult bit - I am a lapsed catholic. I did go to church for just over a year when DD was born, but as she got older the services got too much for her. I could have started going by now yes, but i have to tell you - our local priest could BORE for England, most parishoners agree with me. My DP is not catholic, hes atheist. We are not married.

Now, i totally accept that practising catholics are given priority over non practising catholics. I had the choice to go to church every sunday when actually i would rather not, just because i want dd to go the school. I chose not to do this. I think the admissions critirea is that, PRacticing catholics then non practicing catholics, non catholic but attend different church and then non church goers (this alongside catchment area etc).

So, was having conversation with another mum who is non catholic who got quite cross that my DD would take priority over her DD because we are catholic and she is not, even though they go to church - fair enough, but she has made it clear that she "trudges to church every week so she can get her child into the school". As a catholic i think she underestimates the difference between catholic and non catholic christianity, and she is only taking her child to church to get her into the school anyway. Never mind that we can hear the church/school bells from our house which is a 5 minute walk from the school and she lives in the catchment area of a totally fine school, but a 15 minute car journey to the catholic school.

The school does have to take a proportion of non catholics anyway so what her problem is im not really sure...

Stillstanding, yes I do see the sense in that. I think I see both sides. I would have been upset if my child hadn't got into the cofE school, not JUST becuase it was the best school, but also because it's what I feel most comfortable around.

I guess although I completely support faith schools' right to select their pupils on their criteria, I understand why parents fake it a little,,, the one aspect of it all that does piss me off is when the parents on the list arrange themselves subconsciously perhaps, on to a ordered list of entitlement.

Perhaps they can say, oh well, the Piaccentinis are Italian and the Sheridans are Irish so we should be a few places above them on the list to get into the C of E school, yipee!!! speculation is normal, hoping for the outcome that suits your child best is normal.

But righteous indignation and resentment towards others, on the grounds that a lapsed catholic outranks a practising member of another Christian faith.............. hmmm, I'll have to have a think about that one when I'm the Minister for Education It's a tough one.

LOL at 'actively hypocritical' - as opposed to you being inactive ?

LEM,I take both my children to church and they're no plaster saints for sure, and they often drop kneelers or hymn books! But they DO get something out of it!!

They are becoming part of the church community, everybody recognises them and knows their names, they are getting to know all the other little children who will probably be at school with them and in their lives for the next 20 odd years

There's usually a coffee/juice and a biscuit after the service and even if they have been a little bit naughty nobody gives me dirty looks.

Bring your dd to church if you want to go as a family. Nobody will mind if she makes a bit of noise. I mean, if that's what you want!! Don't wait. Because it'll be fairly hard at 4, still hard at 5, not easy at 6, and so on.

Normalise it now. Don't make it a big strange deal.

well if yer not catholic - your nuffin'

you should have adopted the christian attitude and smiled serently and said " tough shit my child - i'm catholic, and your inferior"

then do a dance - to rub it in

Sorry, that slipped out.

I am surprised that being a lapsed Catholic who doesn't attend church gets you a place. In my area you not only have to attend a church, you often have to do extras like go on the creche rota.
I am with you really, I think there must be a lot of people who don't go to church but want their DC to go to a church school so that they can make their own minds up when older.To go, like your friend, just to get a place is very hypocritical.
I just question whether it will actually get your DC a place.

yeah...ireland

as always rev, you talk a lot of sense!!! I'll be owing you coffee at this rate.

Liffey, you absolutely, completely do (in charlie and lola styleee) make an excellent point there - that is a very good reason to start taking DD to church again soon.

Custy, i might just do that

now i said there was nothing i wouldnt stoop to - going on the creche rota, yep, id not be doing that .

Custy Ireland presents an intensified microcosm of human behaviour on this subject. so, not really 'wtf' but oh, so predictable, here you go, read this.

Glad to hear it LEM!! Because honestly the church needs young blood. Take your dd now while it's normal and she grows up thinking it's normal. If you waited til you knew she was going to be good for an hour, that mightn't be til she was 12, and by then she'd want to hang around with her friends!

my post was meant with humour and was recieved as such by the op. It wasn't that somehow that the war in ireland had passed me by.

rev, I would agree with much of your 17:28 post (in answer to your call to Catholics!)

stillstanding, related to that: catholicism is not just a faith. the sacramental aspect of it is what makes it so very different from more conscience based, scripture based branches of christianity. once you have have been baptised, you have undergone an operation that leaves your immortal soul qualitatively different, whatever you believe. same with all other sacraments - this is why these priests are hassling OP to get married, etc. they honestly believe that something happens to you that alters you profoundly, puts you (consciously or otherwise, willingly or otherwise) in a different and better relation to god.

