Cardinal Vaughan School: some thoughts after the determination of the Adjudicator

The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School is a voluntary aided Roman Catholic school, in the trusteeship of the Archdiocese of Westminster. The admissions policy of this school has been the subject of some discussion between the school and the authorities of the Archdiocese, culminating in a referral by the Archdiocese of the arrangements for September 2010 to the Schools Adjudicator. The Catholic Education Service have issued a press release following the determination of the Adjudicator in December.

Voluntary aided schools are covered by legislation that requires them to adhere to an Admissions Code of Practice determined by the government. For schools of a religious character, this Code expects school governing bodies to have regard to the guidance of the relevant religious body in deciding their admissions arrangements. For Catholic schools, this expects the school to defer to the policy of the diocese in which the school is located on admissions criteria, though there is some "wriggle room" in the wording of the legislation. This means that Catholic schools can still include provisions that give preference to the admission of Catholic pupils. The purpose underlying this legislation was to remove concerns being expressed by some politicians that some schools, and not only schools with a religious designation, were adopting covertly selective admissions policies; it was intended to ensure that, with the compromises to selection for pupil aptitude based on a schools specialism, admissions to all schools were transparently fair and non-selective.

A number of interesting questions are raised by the determination of the Schools Adjudicator.

1. There is the question of the relationship between the individual school and the local Bishop, as expressed in the school's relationship to the educational policy of the diocese. This is a matter of legislation in terms of the Admissions Code. But it is also, in a sense, a "theological" question. From the point of view of the Catholic community, it is about unity with the Bishop as a measure of catholicity. It is about whether this unity is lived just "in the letter" or in a full sense.

2. The central objection of the Diocese is expressed in the press release:

The determination upheld the Diocese of Westminster's central objection that the Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School’s complex points system and criteria "inappropriately give priority according to the applicant’s, or his parent’s, involvement in church related activities." (Paragraph 92 of the Schools Adjudicator's Determination) This was contrary to the Admissions Code and the Diocesan Bishop’s Guidance, and the Adjudicator said: "In order to have proper regard to diocesan guidance the points system should be dropped in favour of the determination of membership and practice of the Catholic faith as defined by the diocese." (Paragraph 99 of the Schools Adjudicator's Determination)

The diocese has defined that a person is a practising Catholic if they attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, and does not expect its schools to apply any further test as to the practise of prospective pupils or their families. Anecdotally, the sort of points system referred to in the press release has not been unique to Cardinal Vaughan School, being familiar from experience of other now-comprehensive, frequently former-grammar, Catholic schools. My anecdotal evidence suggests that other schools have been more ready to phase out such points system than has been the case at Cardinal Vaughan.

[But see here for the admissions criteria of a Catholic school that still proposes, in part, to use a points system for 2010-2011 admissions.]


3. But the underlying issue raised by point 2 above is about what - or who - the school is for.

 Is it the purpose of the school to act to maintain and promote its own status? And therefore to adopt an admissions policy that will achieve that?

Is the school only for those pupils whose families are, not only practising Catholics, but what one might describe as "committed and active Catholics"?

Is the school for all Catholics, including those whose practise is minimal?

How far is the school for non-Catholics?

To reflect effectively on these questions, the Catholic school has to be seen within the context of the Church's mission of evangelisation. The General Directory for Catechesis recognises the possibility of schools where most students attending are Catholics, and others where most pupils attending do so because of the educational provision rather than out of religious belief (cf n.260). Different approaches to religious education, and indeed to the work of the whole school, apply in these different situations. The Directory suggests that it is opportune that the bishop specify the type of catechetical activity to be undertaken in their schools. This is clearly related to the admissions policies of those schools.

