Judge orders father to take his children to church

[CaffeLatteIceCream]

Telegraph Link

Words almost fail me. Out-fucking-rageous.

Mum is a Catholic, Dad is not. Even though Mum did NOT request this, the Catholic judge decides that Dad has to take the children to mass when they are with him.

The Telegraph say they've seen the court transcripts where the judge discusses his own faith.

I hope this is overturned very publicly and the idiot judge is rightly put in his place.

"Note that halfway through the Telegraph report the father is quoted as saying, "Because my contact arrangements now give me the children on some weekends, I am concerned that I will now also be required to take them to mass on Sundays when they are with me". The implication is that the original order (i.e. the one with the requirement for Mass attendance) did not give him any weekend contact.

Some RC schools require attendance at Mass on the Holy Days of Obligation, of which Christmas Day is one, in addition to Sunday attendance. It may well be that the children would have been in their mothers' care for Sundays and the other Holy Days of Obligation under the original order. My conjecture that it may have been down to school admissions therefore still holds."

Find me one RC school in the UK that has "provide proof that child has attended every single Holy Day of Obligation mass for years without missing even one" in its admissions criteria. Even our local RC school (which has huge hoops for parents to jump through, some of the strictest I've seen anywhere) doesn't do that. And if that were the issue then the mother would have asked for the provision to be included, which she didn't.

Whether or not the children have to go to mass to get into a particular school, why would the judge add that in if the mother didn't request it? Isn't that a parenting decision? All sounds very odd.

I'm going to offer a slightly different view point here.

In this country adoptive or foster carers have been required to provide culturally appropriate care for children since the 80s. This could be argued to come under that banner.

However, the fact that the mother didn't even request it (she may consider a non-catholic taking her children to mass to be inappropriate) and the fact that an English catholic would infringe on religious freedom considering the history of catholics in this country, to be shocking. Can this be appealed?

Find me one RC school in the UK that has "provide proof that child has attended every single Holy Day of Obligation mass for years without missing even one" in its admissions criteria

London Oratory. This case was several years ago before they were forced to water down their entry requirements by the Schools Adjudicator. There are a number of other Catholic schools that require regular attendance at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation with a strong suggestion that any absence may mean the family is not regarded as practising Catholic.

And if that were the issue then the mother would have asked for the provision to be included, which she didn't

We only have the father's word for that. But imagine that the judge was required to rule on which school the children would attend and it was clear from the father's attitude in court that he would attempt to frustrate the order. In that situation it would be surprising if the judge did not add something to the order to ensure that the father did not undermine the ruling. There would have been no need for the mother to request it.

I should also emphasise that we only have the Telegraph's report which is based on the father's version of events. There does not appear to be any Court of Appeal judgement on record against a ruling by the judge in this case where the facts completely match the father's allegations. There is one case that is a good match in terms of dates, number and ages of children, the father's professional status and the amount of contact ordered. However, the judgement does not mention any dispute over attendance at Catholic Mass on Christmas Day nor does it refer to the ECHR. These may have been mentioned in the 23 points raised by the father in his 263 paragraph skeleton argument but the appeal court judgement is clear that the main issue was the father's desire to overturn an order giving sole residence to the mother and put in its place an order giving sole residence to him. If this is the correct case I note that the appeal judge states that the original judge made the contact order in the terms requested by the mother's solicitor.

I don't think the Oratory ever said "attended Mass on Holy Days of Obligation without even missing one every two years" did it? Checking online it appears that it said that higher priority would be given to children with "sustained" attendance at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligations than those who had a record of "irregular" attendance. Attending every single Sunday and 7/8 Holy Days of Obligation is pretty sustained and not "irregular" even by Oratory standards. And the hearing was in the Midlands so I think they'd probably fall foul of distance criteria if they were looking at the Oratory...

I do think that there's more to this than is reported; I just don't think the more-to-this factor is anything to do with school admissions.

Alternatively it could be a safeguarding issue - if the children had expressed a desire to go to Mass at Christmas (not withstanding the father saying the 10 year old had expressed a lack of belief), then it might be the right decision to respect their culture/beliefs. And for a child Christmas might be more important than Easter.

If the appeal case I've mentioned is the correct one it seems the father had the children for Christmas every year.

Roman Catholic Canon Law requires attendance at Mass every Sunday and on the holy days of obligation. Exceptions are only permitted where there is no sacred minister available or "for some other grave reason". The current admission criteria for London Oratory appear to require full compliance with the requirements of Canon Law to qualify for consideration as a Catholic family, although the Priest's Reference suggests they don't implement this as written. More significantly, up until this year a points system was used. If the child and the parent or parents managed 100% attendance on Sundays and holy days of obligation that was worth 4 points. If any holy days of obligation were missed the candidate would only receive 3 points.

It may, of course, be nothing to do with school admissions but that seems the most likely reason for such a requirement. If it was, for example, a dispute about the religious upbringing of the children I can imagine the judge ordering the father not to do certain things when the children were in his care but ordering that they should attend Mass at Christmas seems unlikely.

That does, of course, assume the order actually contains this requirement at all. If the appeal case I refer to is the correct one it seems the father's version of events cannot be entirely trusted.