It's like if you were battling an infection, and unconscious, and given intravenous antibiotics, they would do you good whether you believed in them or consented to them or even knew about them, or not.

Paradoxically despite all my current problems with catholicism this is part of the reason why i can't have any sacraments - i have a residual belief that I can't have any priests rummaging about footering with my soul, dammit - if I didn't feel this, perhaps I would be able to consider managing a wedding for form's sake.

God knows (ha ha ha ha ha ha) what I am going to do about all this when my lo is born.

I am actually very comfortable being an unmarried catholic mother - God doesn't judge me, its just some of his marshals have got some strange ideas .

Custy, I shouldn't have brought the price of fish into a heated debate....

Vezzie, so not a confrontational question, I'm just genuinely curious and it's not the sort of thing you can ask in rl without sounding confrontational or disparaging about catholicism, but... do catholics believe they are closer to God, or more important to God? or prioritised by God?

By sacraments, do you mean communion, baptism eg? From the outside, looking in, it seems unchristian that catholics consider their baptism or communion as so entirely different form a CofE communion.

Am I totally misunderstanding?

ROFL at people puzzled by the term "lapsed catholic". Truly, only a term a catholic would understand .

My priest said "once a catholic, always a catholic".

You and your friend are both being very unreasonabme

Liffey, I don't think Catholics think they are any of those things, or at least they shouldn't.

But I suspect that most Catholics who still hold to their faith in some form probably do think that they have been given access to something that is special and different from what other faiths offer (and yes, very different from other types of Christianity too) and that that is a great gift, but also a huge resposibility. And yes, I think what CAtholics believe about the sacraments is significantly different from the views held by other branches of Christianity, hence the prioritisation of baptised but non-practising catholics over practising non-Catholic Christians for the purposes of school admissions criteria.

Frogs, how is it more special? through what channel for want of a better word have catholics got better access to god that non catholic christians don't have? Is there an explanation of that?

I can see that it's different because although I don't know myown faith well enough to be sure, I think that it is more conscience based as you say.

Hi Liffey,

1. disclaimer - I am not saying I believe this stuff.
2. I meant, broadly speaking, that catholics believe all sacraments are better than nothing. in fact a C of E baptism is i think doctrinally identical to a catholic one (if only because anyone can baptise, doesn't have to be a priest).
3. communion however is different in a catholic church because the RC priest is magic and makes the bread and wine Jesus' real body and blood. a C of E service does not transform them, they are just symbols.
4. don't know about other sacraments, eg marriage.
5. some christians don't bother with sacraments much at all. catholics would see these people as decidedly missing out. another dodgy analogy (like the IV antibiotics one): you may know your mum loves you, you may believe she loves you, she may tell you she loves you in a letter, but there is nothing like a real life hug from your mum, there is no stand in for the action. that is what sacraments are for catholics, direct contact with god.
6. do catholics therefore feel prioritised by god? the ones I am thinking of feel lucky, like living down the road from their mum and being able to get a hug every sunday rather than being the sibling in another continent who just gets letters. but they would like everyone to be hugged!
7. do catholics feel secretly that they are better? i'd guess some do, especially old-school ones who set great store by following the rules, because they believe catholics have more and harder rules than everyone else and if they follow them all they must be better. this is probably at least partly why it is is so impossible for the catholic church to make any concessions to either modern life, or to the individual conscience - because they see it as selling out the miserable old buggers who want to be told exactly what to do and to be given an excuse to despise other people.

the catholic hierarchy has let down its church (the true church, ie the parishioners) in a big way. I had better write a write a letter to the pope to set him straight on a few points.

sorry I am sure you didn't want all this!

I'll show my ignorance now liffey - i didn't realise that CofE had communion??

Do catholics consider themselves closer to God? Well, i certainly don't, but lets face it, im not exactly a good example am i I have been to both CofE and catholic christenings. A catholic christening is definately a more intense experience i think. There is the whole exorcism and acceptance of the holy spirit. I found the CofE christening more superficial and not particularly spiritual.

LiffeyKidman, because you raised the point, I've got a joke for you.

A man died and went up to Heaven. Waiting to greet him at the Pearly Gates was St Peter. St Peter took him through and started leading him through green fields. As they were walking through the man could hear the voices of people laughing and joking and eating and music playing, coming from inside a huge garden with a big wall around it. "What's going on in there" the man asked St Peter. St Peter replied "oh, don't worry about that, it's just the catholics, they think they're the only ones up here".

Catholics don't consider their Baptisms and Communions to be different from CofE ones because catholics don't really consider the CofE at all. It simply isn't something they think about.

Vezzie while you are writing i have a few issues too. You know, the shhhhhh C word