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Editorial By John-Henry Westen

  For years now the group representing Catholic school teachers in Ontario, the union to which all Catholic teachers in the province must pay dues, has taken on a decidedly anti-Catholic stance.  They have distanced themselves from many of the teachings of the Catholic Church going so far as to repudiate her moral teachings especially on homosexuality.

  This descent away from Catholic identity has, with some notable exceptions, eliminated most of that which would distinguish Catholic education from public secular education in Ontario schools.  For most of this time the Catholic bishops of Ontario have remained silent on the matter, some feeling they could not take on the union behemoth, others too busy to be bothered, and likely still others quietly approving of the ‘modernization’ and dissent of the Catholic school system.

  Ironically, the anti-Catholicism of the Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) has come back to bite them.  Public boards of education are now calling for cost-saving amalgamation of boards saying publicly that they see nothing to distinguish Catholic education from the public brand.

  For the most part, with those notable exceptions mentioned previously, they are right.

While ‘progressives’ may argue that the Catholic teachers’ union and modern Catholic schools have a distinctive emphasis on “social justice”, secular institutes often place as much emphasis on this same modern version of “social justice”.

  The powerful OECTA union has stripped from Catholic education its Catholicism and from most Ontario bishops’ over the past 30 years, the spine to confront the worsening and now almost terminal situation.

  A few examples of OECTA’s anti-Catholicism will serve to illustrate the point.  In 2004 the organization proposed a resolution backing homosexual ‘marriage’.  In 2002, OECTA proposed to intervene in court on behalf of a male high school student who was suing his Catholic school to be permitted to bring his homosexual ‘boyfriend’ to the school prom. The organization’s annual conferences are a dissident-fest usually featuring the biggest names in the world of anti-Catholic Catholics.

  The OECTA AGM last year was keynoted by none other than lesbian, pro-abortion activist Joanna Manning.  Manning, who supports Catholics for a Free Choice and penned the book ‘Is the Pope Catholic?’, has specialized in attacking the Catholic Church particularly in areas of sexual morality.  Manning didn’t disappoint her fans at OECTA.  In her address, she associated Christianity with radical Islam saying: “Religious fundamentalism in both Islam and Christianity threatens to plunge the world into a new age of war.”

  Despite its manifest infidelity, OECTA is still, and has been for a few decades, the sole provider of the basic teachers’ religious education program that many Catholic teachers take during their early teaching years.

  The stakes are high. OECTA is a large, financially wealthy, politically powerful teacher’s union. Its 36,000 members teach approximately 656,000 students in 1,401 Catholic schools: 234 secondary and 1,167 elementary schools.

  The loss of an authentically Catholic school system has been a loss to all the people of Ontario, Catholic and non-Catholic alike. The system that was dedicated to teaching students how to live out all ten of the commandments tended to produce solid citizens. It was designed to instil moral and responsible behaviour, personal accountability to God and neighbour, strong family life, self sacrifice and a deep respect for the dignity and worth of all fellow citizens.

  Speaking as someone who was deprived of a solid Catholic education, despite the fact that my parents thought they were doing the best for my faith by sending me to Catholic school, I must admit to some bitterness against the system.  There is a temptation to say, ‘Well they deserve it’ and let the whole system fall away.  Those who truly value Catholic education will make alternative, albeit difficult arrangements such as homeschooling and private schooling.

  However, thinking of the great sacrifices Catholic parents and teachers have made in years gone by to preserve a faith-based education in Canada, it hardly seems fair to let the system die without a fight.

  To my mind, the only possible way to save the publicly funded Catholic education system in Ontario is with a radical overhaul. Schools must become truly Catholic, making obvious to all why a separate system exists. 

  For example, rather than teach positively about homosexuality, Catholic schools must instil in students appreciation for the extensive reasoning behind the Church’s teaching that such acts are intrinsically immoral and can never be permitted. That out of true love for the persons engaged in such activities and for the wider community, this destructive behaviour must be continually challenged.

  Catholic teachers who practice and love the faith must be hired over those who feign the faith and are politically correct.  And the myriad of teachers in Catholic schools who grossly flout the faith in their personal lives must be let go into the public school board.  Examples of such have surfaced recently with teachers having homosexual lovers, having or encouraging abortions, out of wedlock pregnancies and much more.

  Prayer must be a hallmark of the school day rather than an unwelcome intrusion once in a while.

  Once the above mentioned overhaul is assured there will be an immense political battle ahead.

  First and foremost the Catholic Bishops must act, with the backing of Catholic parents and Catholic taxpayers, to ensure that the constitutionally protected right to publicly funded Catholic education is upheld. 

  However, were the political battle to be fought and won, and the status quo of OECTA-stlye ‘Catholic’ education to continue, you may find myself and other Canadian Catholics wishing that the so-called ‘Catholic’ system were abolished. 

  With an anti-Catholic system masquerading as a Catholic system in place, parents are deceived and the spiritual and moral formation of their children will continue to be severely harmed.  At least with a secular-only system parents are not deceived and must make appropriate arrangements for faith formation of their children.

  Should the system collapse as has been engineered in Quebec and Newfoundland, Ontario Catholic parents who must send their children to public schools will have to face new challenges.  Topping the list will be ensuring their children are exempted from classes and programs which contravene the Catholic faith. Even that much will be no easy task in this age of increasingly forced conformity to anti-Christian, even anti-human ideology.