stopping my kids going to a Catholic Church

[jennyslinger]

I know religion is contentious so I'd like to say up front that I am a confirmed atheist and my DH is a confirmed catholic. This is not about the rights or wrongs of believing in god.

DH wants DS and DD (when she's 4yo) to go to our local Cathocis church to attend sunday school and get involved with other church activities.

I have read so much over the last few years about the child abuse cover-up in the Catholic Church. For this reason I have told DH and his family that the kids will not be going.

DH says I am fussing over nothing.

I asked DH he knew a nursery had covered up child abuse would he be happy with the kids going. He says this is not the same.

Am I being unreasonable?

BattyKoda....I'm ont Catholic, but my dC's go to Catholic schools.

DS1is in Y6, and he certainly hasn't been taught homosexuality is wrong. He has been taught that some people are attracted to others of the same sex, and this is just how humans are. He's been taught that ridiculing, mocking or anything but tolerance towards homosexuals is wrong.

I was really quite suprised when he came out with all this, but there you go.

There are aso taught, however, that any sex outside of marriage is wrong.

So it's OK to be gay, as long as you odn't have sex. I guess.

In answer to the OP, I don't have a problem with my children attending Catholic sunday school (although they are none too keen ). It's usually run by some parents anyway...the priests are too busy with the service.

Yes, there has been a cover up in the past, and no I dont' agree with every belief of the Catholic church, but for me there are many more good points than there are bad, and I don't belive for one second my children are in any danger what so ever by attending church or sunday school.

"Catholic bashing"? Becuase my opion differs from yours I am a Catholic basher

Actualy the Catholic Church doesn't exclude groups as a result of sexual preference. Preference has nothing to do with it, it's about who you choose to f*

And who's been going to the Monty Python School of Religious Learning, citing 'Every Sperm Is Sacred'. The rhythm method is OK because it's totally 'natural' birth control using only what God has given us (including a splattering of will power)

I think that came from people trying to dismiss the child abuse as something that happened years ago and only in boarding schools.

M comments about Irish Catholics were sarcasm. Must lean not to be sarcastic at any point.

Piglet, I disagree with any faith that excludes sections of society.

OP you make no sense, you appear to feel very strongly about the Catholic faith/church, but yet you have married a Catholic and had your child baptised.

You feel so strongly that you dont want your dd to join this faith (despite having her baptised into it, for the sake of piss up)

I really dont think you can get on your moral high horse about this, after selling out for half a shandy!

But claw3, opinions and feelings can change over time. I'm far more atheist/anti-religious than I was a decade ago - and thirty years ago I was a Sunday School teacher!

The catholic church is rotten, through and through. Not all catholics are though.

You lot make a great example as to why the OP should not her DCs in a catholic school.

The head of the catholic church in Ireland got 2 young girls who had been raped and buggered to sign a document saying that they would never speak of it again. And he is unrepentant about that even now. The priest who raped them was moved on to another parish, where he raped more children.

The pope gave refuge to a rapist.

It is rotten from top to bottom.

I like to see the Church as by and large being made up of the lay worshippers, not just those who wear the fancy clothes........ in which case I'd thoroughly disagree that it's rotten through and through.
Incidentally the issue wasn't school it was sunday school.

By supporting the catholic church, by going to mass, by contributing funds, you are supporting the people who committed these crimes.

By all means worship. But not with them.

ItsAllaBitNoisy, as you say not every Catholic is rotten. And not every priest is rotten.

Oldlady, OP DD's is about 2 years old i think she said and she has been reading about the church and child abuse for the last few years and is horrified by it, i assume before her dd was born, if my math is any good. As i said doesnt make sense.

So if the rhythm method is ok because its 'natural' how come Catholics are allowed to take medication for example? Surely its just as unnatutural to take an aspirin to get rid of a headache, yet I don't see that being forbidden. I suspect the rhythm method is allowed because, let's face it, its not exactly massively reliable, even when done correctly.

