- Feb 5, 2002
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Clear warning
Sir – Here in Belgium many of my friends, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, are watching the recent developments in the UK Parliament relating to the forthcoming assisted-dying legislation with great concern. Does anyone really believe that the present British government, or its successors, will manage to contain the Bill as it stands? If it passes it will be amended until it is unrecognisable and its impact will balloon in the same way that abortion has. Here euthanasia is so out of control that we are killing depressed teenagers – and now that the doctors responsible have the protection of the law there is next to nothing that can be done about it. Almost identical stories have come from everywhere in the world where euthanasia has been made legal. If Members of Parliament don’t see this Bill for what it is, then they can’t say that they weren’t warned.
Kristian Joossens
Ghent, Belgium
Must do better
Sir – I am an experienced Religious Education teacher at a state-funded Catholic secondary school in the UK. In recent years the trends of secularisation have made teaching in a Catholic school more difficult; RE lessons are often less about theology and more full-blown battles in apologetics.
Nonetheless, some of the decline of our Catholic schools is caused not by outside factors but by those within the Church. Often the trendy but bogus ideologies and heresies of the day are accepted and promulgated by leaders and teachers alike, despite the requirement of Canon 803 §2 that “instruction and education in a Catholic school must be grounded in the principles of Catholic doctrine”.
It seems like a case of serving two masters, but the Department of Education, being on the fashionable side of identity politics, takes precedence. Serious Catholic parents are now increasingly looking elsewhere for real Catholic education and new models are emerging – like the Regina Caeli hybrid homeschooling academy in Bedford.
There may be others, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But what I do know is that the status quo is having an overall negative effect, not a positive one. We are not doing justice to our faith when forced to present it through the lens of exam boards and statutory guidance. Catholicism, with all its beauty and truth, is being dragged through the mud even at what are supposed to be “our” own schools. Surely our children deserve better.
Name and address supplied
Agony of choice
Continued below.
catholicherald.co.uk
Sir – Here in Belgium many of my friends, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, are watching the recent developments in the UK Parliament relating to the forthcoming assisted-dying legislation with great concern. Does anyone really believe that the present British government, or its successors, will manage to contain the Bill as it stands? If it passes it will be amended until it is unrecognisable and its impact will balloon in the same way that abortion has. Here euthanasia is so out of control that we are killing depressed teenagers – and now that the doctors responsible have the protection of the law there is next to nothing that can be done about it. Almost identical stories have come from everywhere in the world where euthanasia has been made legal. If Members of Parliament don’t see this Bill for what it is, then they can’t say that they weren’t warned.
Kristian Joossens
Ghent, Belgium
Must do better
Sir – I am an experienced Religious Education teacher at a state-funded Catholic secondary school in the UK. In recent years the trends of secularisation have made teaching in a Catholic school more difficult; RE lessons are often less about theology and more full-blown battles in apologetics.
Nonetheless, some of the decline of our Catholic schools is caused not by outside factors but by those within the Church. Often the trendy but bogus ideologies and heresies of the day are accepted and promulgated by leaders and teachers alike, despite the requirement of Canon 803 §2 that “instruction and education in a Catholic school must be grounded in the principles of Catholic doctrine”.
It seems like a case of serving two masters, but the Department of Education, being on the fashionable side of identity politics, takes precedence. Serious Catholic parents are now increasingly looking elsewhere for real Catholic education and new models are emerging – like the Regina Caeli hybrid homeschooling academy in Bedford.
There may be others, and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But what I do know is that the status quo is having an overall negative effect, not a positive one. We are not doing justice to our faith when forced to present it through the lens of exam boards and statutory guidance. Catholicism, with all its beauty and truth, is being dragged through the mud even at what are supposed to be “our” own schools. Surely our children deserve better.
Name and address supplied
Agony of choice
Continued below.
Letters to the Editor: Euthanasia in Belgium 'is so out of control we are killing depressed teenagers’ - Catholic Herald
Letters: In Belgium euthanasia is ‘so out of control we are killing depressed teenagers’
catholicherald.co.uk
