Wow, I take the kids out for the day and look what kicks off 
.
I can actually see why rarfs thought I might be hypocritical but the truth, as usual, is a little more complicated. She (I'm assuming rarfs is female) is right that I was extremely disappointed that my daughter didn't get into HG in 2008, I did indeed think that it was a lovely school when I visited it for an hour. I was very impressed by the children who showed me around and liked the school's cosy atmosphere and I either did not notice or chose to ignore - hard to say which - some of the signs that its extreme religiosity and slight uptightness might mean it was not the right school for me to send my children to. At the time, I thought I was Catholic enough to cope with the school but it turns out I am not nearly Catholic enough. The Reflections on Christ's Passion Day kind of confirmed why it would have been a very bad fit for my family and, I believe, anyone who isn't a very devout and very traditional Catholic would struggle with it. (It took place in 2009 and I assure you that it was not a play and not limited to KS2 - it was every child that attended school on that day dressed all in black reading sections of the gospels and chanting - I wish I had the imagination to make this sort of thing up. Perhaps the school authorities realised retrospectively that it was OTT and have decided not to repeat it.) There have been other episodes that I have heard about from parents there that make me thankful that my daughter does not attend (incidentally she was later offered a place which we declined).
I think I may also have been guilty of buying into the hysteria that is rife in the area - and which I am sure rarfs will confirm exists - which dictates that, unless your child goes to HG (or one of the paid-for preps), they are going to have a very second rate education.
More generally, I think I was also misinformed about what it meant for a school to be voluntary aided. It was only much later that I found out that the state pays for the overwhelming majority of costs of these schools yet the schools get to dictate admissions along very, very narrow lines. In my ignorance, I thought that the church contributed far more generously and that was the reason that they could select pupils and have such an influence on the schools with which they are associated (an impression which, to be fair, the schools don't do anything to disabuse people of). I was genuinely outraged when I found out about that.
Since 2007 when we applied for HG, there have been things that have made me more and more uncomfortable with the Catholic Church, largely the way in which the authorities and the serving priests seemed unable to speak out about the horrific child abuse revelations while being all too ready to condemn consenting gay adults for their sexuality. rarfs is wrong to say that I stopped going to mass: I stopped going at HG because I found the priest who was there until recently so appalling. I found out that he was a very enthusiastic supporter of Opus Dei and he said some awful things in the pulpit as well as some awful things to me personally (not attacks on me in any way but just things that made me think . One choice one was: "You should be careful not to have too many non-Catholic friends" 
.) I think he was an extremely controlling man and I was very glad that he has gone - good luck to whichever parish he's rolled up at. I think rarfs and I are probably in agreement that he was a little woo-hoo as she says in her post "Under the new (my empahsis) parish priests, the Holy Ghost parish is no more or less traditional than any other Catholic parish of my experience." Perhaps I should go down and see how the new priests are but, ironically given the number of families that attend there, I have always found it to be a very child-unfriendly church. Incidentally, I heard that the HT was also leaving HG but cannot, for the life of me, remember who told me this so did I imagine it?
So to summarise what has turned into quite an epic post while I was certainly disappointed not to get my daughter into HG five years ago, I have since turned down a place there and am quite relieved she never attended. I went out with a HG parent last week who was saying this very thing and also said that, although she is far more religious than I am, she is not 100% happy with the level of devoutness that seems to be a requisite at the school. I have found out a bit more about how church schools are funded and am disgusted that they are able to control admissions so effectively on what are largely historical contributions to schools. This makes me generally opposed to schooling which draws its intake from an exclusive pool - we wouldn't (I hope) want to segregate along religious lines in other walks of life, after all.
I've read through the thread and I have a couple more points to make: it seems a little disingenuous for rarfs to say that she means me no malice when she accuses me of hypocrisy, sour grapes and bitterness and has trawled the site searching for comments - that's a little bit personalised and, frankly, a bit creepy. As a first time poster - and not a measured and reasonable one such as me (modest 
), she might like to think about how she presents herself on other threads. Second, I sniffed the merest suggestion that she felt that Quint and Piglet and I were in some sort of MN insiders gang, all sworn to defending each other against apparent newcomers however sensible and persuasive their posts. Not the case, I am genuinely surprised - and a little bit flattered - that they felt it necessary to step in at all. I completely agree with everyone who has said that the point of MN is that we can all share our opinions and thoughts - it is often the most interesting place on the web.
lala x