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?

Thank you glastocat- most of "us" are fairly normal, well-balanced people

Why don't you ask your school about the RE your dc are getting, and when they will be taught about other faiths? Most of the schools work to a syllabus of sorts, and I'm sure somewhere on there there will be scope for discussion of other religions. if not, you are well within your rights to ask why not and suggest it!

glastocat if my kids teachers were like DP, i would have had them kicked out! my kids were taught catholic/christian values, compassion, understanding, empathy, which i'm sure are the same as many other religious values and thats why i was happy for them to be educated in a catholic school and i didn't ever think their RE lessons were a waste of teaching time, when they learnt about different cultures, its a huge shame that your dc is have lessons of which you disapprove.

having

I like the post that pointed out that often the catholic schools are the best ones with best results. Where I used to live the top two primaries in the county were both catholic achieving 100% in sats for maths and english. Many many people re-found their faith to get their kids into these schools!

The sweeping generalisations in teh original post and in many that follow are astounding and if they were aim at any other religious group there would be screams of prejudice / racism.

I for one would welcome my child being taught in an environment of compassion, understanding, empathy as mrsblueskys so eloquently puts it.

Hear hear MrsB

Any school that is, by whatever means, selective, is going to get good results. Simply because the sort of parents who think about what school their child is going to go to will produce children who get better results than people who chuck their child out the door to the nearest school because otherwise they get the social services round. Harsh but true. We have a school near us that you can only get to if you have a car. It has brilliant results. Because it is a self fulfilling prophesy - good results so concerned and aware and affluent parents are prepared to drive 15 minutes out of town to take their children there.

The same for catholic schools. unless you happen to be a catholic who lives on the doorstep, there are going to be a higher percentage of thinking and involved parents at a catholic school than AN OTHER Primary. Therefore better results. Simple. Nothing to do with believing in Transubstantiation at all.

OMG!!! I cannot believe this post is serious!!!

As u prob guess, I am a catholic, as are my 2 dc's, and I am appalled at yr attitude Jennyslinger, hw DARE you brand all catholics as fukn paedophiles?! You have got me mad!!!

I hope the OP has got the message now.

I just wanted to add that DH's family are Catholic. I am not.
We attend the Catholic church on occasion and I have to say that it is really beautiful.
The actual building is of course beautiful, but also the ceremony, the tradition...
I feel my children actually benefit from our time spent there, and they enjoy it. It's kind of like going to a museum - it contributes to their knowledge IYKWIM.
At the very least it will demystify some of their ideas about religion.
Before we started going, DD's thought all Catholics were nuns and thought my DH was too - The Sound Of Music has a lot to answer for!

I understand that your DH wants your children to spend more time there than mine do. You should have discussed this before DCs and even before marriage.

But really you have nothing to fear from a Catholic church. I feel it is good for children to have lots of different experiences and then make up their own mind.

just heard that the Pope is going to read out a letter of apology to Ireland at Sunday mass

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article7069220.ece

Oh No, I have spent the past hour reading this back to back.

It's all a bit mad.

I reckon that abuse went on in every single church. Still does. False Stop.

It also went on in loads of families and still does. False Stop.

Going to church today doesn't allow for your children being away from you for one minute, if you wish. I do like to see mine all of the time anyway. I like to see if they are going to poison the chalice etc.... they are norty. I remember one occasion when an elderly woman bent her head at just the right time because DD launched a bible and we all held our breath.....

You don't have to leave your children in a 1 2 1 situation in church ever nowadays. That's good.

Maybe what happened years ago was that people let their children out a bit more (no cars and all that) and they went to the priest because; who can you trust, if you can't trust the priest/vicar/pastor, and they buggered/raped them because they could. Perhaps for food, for social recognition, money.... In todays society, that would be unthinkable provided that parents tell their children what is acceptable and what's not.

I make a point of telling my children that nobody needs to wash/touch your privates (insert any name you need to). They know that. Not me, not Daddy, not anyone. In fact no one needs to see them ever, unless it's a Doctor and Mummy or Daddy are there.

We, and I emphasise the we, have also decided that we will not use babysitters, or friends of friends etc. Hence we only went out once recently on my DH's birthday. Our babysitters were teenage girls who babysit for other couples but we still felt strange.