"It's all complete bollocks" would certainly be the simplest, and possibly the most convincing, form of "there's more to this than reported"

The mother didn't request that the father be forced to take the children to mass on Christmas day. But she may have requested something else and this is the compromise the judge came up with. Fo instance, she may have requeted that the children spend every Christmas with her because for them it is a religious holiday and since the father is not religious it would be better for him to have the children at another time and not Christmas. Then the judge might have compromised by saying the father may have them every other Christmas but must take them to mass. (As with other suggestions, this is just speculation).

I'm not convinced the report can be believed.

The report is false in many parts, possibly in totality.

The father is interviewed here (not in any connection to this report, just because he is active in the 'atheist community'), on 'Atheistically Speaking' describing how he feels suicidal and also has agoraphobia.

www.stitcher.com/podcast/atheistically-speaking-2/atheistically-speaking/e/as71-anonymous-steve-and-jake-farrwharton-on-suicide-part-35529457

His interview starts around 08:30, but at 15:30 he describes why he has these feelings. He said he has PTSD, from being in a relationship for 20+ years. His wife, he says, stole hundreds of thousands of pounds, from his clients (who had paid in advance, not sure how that works?). And her defence was that he was a paedophile, murderer, rapist, terrorist, drug dealer, etc.

He says social services, police etc. have apologised, wiped him from the Police National Computer, etc., but he was beaten up for the paedophile accusations and suffers agoraphobia as a result. And he 'is isolated in the hills of northern England', because 'that's the only place he feels safe'. And doesn't work. And he would probably kill himself he lost his home.

There is more detail on what supposedly happened here:

www.missinggodgene.com/2015/01/anonymous-steves-fight-for-his-rights.html

It seems a little disingenuous to say '‘I am definitely not Catholic. The last time I went to church was some time ago and it was a Unitarian church that I attended.'

when he seems to devote much of his time to 'evangelical atheism'.

And apparently neither he, nor his wife, comply by the judge's ruling anyway.

He also mentions that the CoA 'ignored' his complaint about mass, so accordingly this is presumably correct.

www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/markup.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/49.html&query=Orrell&method=boolean

It appears from the Court of Appeal judgement that he represented himself (I am not sure what the legal aid position would be?), and they were not impressed with his rambling submission.

It says " It is right to record that virtually every point that Dr F seeks to make relates to the process, and the court hearing, and the presentation of his former wife at that hearing, and very little is said about the children at all."

"HHJ Orrell spoke of in regretful terms in the course of his judgment, where he indicates that at early directions hearings he tried to get both parties to move away from making allegation and counter-allegation against each other and to focus upon the children.
For my part, coming to this case afresh, it seems from my perspective that Dr F has been singularly unable to accomplish that task. It is very difficult for me to pick out anything about these two boys and their lives from the case papers, virtually all of which are concerned with allegations and counter-allegations as between the adults and/or criticisms of the professionals involved."

"as the children's father, with parental responsibility for them, it was incumbent upon Dr F to tell the judge what he considered to be best for his children. His inability to do so during the hearing, and indeed before me in September, was striking evidence of the lack of focus on these two children."

"Having read the judgment, I do not think it is possible for Dr F to put himself into the entirely positive and rosy light that he seeks to do, because of course the judge rejected Dr F's own allegations against the mother, in particular in relation to her mental health. On that point, Dr F in the course of his documents for this hearing has sought to say that all he was doing was challenging the mother's psychological functioning; but it is plain from what I have read, and from the judgment, that in fact he was at times putting forward a case which was that she had a mental health condition, a personality disorder, and that the children were not safe in her care."

'Steve' is criticised by the CofA for ignoring his children's welfare and instead ranting on about procedure and his wife's mental health. It seems that he has not given up on that.

Here he is:

www.skepticule.co.uk/2015/01/skepticule-0865-20150122.html

He confirms the detail from the CoA that the judgement had not been issued by the original court between 18 November 2011 and 1 May 2012. He claims to be 'prosecuting the judge personally' in the High Court. And he says the CofA ignored his Article 9 claim. And he said he converted his prosecution to a judicial review, and the Article 9 claim was not addressed. And he then appealed the judicial review (to the CoA presumably again), saying he insisted to the judge in the appeal of the judicial review that they address the Article 9 claim. Which they did, saying it was too small an infringement to be a breach. But he claims this is now legal precedent.

And posting here

as 'Mark Weber'. His fellow atheists don't believe him either.

And the National Secular Society/British Humanist Society don't want to touch it.

I would love to hear what the actual ruling was, because I suspect that this is being twisted into something else.

More likely that he was ranting in court wanting to have access to the kids at Christmas, in an attempt to get at his ex, and the judge has made some remark such as 'If you have them at Christmas I would expect you to celebrate Christmas with the children, if not, why don't you have them at New Year which is non-religious'. I suspect he has then run with this and said he has been ordered to attend mass or face jail.

The ruling by both the initial judge and the appeal judge make it quite clear they think he is a wanker.

He has a been through a bitter divorce, like millions of others. But he wants to make it about himself and make himself out as some sort of atheist martyr, even though, at best, the courts have said 'look mate, nobody gives a shit where you take your kids at Christmas, get a grip - this is supposed to about the welfare of your kids, not you playing Perry Mason'

Quite.

The judgement was delivered in May 2012, so if they are doing alternate Christmasses, he should have had the children for a Christmas by this stage.

If so, I wonder if he has brought them to Christmas mass, or did he decline? Surely the simple thing to do in this case is just to do whatever you want, and if, and only if, the court attempt to pursue for contempt, do you then roll out the various Article 8, Article 9 issues, that may or may not exist.