To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

[Ek weet nie]

Irish posters will be familiar with the status of Irish primary schools. Approx. 96% of schools are managed by religious boards which preserve the ethos of the order. The Catholic Church runs the vast majority.

If you are not baptised, you legally go to the bottom of the admissions list even if you live across the road from the school.

When you do access the school, the curriculum has a large section on religion and the year when making communion or confirmation is dominated by preparations for that event. You can opt out but then your child is separated from the activities of the rest of the class.

This is in a country where only 47% of people in the 2012 census identified as religious. There is a Guardian article on a petition here. The petition is here in case you also wish to sign it.

[Calvert]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

They're an appalling organisation all the way around.
I mean, what else can we expect?

My children were absolved of their Original Sin when I was safely in New York. for three months. I understood the reasons the former Mrs. Calvert did it - to get them into a Catholic school, but I didn't agree (there was a perfectly good Proddy state school at the end of our former street and I thought she wasn't doing them any favours marking them out as Catholics in a particularly nasty time of our history) never mind the whole rotten Catholic ideology thing.
In the days before mobile phones and internet, I got a photo of them looking very wet and miserable. They were three and four years old.
Thankfully they've grown up to be good humans and see straight through the preposterousness of religion and that religion in general.

I'm at a loss what to say with regards to the opening post, really. I expect most people would be.

[ursus arctos]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

I certainly am.

Signed nonetheless.

We never baptised ursus minor, being of the view that that was a decision he should make for himself later in life.

But we come from superstitious stock, and took advantage of the fact that two of his uncles are failed seminarians to have them run through the basic rituals for Catholicism, Islam and Buddhism.

[Bored Of Education]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

As someone who is a Christian (who has baptised his child) and a teacher who works in Catholic schools often, I am more than happy to sign and share this (although I don't see anything about religious element of the curriculum and communion/confirmation preparations.

[Stumpy Pepys]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

My mum held me by the ankles and dipped me in the River Styx.

[Calvert]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Meant to add that Mrs. Calvert was at a Christening ceremony for one of her friend's children last week.
The woman (and her husband) in questions is no way religious, but people feel pressured to continue this charade to appease their relatives.

Fuck that. It has to stop somewhere.

[Ek weet nie]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Bored of Education wrote: although I don't see anything about religious element of the curriculum and communion/confirmation preparations.

That isn't part of the petition but is an example of what the Athiest Ireland spokesperson was saying in the article.

Ursus, I'll have no issue with my children learning about the various religions in a respectful, tolerant manner. I hope they will read Gombrich's A Little History of the World and the like. My dad is a former priest if they want to get properly theological.

My wife and I were at our niece's baptism last month. Both her parents are religious and attend mass regularly so church is going to be part of their lives. They should absolutely be able to enjoy a ceremony which is lovely if you agree with the vows. We got married in a civil ceremony and we're talking about what we would do when it came to us making a decision. Neither of us like the vows and would feel hugely hypocritical but if it was the difference between attending a school at the end of our road and another one a couple of miles away then I'm not sure if our principles will hold.

[Bored Of Education]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

I have a fair few teachers from the last Catholic school in my Facebook page so will be interested to see if they respond. One of them said I would be in trouble with the rest for wearing an Argentina shirt on Sunday so I don't know how this will go down.

[San Bernardhinault]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

I'm not baptised and hadn't been to a baptism before... and a religious friend asked me if I'd be a godparent. I said "Sure, I guess, what does it involve?" - I'd never had a godparent, not coming from religious stock, so had no idea.

She said "Make sure the kid has a reasonable moral education, and step in if both the parents die". It seemed OK, phrased like that. Then, though, she said I'd have to do stuff in church. At which point I balked a bit. When I learned that it meant responding to "Do you reject the devil" and "Do you come to christ" I'm afraid my response was "Do I bollocks?" It wasn't going to happen.

Of course I wouldn't have believed a word of it, and my friend said it was harmless, but I'm not sure you can be a reasonable moral role model if you're starting it based on a lie.

Anyway, not really sure this has much to do with baptising your kids (as opposed to being a godparent).

But being blackmailed into baptising your kids by the state is clearly pretty fucking horrible, and basing their religious education on a lie seems like a pretty terrible moral example for the religion to set.

[Calvert]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

'Do you reject Satan and all his works?'

'Er, have you heard Reign In Blood?'

[ursus arctos]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

SB states the conundrum very well.

The role (as interpreted in contemporary US Catholicism) is fine, and actually an honour.

But the ritual poisons the whole relationship for those who really think about it.

[Ek weet nie]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

San Bernardhinault wrote:
Of course I wouldn't have believed a word of it, and my friend said it was harmless, but I'm not sure you can be a reasonable moral role model if you're starting it based on a lie.

We didn't want our marriage to start on our lie so that is why we didn't get married in a church despite family pressure to do so (of course, they then loved the actual ceremony that we had and felt it was much more personal and meaningful).

