I'm torn. DH is re-connecting with Catholic past so kids can get into Catholic school.

[bungalowbelle]

I'm uneasy and yet strangely defiant about this.

The secondary school we're in the catchment for is two miles away IF we're lucky enough to get it. There's a 50/50 chance we'll have to go to one even further away UNLESS DH rekindles the Catholic within. Then we'd be able to send the kids to a really good, Catholic school with large grounds about two hundred yards away.

DH was brought up Catholic. He stopped going to church and has one or two major problems with Catholisism, but also relates to a large percentage of it. He's keen and wants to go ahead. He has already begun the process.

He'd have to get the kids baptised, be confirmed himself ... and in all honestly he wouldn't be doing it were it not for the school issue.

One of my children has a serious medical condition which needs constant management. I would be very unhappy to have him travel a long way from home every day.

I still feel confused and guilty though. What do you reckon?

And by the way, the fact that you feel "confused and guilty" makes me think you will fit right in with the Catholic church (I mean that in a good way).

I don't know. I feel a lack of guilt. I'd have nothing to say at confession.

Do you ever have to make it up because, frankly, you're feeling pretty sorted and guilt-free?

You are making the whole thing up.

God no, spidermama. I'm not even a practising Catholic and I've thought of at least 20 things to feel guilty about already this morning.

Just thought I'd offer up this warning little anecdote, for what it is worth.

My db and his partner were both open non-believers, so had no intention of having their children baptised into the local Protestant state church. However, my niece, when she was about 5, decided differently and insisted on being christened together with her baby sister. Her parents tried to put her off, but she claimed that she genuinely believed and that this was what she wanted so in the end they gave in.

Vicar comes round for the preliminary talk. The coffee has barely been poured when niece pipes up with:
'But we don't believe in God, do we, Mummy?'

Be prepared to either have to lie about your faith to your children, or have them relay the truth to the school priest.

This thread supports my firmly held belief that all faith schools should be abolished

I'd be wary about having the children raised catholic. Just as I would be wary about having them raised muslim. There's lots of crazy stuff in those religious packets ...

I don't think guilt is necessarily a bad thing. It's very useful for recognising whether you've done wrong (an internal AIBU if you will).

Catholic guilt can get a little out of hand, but I think a child's moral compass comes almost entirely from what their parents teach them from 0-5. The effect of what they get from school is quite small by comparison.

it is a really messed up system, if entrance to a secondary school can depend on how much domestic labour you have personally done for the local priest
I mean, talk about feudalism
talk about a power trip
I understand that the church needs to be cleaned, but really....

Well quite. Is it time for another rant about admissions criteria?

As I have already said there will always be this dilemma with faith and non faith schools for parents as long as the faith schools persistantly out perform the rest. I would never condemn a parent for wanting the best education for their children and, certainly where I live, that is a faith school. The compromise of a Catholic ethos in the school to access a better education was never that great a one for me. The impact of attending a Catholic school was relatively minor for my dcs and in the most part a good thing actually. I would have felt more guilty if I had had strong convictions about not wanting my children to attend a faith school and allowed this to affect the standard of education they achieved because I sent them to a lower achieving non faith school. Where I live all the non faith state schools are out performed by the faith schools at secondary level.

"it is a really messed up system, if entrance to a secondary school can depend on how much domestic labour you have personally done for the local priest"

harpsi, this is the sort of misleading things i regularly find on these types of threads which is why I don't often visit them.

Imagine, of my school of 1200, there are about say for agrument's sake, 900 catholics here. Surely the churches woudl be overrun with serfs if they were all there cleaning and doing bake sales.

as it is our church has had to reduce its cleaning to every other week as it doesn't have enough volunteers to do it more regularly.

DH and I are catholic, our kids went/go to a catholic primary. We do not go to church very often (3 or 4 times a year) and dd had no problem getting in to a Catholic Comp, mind you she also got into 3 Grammar Schools (1 mixed, 2 single sex) as well. She went to a Mixed Grammar in the end. We are in the South East.

IorekByrn I love the idea of an internal AIBU. That's such a great description.