I have to admit I had a bit of a problem with that as well.

There’s a wonderful Maronite Catholic parish in downtown Cleveland. I am learning much about their Arab culture, their Syriac-Aramaic liturgy and their deep roots in the Middle East. That may actually help me to appreciate the cultural commonality with those Muslims who do not see their faith through the lens of Jihad.

Nevertheless, I tend to agree with Terra that until more Catholics become recatechized as to the truths of their faith the ecumenical talks are probably best left in the hands of the “experts” who are better qualified to sort these issues out.

Of course, that by no means excludes extending the hand of friendship to Muslims we may encounter in the workplace or socially.

When labour inputs were the main cost of education, then the willingness of religious to work for a great deal less than lay staff would have been paid did make a big difference. However the viability of Catholic schools operating on this model was increasingly threatened as educational standard rose, schools were expected to have educationally optimal class sizes, to have sports facilities, science facilities, etc, and more and more textbooks and equipment had to be provided. Long before the decline in vocations set in the church authorities recognised this and embarked on a campaign to secure state funding so that Catholic schools could meet the rising standards of what was regarded as appropriate and acceptable educational provision.

The notion that, if we had lots of brothers and sisters willing to work for subsistence rates, Catholic education of an acceptable standard could be provided entirely funded by fees set at a level which would enable someone on average earnings to put, say, four children through school until year 12 is, I think, unrealistic. Catholic education will be subsidised, or it will be provided to relatively few, and the church has recognised this for at least the last sixty years. The decline in vocations may have intensified the problem, but it didn’t cause it.

If we did have a remarkable rise in vocations to the religious life, it wouldn’t necessarily be to the teaching orders. The teaching orders arose at a particular time in the life of the church when there was a particular need for them. That need has largely passed. It is perfectly possible for someone who has a vocation to engage in Christian education to follow that vocation without entering the religious life, and there is no reason to assume that anyone who has a vocation to the religious life also has a vocation to teaching. The (lay and religious) movements which are growing at the present time are not, for the most part, those involved in teaching. The Holy Spirit may be telling us something there. The main purpose of the religious life is not, after all, to provide the Catholic community with a cheap alternative to paying its teachers properly.

Not quite.

25% is the figure which it is proposed that the State should pay. However the Catholic schools receive the bulk of their funding from the Federal government. Currently for the Catholic school sector this is set at about 56% of state government expenditure on public schools (though that may – I don’t know – vary from school to school according to financial need).

On average, so, if the 25% figure is implemented, then Catholic schools will receive (25% + 56% =) 81% of the public funding that government schools get.

It may be true that the result of my sending my child to a Catholic school is that the State government is relieved of 75% of what it would otherwise have to pay. The great bulk of this, though, is covered by the Federal government (and so ultimately by taxpayers at large), rather than by the fees that I pay. It may be my choice that triggers this shift in costs from State to Federal, but it’s mostly other people’s money that replaces the state funding.

A voucher system would probably be better.

But in any case, no doubt you are pouring over the new guidelines for interreligious debate contained in the Pope’s Apostolic Exhortation on Scripture, which stress the role of mission in such dialogues, and avoidance of syncretism and relativism….

I see you linked to the debate too. It wasn’t coming up for me on Google Rearder, but I see it now.

Good innit?