In the case of schools where most pupils attending are Catholics, the cited paragraph of the Directory accepts that evangelisation can be undertaken in its "multiple forms": primary proclamation, religious instruction, catechesis, homily. This seems to me to recognise that, within the population of such a school, pupils will be at differing points in the journey of evangelisation - and so, as far as admissions policies are concerned, there should be no discrimination in favour of those who are "committed/active" in their Catholicism over those who are "practising". Indeed, one might feel that those who are less committed and active are those who are more in need of the evangelising mission of this type of Catholic school.

4. Are the parents who concentrate their efforts on the good upbringing and care of their family, or, perhaps on the conscientious engagement of their Catholic faith with their professional employment; and therefore do not have the time to be parish catechists or extraordinary ministers, any less Catholic than those who are busy in their parishes? This is the kind of issue which can lead the points systems to be discriminatory. It can potentially discriminate against those parents who live most fully the lay character of their mission in the Church.

5. In this country, the historical development of Catholic schooling has meant that they are primarily seen as "Catholic schools for Catholic pupils". Their general failure to produce young people who leave the school as practising Catholics is often related to inadequacy in the catechetical/teaching schemes used for RE teaching in the school. There is some truth in this. But I suspect that our schools have needed to undertake a degree of transition that has not really happened. Whilst at the time of their initial founding a Catholic school might have been able to fulfil its Catholic specificity through teaching the Catechism, for many years now that has not been sufficient. A much greater degree of engagement between faith and culture in the work of the school has been needed, and I suspect that we have been in a weak position to achieve this because we do not have a wide experience in England of those Catholic schools where many of the pupils are not Catholics. The kind of Catholic-cultural dialogue that such schools encourage is actually badly needed in schools where the pupils are mostly Catholics.
 
Which brings us back to Admissions Policies ...

WDTBRS?

Does this paragraph of Bishop Hopes' letter in the Tablet this week ...

This is an idea, common to papal teaching on the liturgy from the beginning of the twentieth century. This “active participation” has always been understood to be internal and external. To reduce participation to solely external signs is both a simplification and a misguided attack in the “culture wars” you seek to avoid.

.... really mean

....and it doesn't matter what we do to participate, as participation is more internal than external (as Bishop Hopes reminded us).?

Bishop Hopes letter starts (my italics added, and see my earlier post):

I am writing with regard to your leader “The old rite put in its place” (8 August). In his message welcoming priests to the training conference provided by the Diocese of Westminster in conjunction with the Latin Mass Society, Archbishop Nichols expresses his gratitude to those priests who have given up their time to respond to a need in the Church today.

The lifted excommunications: What is "traditional Catholicism"?

"It is a matter of coming to an interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church. Looking back over the past, to the divisions which in the course of the centuries have rent the Body of Christ, one continually has the impression that, at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the Church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity. One has the impression that omissions on the part of the Church have had their share of blame for the fact that these divisions were able to harden. This glance at the past imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to unable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew"

It seems to me that this passage from the letter that Pope Benedict XVI wrote to accompany the motu proprio allowing an easier use of the "extraordinary form" of the Roman Rite is key to understanding the decision to lift the excommunications that had applied to the Bishops ordained within the Society of St Pius X. An able drawing together of the comments in response to the news can be found at a Charlotte was both in a post entitled Your move. It is a long post, but it covers every aspect of the issue (so far as I can see), including the difficulties presented by the odd views of one of the Bishops involved. The texts of the correspondence from both the Vatican side and from the Society of St Pius X indicate that the excommuncations have been lifted in view of a forthcoming dialogue between the two parties with regard to other issues, these issues being diplomatically described as "open".

I cannot see that this situation would have been possible without Summorum Pontificum. The provisions of Summorum Pontificum, in my view, looked both towards communities such as the Society of St Pius X seeking to offer them an opportunity for reconciliation with the Church, and towards the life of the Church as a whole. In this latter respect, my view is that it is less the easier availablity of the "extraordinary form" that is the issue (though that is clearly a condition of possibility for the developments with regard to such as the Society of St Pius X) and more the question of "mutual enrichment" of the "ordinary form" by that easier availability, and the possibility of the enrichment of the "extraordinary form" from the "ordinary form".

