Ireland: Catholics Obliged to Study Other Religions-Put Catholicism on Back Burner

[Dawn Marie]

Ireland: Catholics Obliged to Study Other Religions-Put Catholicism on Back Burner

A new educational program, established with the cooperation of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, is going to oblige Irish Catholic students to study other religions. This unheard-of measure breaks from the traditional system of primary schools where until now religious instruction focused almost exclusively on the Catholic Faith.

According to the Irish newspaper Irish Independent on February 3, 2014, the goal of this new program is “to create an open-mindedness towards other religions” and to “prepare the children to come into contact with Christians with other confessions and people with other religions, and maintain their Catholic identity while respecting the faith of others.”

In this same article by the Irish newspaper, it appears that the Minister of Education, Ruairi Quinn, has raised a controversy, claiming that the time consecrated to the Catholic religion “would be better used for literature and math.”

In August 2012, a survey conducted by the institution Red C and published by the Northern Irish newspaper Belfast Telegraph on August 8, 2012, showed that after Vietnam, Ireland is the country that has seen the most complete abandoning of religion. Of the Irishmen surveyed, 47% called themselves “religious”, while 69% did so in 2005.

(sources: apic/IrishIndependent/ Belfast Telegraph – DICI no.290 Feb. 14, 2014)

source DICI

[Cathleen]

St. Patrick and all the Irish martyrs of old must have broken hearts.  There is a legend which says that God would allow St. Patrick to help judge the Irish at the end of time.  Woe to those prelates!  :-o