In fact we joined a social club, where we can take the children if we fancy going out. They have a childrens room and there are many children to play with plus large (very secure) gardens.

I do know one thing though. Your relationship with God is just that. Yours. It's not achieved through anyone else.

maybe it is the attitude that 'you have nothing to fear from a Catholic church' in the face of thousands of kids being abused that allows it to go undetected and hidden for decades.

and @proudestmummy - i'm not saying all catholics are paedos. I'm asking whether a catholic church is a safe place to send my kids because the 'management' has allowed the abuse of so man kids to not only happen and also continue for decades, globally.

you can calm down, now.

JS, absolutely not. But I do watch my children from start to finish.

The truth; only three people look after my children, me, my husband and their childminder. They do go and play every now and then with my best friend's daughter. Survivor, who sees it the same as me.

They also go on playdates, but with no one who hasn't gotten drunk with me on at least 4 occasions/or another school Mum who isn't on the PTA. Lol. It's an hour and a half/ 2 hours sometimes and I am very aware of who is driving home who etc. I know it's anal. But most of their time is spent tearing up the place with their schoolmate. Usual.

No Jennyslinger you have nothing to fear from the Catholic church.
You do have something to fear from pasedophiles. And they can be anywhere. To single out a church is...

MrsCraft - you've only ever been out once? Am I reading that correctly? Because you don't trust babysitters?

If I am reading that correctly (and I hope not) that is utterly sad. You are a parent, yes, and it is your job to protect your children.
But you are also a wife, friend, daughter, PERSON and you (and your children) need time away from each other.
I know the world can be a scary place, but if you don't let them dip their toes in once in a while, in small doses, it will be scarier for them and you when it is time.

Mrs Crafty - oops cross posted. Only saw your first post.

Glad you do allow play dates etc.

Condensed, of course, me and the girls go out a lot. We also socialise alot as families, with partners etc.

You build up a trust I suppose, but if you are like me you are aware and to be honest, that's all any parent has to be - is aware. It could go wrong, fair enough.

We have been together for 14 years and had children late in life, but we already knew what we needed to as far as socialising with certain groups of people were. Read that as cynical and completely untrustworthy.

Nothing yet, has made neither Hubs or me change our minds. So we are very selective. Equally we have a lovely group of friends & family who are around pretty much all of the time.

'They can read bibles and talk about Santa, healing crystals or homeopathy as much as they want if that is the fantasy world they want to create for themselves.'

I can't believe you and the DH didn't talk about all of this before you married. What else got swept under the carpet? Finances? Sex? Previous relationships and children?

The idea that you can casually dismiss something that is clearly important to your DH, who has throughout your marriage attached more significance to the religious elements of his life than you seem to want to admit, shows a complete lack of respect for your DH. He and his family don't go every week to mass, but presumably they do go sometimes. You and the DH had a church blessing (or was it a mass with exchange of vows included?) after what you describe as the wedding proper in the registry office. And the children were baptised, obviously according to his wishes. The silly assertion that the party lasted much longer than the church ceremony so therefore the church ceremony was insignificant is well silly, a really, really silly non-point.

You keep on insisting that none of the religious elements that you went along with meant anything to you, and trying to convince yourself that they couldn't possibly mean anything to your DH because religion/ the Catholic Church, according to you is A) preposterous and B) run by paedophiles. Clearly, your DH is aware of the ongoing scandal in the Catholic Church; it has been going on at least since the Magdalene Laundry abuse came to light in the 90s, in Ireland at any rate, and clearly he has decided as far as religion goes, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. The idea that you can go back on promises you made because you think religion is a load of codswallop is like saying you had your fingers crossed behind your back so it doesn't count. It mattered to your DH back when he had the children baptised, and it matters to him now. He wants the DCs going to mass and to the sunday school because religion matters to him. It's quite a time and effort commitment that he's willing to make for this. It's clearly something that matters to him.

This is something you need to approach with your relationship in mind, not the relative merits of atheism or Catholicism. You need to examine whether the only opinion that really matters to you in this relationship is yours or if you are willing to respect your DH's, whether religion itself is something you are able to wrap your head around or not. This is about the level of respect between the two of you, and about your communication skills.