But then most of the Catholic women I know are using 'unnatural' contraception anyway. I think its weird how most Catholics I know pick and choose what bits of the religion suit them (nice weddings, going to heaven) and discard the difficult bits (no sex before marriage, contraception). So I'm not really surprised by anything they do.

Lynette, if I worked for a corporation as corrupt and vile as them, I would leave. Why don't these decent priests leave? Start a new church.

I've read most of the pages of this thread and I'm keep think at those that are being quite vile that they can't possibly have an idea of the depth of the abuse, how wide spread the abuse was, how long the abuse was covered up and the extend of the cover up.

Read about it, read about the number of people who ignored and covered up the abuse, read about how it was dealt with by shipping the abuser off to another place (to continue abuse) read about how many people were/are involved in the abuse, Read about how they don't think they are accountable

Read it if you can stomach it. Parts of it made me throw up.

claw3, in the OP she says DH wants the child to go to church when she's 4 - I'm not reading through everything else to see if she's stated an actual age. But in any case, my atheism has become much stronger just in the last year or so, when I started thinking and reading a bit more about it. Reading about abuse in the church might just have strengthened the OP's original feelings?

Anyway, gotta go!

Urg.... the rhythm method can be pretty effective if done properly..... I know plenty of people who've been able to plan their families by doing so.
Because taking an aspirin doesn't effect the chances of you conceiving?
People of all religions pick and choose, and religions are about more than rigid doctrinal adherence.
ItsAll because they'd be excommunicated, be cut off from what is effectively their family and be risking eternal damnation.

Didn't the Anglicans already do that? And then the Quakers, who didn't agree with the Anglicans, .........

Oldlady, agree not worth splitting hairs over, im sure i read 2 years old somewhere, not reading through to confirm or not, far too long!

gotta dash too,picking ds up from social club

OP, I take it you didn't have a Catholic wedding.

ah yes. The Henry viii soloution...

All of this ignores the factthat everyone is angry with the catholic hierachy but actuallythat has very little to do with how most catholics will experience their faith.
Msot catholics will go to their local church and see their local priest . And the chances are that they have a positive experience with him.

The change your faith argument is like telling me that because my Government chose to fight a war I did not approve of and has done otherthings to make me ashamed, my alternative is to go and live in Belgium.

midaiwish:

"

2. if it is for real, then i have never heard of a priest agreeing to baptise children unless both parents agreed to it, and unless both parents agree to "bring the children up in the catholic church". Infact you can't get married in a catholic church unless you agree to bring up any children as catholics "

I am an atheist, and dh a Catholic. And yes I 'promised this' - you see to mee the promise is meaningless and just lipservice...

Buddleja i've just concluded that many people, especially those in the faith haven't properly read what happened. Its easy to conclude that it was something that happened in the 1970s in the odd boarding schools. It was widespread, in churches, in the community, in schools and then systematically covered-up by The Catholic Church for decades, around the globe. And as you said, allowed to spread by moving the perpetrators around so that more kids got abused.

Now they've put in a few CRB checks and by golly we're watching those priests now.

That's not good enough for me.

pamplemousse, while I would like to believe the rhythm method is effective, I'm afraid I know too many rhythm method babies.

You seem to have missed my point re: the aspirin. If contraception is forbidden just because it is 'unnatural', then so to is taking an aspirin for a headache, so why isn't that forbidden too? Or is there another reason for 'unnatural' (or in my eyes, effective)contraception being forbidden?

Anyway, its a pretty moot point, as I said before most catholic women I know are on the pill or using condoms.

As for the picking and choosing, you seem to think that's fine. But as an atheist, that kind of behaviour just makes me think hypocrite! The only person I know who is completely devout is my mother in law, and I kind of admire her for it, more than the ones who pick or choose anyway. Though it pisses me off that she thinks I'm not really married to her son.

Battykoda would you be so forthright about other faiths?