Now, why do I say this? Because I think the forthcoming dialogue between the representatives of the Society of St Pius X and the Vatican has a similar two-fold glance. Where the reconciliation of other groups has occurred with a certain "quietness", the relations with the Society of St Pius X are high profile and will provide a kind of model for the whole Church. How the teaching of the Second Vatican Council is understood (and the correspondence from the Society of St Pius X indicates "some reservations", albeit in a way that can and should be taken diplomatically, as the indication is given in the context of the subject matter of the forthcoming dialogue with the Vatican), for example, is of just as much importance to those who celebrate the "ordinary form" as it is to those who celebrate the "extraordinary form". The dialogue looks both towards those who might be reconciled with the Church and towards those who are already in full communion.

Which leads me to the question I ask in the title of this post: What exactly is "traditional Catholicism"? This is clearly a political (small "p") question so far as the dialogue between the Society of St Pius X and the Vatican is concerned. But, both for that dialogue and for the rest of the Church, both those who celebrate the "extraordinary form" in communion with the Holy See and those who celebrate the "ordinary form", it is also a more a spiritual and theological question.

And we all have a stake in the answer to that question. I, for example, would like to know whether I should consider "traditional Catholicism" to be a movement in the Church like the many other "new movements". In which case, I would like to know and understand its founding charism - with both words, founding and charism being of importance here. Was it a movement that began with just the political (small "p") aim of keeping a particular liturgical practice after the Second Vatican Council, or is there a clearly discernable action of the Spirit in establishing a charism, a special gift for the Church?

The dialogue between the Society of St Pius X and the Holy See also needs to be informed by how "traditional Catholics" in communion with the Holy See understand their place in the Church, and how others understand their place in the Church. Is a "mutual information", analagous to the "mutual enrichment" of the two liturgical forms, required?

My sting in the tail! Since Summorum Pontificum and the establishing of a language of "ordinary form" and "extraordinary form" with all the associated precautions of the motu proprio itself and the accompanying letter, I do not think it is possible to define "traditional Catholicism" any longer in terms of one or other forms of the liturgy. One of the implications of Summorum Pontificum is that no one of the two forms is more "traditional" than the other.

TUC .... again ....

The draft agenda contains a second motion (motion P19) that will be of concern to Catholics. No need to be too concerned - abortion has been round before at the TUC, and, whatever "Congress believes", it is not binding on the policy making of affiliated unions! Again, the motion does not come from an affiliated union but from the TUC Women's Conference ... which, in all likelihood, is a caucus of activists of a particular frame of mind.

Like the motion from the TUC LGBT Conference, this motion too has an element of deception to it, though I am not in a position to know whether that is deliberate or not.

Congress believes abortion should be legally available at the request of the woman and the requirement that two doctors agree to her decision should be ended ....

Congress believes the law should be modernised to allow women, not doctors, to make the abortion decision, like every other medical procedure.

These two sentences make a huge assumption about the nature of the decisions made by doctors, and therefore about the nature of the practice of medicine. Unless I have misunderstood the nature of the medical profession, a patient consents to a procedure or course of treatment that has (1) been proposed to them by a medical professional, who has used the skill, knowledge and experience that is proper to them as a result of their training, and who has proposed this procedure or treatment (2) in response to a clinical condition arising from illness or injury that represents an impairment of their physical functioning. In some situations, the medical professional might be able to propose alternative courses of treatment, and in others only one.

It has always struck me that the availability of legal abortion and contraceptives (and perhaps some forms of cosmetic treatment) represents a departure from this understanding of the medical profession. This is because they are treatments that can be offered to a patient who presents without a clinical condition representing impairment of their physical functioning; they are treatments that can be offered to patients who are not actually ill or injured in any way. Not surprisingly, this alters significantly the nature of the patient-doctor relationship.