Although I am a Catholic, I would be saying this to you if your DH was Jewish or Muslim or a Jehovah's Witness or a member of any organised religion.

WRT the 'picking and choosing' many have commented upon -- the bottom line in Catholic theology is that everyone is endowed with free will and a conscience. You are expected to have an informed conscience, but you are the person who gets to judge for yourself whether your conscience is informed or how far you will go in informing it, and you are the one who gets to decide, freely, what you will do or think or say or believe.

mrscrafty said that she believes abuse went on in every single church and still does! What an amazing generalisaton.

in my life i have been a member of 5 churches as i have moved around the country and in none of them was there any problems, everyone in contact with the kids gets training, no one is left alone with any adult, there are always parents there too.

Being at a church school when I was small and taught by nuns i had a great time they were kind and fun there was no abuse - it was a fun and nuturing environment and the educational standard was high.

I dont in any way want to diminish the horror of child abuse, but I do want to say that not all schools are the same and not all parishes are the same.

The scouting organisation was blighted by the abuse scandals in the 70s and 80s and it looked for a time that it would not survive, parents withdrew their children and adults stopped volunteering to help out. They did everything they could to ensure the safety of their charges and now the organisation is thriving once again.

I have volunteered to help out at the childrens liturgy at my church all I am required to do is help with the craft activities - and despite already being crb checked i still have to go on a two day training course required by the diocises (and all diocises -shocking spelling) its a belts and braces approach as the church is taking this very seriously.

glastocat;

I'm not a teacher.

I have never meet a catholic teacher or priest who has said anything negative about homosexuals....very few catholics would say anything bad about homosexuals..infact most of them don't really give a toss ...

All we are saying is...whilst we acknowledge homosexuals and tolerate their lifesyle choices... we will never teach our children that homosexuality is the right way.

We are not forcing our views on the wider community... when you buy into the catholic faith you know exactly what you're getting....it's a "faith" a "belief".....that's why we like our own schools, we are all staying together.

Homosexuals are free to lead their lives happily, we will never bother them...but what we will not tolerate is a few liberal politicians telling us we have to change our core beliefs just to keep homosexuals happy.

Try telling muslims they have to teach their children that homosexuality is natural...see what reaction you get from them...

Okay I admit I haven't read all 22 pages so far, but I'd like to add something in case it hasn't been mentioned.

Most of the abuse cases that I've read about have involved either 1) little boys going on a trip somewhere away from home with the priest(s) involved (this was one of the big US cases) 2) complicit help by adults who went through similar abuse and felt it wasn't out of the norm (some of the Irish cases, as the church is quite powerful there) or 3) boys working as altar boys, thus having a lot of time alone with the priests.

I have not yet read of a case where children were abused in nursery groups, etc. I'm not saying it can't happen, but once you're down to the extraordinarily rare category, you should then feel this way about all nurseries/ groups, not just Catholic ones.

If this is just you not wanting them to be Catholic, well, I'd suggest letting them go to Catholic school. That seems to have cured most of my friends. (went to Catholic school for 13 years)

to the op. you are being unreasonable

So, can I ask you mathaxiety (and others who have said that Catholicism allows a choice of beliefs), if its all down to free will and conscience, is it ok took to be a practising homosexual, have an abortion, or be a priest? No, thought not.

And cakewench, your analysis of the abuse cases that you have read about is just plain wrong. As I have said on this thread already, the abuse here in Ireland was endemic. The Catholic church took children off their parents for the most spurious of reasons ( illegitamacy for example), threw them in children's homes ( often to work like slaves, as per the Goldenbridge rosary bead factory), starved them, beat them, and raped them. This went on for decades. And then when it started to come out, the Catholic heirarchy did their damnedest to cover up the whole thing. Oh, and they went running to the Irish government and got them to agree to pay most of the reparations. So it wasn't just a case of a few abusers going on to abuse, not by a long chalk.

and daftpunk, you are a bigot, I won't waste any more time on you.

Y'know LG, I have alot of time for you, in alot of ways we are very similar, both fighting our cause...

....Together Lenin we can live with the sadness I'll love you with all the madness in my soul...