Pastoral Application - Faith Secondary School

[ElectronEagle]

After some advice for DP

DP wishes for his child to go to the local faith secondary school (currently attends faith primary). His Ex also wanted DC to go there, but says no point as do not meet the faith criteria - every or most week for at least 3 years - they have been attending regularly for the last 9 / 10 months.

DP feels there might be some merit in applying for a pastoral place as there were a number of family problems that can account for the non attendance prior to recently going.

The faith declaration form asking for supporting evidence - any idea what this might be? Is just a letter from DP and/or his Ex sufficient or will they require copies of doctors notes, counsellor letters, etc?

Thanks

I think they'll need more evidence than something written by the applicant - they could make anything up. But I thought that sort of supporting evidence was normally a letter written by the local church?

Does your DP have a letter referring them to the counsellor or something like that? Something without personal information on but which confirms that family problems existed?

Were they going to church regularly before the family problems? I suspect evidence of that would be met rather more sympathetically than what's going to look like "we have an excuse for not getting our act together to fake our faith early enough".

You would have to show that not only did they have problems, but that these problems prevented them from going to Church.

Showing they were previously regular attenders before the problems would help enormously, as would the priest remembering conversations about non-attendance back at the start if the non-attending period. What was their level of attendance over the years generally, and the first part of the qualifying period specifically ? Did they attend any services? And if the problem was long-term illness, were they seen regularly by the hospital chaplain (if in patients) or request communion at home (if not)?

The system is deliberately set up to depend on countable things (like attendance) rather than subjective ideas of how 'good' congregants a particular family is. But if there are extenuating circumstances, these should be put forward for consideration.

The parish priest is happy to write a supporting letter stating that he considers them a practicing member of the Catholic family, and that he is aware of the issues which prevented church attendance and is still supportive of their application to the school.

They attended church regularly as a family until 2010. (DP is Catholic, his Ex is not) DPs mother then became extremely ill and required substantial caring, which DP was providing, DP & Ex split up, and then DPs mother died and DP had a breakdown. Ex did not take DC to Mass during this period. Contact between DP and DC was then a bit hit and miss, but is now resolved and DP and DCs regularly attend Mass and have been doing so since the start of the year.

I think his Ex isn't bothered whether they go or no, she is supportive of the faith of the children, and is happy for them to go to the other Catholic school which they will get in as they are at the Catholic feeder. However the school DP prefers is highly oversubscribed, so usually places only go to those with the highest faith criteria or those with the Pastoral applications.

In that case, I think the parish priest's supporting letter is their supporting evidence.

Maybe he can be asked to be explicit as to the nature of the issues (the Catholic parent caring for a dying relative so not taking the kids to Mass strikes me as about as good an excuse as it gets).

I have absolutely no idea where or if separation/divorce/new partner gets treated in all this, for a Catholic school. But your DP might need to consider whether mentioning it would be a negative on the faith criteria.

Thanks skylark. I have said similar. On the list of reasons not to attend Church, caring duties and a complete breakdown surely must rank up there as acceptable.

DP is very stressed about this though - he feels like he is using his mothers illness as an excuse, and doesn't want to do that, although I have said I am sure his mother would want him to if it did the best for the DC, and also he doesn't particularly want to rake up all the old feelings from the time as it took him a long time to recover enough to function.

He is not sure if there is a specific format, or if he just writes a Dear Sir letter explaining briefly the timeline of events, or if they want a 10 page essay! I said I believe the former would be more appropriate, with independent supporting info - i.e. priest letter and one from his GP confirming his breakdown, or his original hospital admission.

This is all very stressful, and I am glad DS(1) is now home schooled