Login 
Several months ago, we highlighted the fact that the 6th-Form arts department of a Catholic high school on Merseyside had attended the stage production 'Once a Catholic' at the Royal Court Theatre. At the time, we wrote to complain to the headteacher and invited our readers to do the same.
Just to recap, we were complaining because the advertising materials for this play included a blasphemous portrayal of Our Blessed Lord with a 'Rockabilly' hairstyle. The play itself also included much sacrilegious content, including :-
Mockery of Jesus on a Crucifix.
Mockery of His Miracles.
Mockery of Our Lady of Fatima.
Mockery of the Sacred Priesthood.
Mockery of Female Religious.
Mockery of the Virtue of Purity.
Portrayal of the Catholic Church as a sadistic and unforgiving institution.
Sadly, the response of the headteacher to our complaint only serves as further evidence of the dire state of 'Catholic' education. Whilst there are of course some good individual Catholic teachers, the general system, the curriculum and a great many of the staff only serve to further the corrosion of Catholic education in this country. This is because they do not express themselves as Catholics but as dyed-in-the-wool post-moderns.Â
The headteacher's reply to us gives much evidence of this. It begins by raising a 'technical point'; we are informed that the head would not normally respond to a complaint such as ours, because we 'did not raise a question' to be answered. This need for questions rather than objective statements typifies the post-modern. After all, a written complaint is a written complaint. Can it really be suggested that a set of objections to a blasphemous drama requires a question to merit a response? And this from the head of a Catholic school?
In any case, at least the headteacher did take the time to reply to us. Immediately after pointing out this 'technical point' he himself makes a statement - not a question notice - which seeks to relativize our complaint. We are informed: 'It is clear that you have very strong views about this Play, and its themes.' This is another typical example of post-modernist expression. The problem will not be permitted to be objective. No, it must reside within us and our 'views'. There will be no acceptance that the 'Play' could be blasphemous or wrong in itself, but only that we might view it as such. The post-modern claims to see all things only as a matter of perspective. At least, when it suits them so to do...
But as St. Irenaeus said over 1,800 years ago: 'Error refutes itself.' The post-modern cannot keep up this game of illusions in the hall of mirrors. In the final analysis, some things must be objective and these things usually end up being the 'views' of the post-modernist.
The headteacher gives evidence of this in his attempt to 'refute' our 'negative comments' about the school's mission statement. Actually, we did not make negative comments about the mission statement, but suggested that taking students to see such a blasphemous play would be a failure to live out the values expressed therein.
Part of the evidence the headteacher musters in his refutation is the fact that the school takes part in fund-raising for various charities. Now, it must be said that some of these are worthy. The school supports religious sisters working in Nigeria and the local Marie Curie Hospice. However, the examples of CAFOD, Children in Need and Oxfam are more troublesome.
Catholics in England will already be well versed in the moral issues relating to CAFOD and we have written about them several times before. SPUC have highlighted the fact that Oxfam has funded workers at a clinic run by the abortion provider Marie Stopes International and has also provided grants to two organizations in Ethiopia and Yemen which are affiliated to IPPF, the world's biggest abortion provider. Children in Need meanwhile have made grants during 2012 and 2013 to sexual health centres and projects to support homosexual youth. As SPUC point out, such centres often support or even facilitate abortion, abortifacients and damaging forms of sex education. And we are not talking trifling sums here; Children in Need gave £30,803 to the Terence Higgins Trust, which has endorsed the 'right to choose abortion,' promoted morning-after-pills, produced highly explicit sex education materials and produced pro-euthanasia advanced directives.
In our complaint to the school, we pointed out that it would be unlikely that the school would attend a drama which mocked any other religion or cultural group. Not only was this part of our communication overlooked, but the headteacher gave us the expected lecture about the school being committed to respecting and embracing diversity.
Such a mantra today is so typical that it often bypasses deeper reflection. It is often the knee-jerk response to those complaining about attacks on the Catholic Church. In the new world of tolerance there is only one acceptable prejudice. Such responses are also typically post-modern. We must ask in what way are true respect and diversity honoured by blasphemy, mockery or impurity?
The headteacher next suggests that pupils returned from the theatre with a greater understanding of other people's views of the Catholic Faith in the era in which it was set, and that it did not affect their 'views' of their own faith, 'other than to reaffirm it.' Clearly, such responses remain subjective. The head has still not engaged with the objective problems of blasphemy and sacrilegious mockery. It must also be noted that any reaffirmation of one's Catholic Faith would of necessity be made as an act of resistance to such a play, rather than as a fruit of it.
The head continues to dwell in the realm of the subjective by next stating that he does not share our 'views' that taking students to such a play contradicts the school's Mission Statement. The relativistic conception of reality continues with the statement: 'I respect your opinion on this matter which you are entitled to express.' Suffice it to say that it is only because our society grew from a combination of ancient Greek philosophical and Catholic theological roots that the very notion of freedom of expression developed at all. Of course, before the advent of post-modernism, such freedom was associated with the pursuit of objective truth rather than the descent into subjective relativism.
The headteacher concludes by attaching some school newsletters in the hope that 'the content forms in you the belief that as a school we, as Liverpool Archdiocese section 48 RE inspection confirms provide an environment where 'the extent to which pupils contribute to and benefit from the Catholic Life of the school is outstanding.' One must ask why the Archdiocese does not itself deem such a theatre trip inappropriate. And why is the headteacher's reply able to acknowledge the objective criteria of a school inspection standard but not the standard given by God in the Decalogue? Â
Here we do indeed have an interesting combination of the subjective and the objective. It is hoped that 'belief' will be 'formed' in us that the school provides the type of environment described by the Archdiocesan inspection standard.
It must be said that, cheery though the newsletters were in tone and imagery, there was little in terms of objectively Catholic doctrine, liturgy or art to convince us of anything other than what we already had gathered from the head's communique. Neither did the inclusion of photos of the sand-box in the 'interactive prayer room', the female 'lay chaplain' or the religious sister in lay-clothes form any new beliefs in us. And we are thankful that they did not.
It is remarkably sad that a Catholic school would take students to see a play which blasphemes Jesus Christ and Our Lady at the same time as mocking the Catholic Church and Catholics themselves. As a reader pointed out some time ago, the students themselves as baptized Catholics - and therefore as members of the Body of Christ - are being insulted by such a dramatization.
It is also sad that the head of such a school would fail to acknowledge the objective problems with such a play and the attendance of the school at it.
Even more sad is the attempt by such a headteacher to reduce such problems to the realm of the subjective.
Nevertheless, it also serves as another example of truth coming to the fore. Relativistic responses convince no-one and the objective problems remain. In fact, they are only thrown into sharper relief. It is as St. Ireneaus recognised all those centuries ago: Error refutes itself.     Â