If I have understood it correctly, the 1967 Abortion Act does not consider the two doctors as "agreeing to the woman's decision". Instead, it refers to an abortion being lawful if it is undertaken on the advice of two medical practitioners. This does respect the nature of the medical profession as suggested at (1) and (2) above; though in practice (2) is undermined by the loose interpretation of the grounds for termination. (2) has also been undermined by the widening grounds on which termination can be lawful - it allows that the treatment proposed (1) does not have to be directed towards the clinical condition (2), creating a separation between the two. So, instead of treating the disabled child - which involves (1) and (2) being closely connected - an abortion is offered instead.

It is interesting, but not altogether surprising, to see how aspect (1) of the nature of medicine is being eroded as well in these contexts. This can be seen in the availability of hormonal contraceptives without a prescription, even free in some situations. It can be seen in the availability of the morning after pill without prescription, and, again, even free in some circumstances.

A particularly misleading aspect of the TUC motion is that it gives the impression that this derogation from the integrity of medical practice is true across the whole range of medicine: "..like every other medical procedure". This seems to me to be blatantly not the case. I suspect that the areas of contraceptives and abortion are just about the only areas where a doctor simply aquiesces to the wishes of a patient, without a medical indication. In most other situations, a medical professional who prescribed treatments simply on request without a relevant clinical indication would be struck off.

Another part of the TUC motion that I noticed is the following:

Congress also notes that the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill currently in Parliament is subject to anti-abortion amendments to reduce the abortion time limit form 24 weeks and impose a "cooling off" period and compulsory counselling. Congress believes such measures would have appalling consequences for women seeking abortion and assume women are not capable of making their own decision.

In other areas of life, cooling off periods and a requirement for proper advice are accepted as necessary to prevent the exploitation of clients or to ensure that a duty of care towards them is properly met. It is quite incomprehensible - to me, at least - that similar standards of care should not be applied in connection with abortion. And doubly incomprehensible that they can be considered as having "apalling consequences for women". I would have expected supporters of abortion, in fact, to welcome provisions such as these, because they represent the fulfilling of a duty of care towards women. Given that the rest of the motion calls for all the points of the pro-abortion agenda around the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, I ask myself what the agenda underlying this motion (and, by implication, the pro-abortion lobby as whole) really is.

Since abortion is a procedure that is available to patients who do not suffer from a clinical condition, it can be marketed or promoted to the potential patients themselves (most other medicines are marketed to the medical profession, who make the decisions about their use, and not to the patients). So it becomes important, for those with an interest in abortion, that nothing comes in the way of this promotion .... not even a duty of care towards women.

Sorry, I really cannot understand this motion in any other way.

UPDATE: see also John Smeaton's post here.

PS. Full text of the draft agenda for the TUC Congress can be found on the TUC website. For those outside the UK, the TUC is the Trades Union Congress. Many trades unions affiliate to the TUC.

PPS. Luke Gormally has a good account of the nature of health and of medicine as a profession in a chapter of "Issues for a Catholic Bioethic".

A Newsletter Notice: continued continued

I have just posted the following comment to a post at hermeneutic of continuity. Fr Tim has posted some background on CAFOD and the Lent Fast Day. I re-post my comment here, and link to Fr Tim's post, because the catechetical implications of Fr Tim's background reflect those in my earlier posts on A Newsletter Notice (here and here).

Thank you for a useful and informative post. I had not recognised the drift away from "Family" via "CAFOD" to a branding that uses "Lent" as a cultural term somewhat detached from its specifically Christian meaning. Your post, and our earlier discussion on the "conversio ad creata", suggest that, even expressed in just human terms, this branding of what should be an exercise in Christian charity [ie where the act of alms giving grows out of an act of faith in Christ - cf Deus Caritas Est] is off beam.

Fr Tim also indicates some other charities to which you might contribute if you share concerns about CAFOD.