We would very much prefer that us raising our child doesn't start out as a lie too but on that one, it is more likely to have a meaningful effect on our family's future quality of life.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

I'm not baptised and hadn't been to a baptism before... and a religious friend asked me if I'd be a godparent. I said "Sure, I guess, what does it involve?" - I'd never had a godparent, not coming from religious stock, so had no idea.

She said "Make sure the kid has a reasonable moral education, and step in if both the parents die". It seemed OK, phrased like that. Then, though, she said I'd have to do stuff in church. At which point I balked a bit. When I learned that it meant responding to "Do you reject the devil" and "Do you come to christ" I'm afraid my response was "Do I bollocks?" It wasn't going to happen.

Of course I wouldn't have believed a word of it, and my friend said it was harmless, but I'm not sure you can be a reasonable moral role model if you're starting it based on a lie.

Anyway, not really sure this has much to do with baptising your kids (as opposed to being a godparent).

But being blackmailed into baptising your kids by the state is clearly pretty fucking horrible, and basing their religious education on a lie seems like a pretty terrible moral example for the religion to set

in fairness, they couldn't give a shit if you lie during the ceremony. indeed they couldn't give a shit if you kill the leaders of the five families in new york while you are doing it. It's all good.

[San Bernardhinault]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:
in fairness, they couldn't give a shit if you lie during the ceremony. indeed they couldn't give a shit if you kill the leaders of the five families in new york while you are doing it. It's all good.

Yes. That's what everyone told me. The church couldn't give a fuck whether I believed it.

Which really doesn't help with the idea that I'm going to be some sort of moral guardian based on this ceremony.

Unless the only morality being taught is "do what's expedient".

[G-Man]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote: [i]
in fairness, they couldn't give a shit if you lie during the ceremony. indeed they couldn't give a shit if you kill the leaders of the five families in new york while you are doing it. It's all good.

Heh, yeah. But God help you if you fuck the wrong person.

Can Irish schools really discriminate on account of whether a child is baptised? If a school receives public funding, how can that be? If that is really so, I'd sign that petition.

[Ek weet nie]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

G-Man, from the article:
The Department of Education in Dublin said schools promoting religious values were exempt from anti-discrimination laws in admissions policies if “the refusal is essential to maintain the ethos of the school”.

All religious run schools claim it is essential to maintain the ethos of the school. That means 96% of schools are exempt from the anti-discrimination laws.

[Balderdasha]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

We're having similar dilemmas for slightly different reasons. I was raised Church of England but am now basically atheist. My husband is culturally Catholic, coming from a historically Italian Catholic population in Palestine which is now liberally distributed round the globe (I have alarming numbers of in-laws who try to add me on Facebook ranging from the ones who are likely to be called Tareq and live somewhere in the Middle East to the branch that's all Juanitas and Jose's in South America), but doesn't like a lot of the institutional crap.

My husband would like to have our daughter and future baby baptised, in part because it's one family tradition that he can continue, when so much of his family's Palestinian heritage has been lost. My sister-in-law took her son to Jerusalem to be baptised in the church of the nativity, something my husband would consider too. I'm not very keen on having the kids baptised, but don't feel it particularly harmed me, I even survived attending a Roman Catholic primary school where we had to wear itchy ash crosses on our foreheads on Ash Wednesday and I was one of the few kids that didn't go through the confirmation process.

An added complication is that if we were to choose godparents our first very obvious choice would be the longstanding mutual friend who introduced us, who happens to be a Sikh. I have no idea how we'd construct a ceremony that incorporated all our beliefs.

[Ek weet nie]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Humanist or Unitarian ceremony may be an option for you Balderdasha. A humanist naming ceremony is my preferred option - a christening is a lovely social and family occasion, I wouldn't like to miss out on that side of it.

[Calvert]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

That's the insidious nature of it though, and the excuse you hear from people subtly pressured into going along with this nonsense that it's really harmless.
It's anything but harmless. It's a continuous offensive of offensiveness generation after generation.
Fair enough if people want to buy into this toss and wish to subject their own children to it, but to discriminate against others who don't want any part of it in an education system where 97% of schools are controlled by these fools is just awful.

[ad hoc]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Think I've told this before, but it's a good example of history repeating itself. I was baptised (well, I was christened, because the CofE doesn't call it baptism), and at the end of the process my (entirely non church going) parents turned to each other and said "Why the hell did we do that?" (The answer being of course that they did it because people did it and they hadn't until that point, questioned it). As a result neither of my brothers followed me down the aisle to the font, to the horror of my (equally non church going) Paternal grandmother, who imagined "the neighbours" gossiping madly about our family's lack of social niceties or something.

When my daughter was born, obviously we (her parents) decided that we weren't going to do it, because, well why would we? But, my (non church going) mother in law was deeply upset by this and told us so. We took it in our strides, until she decided that we wouldn;t be able to visit until Paula had been baptised. As she was very sick (and has since died) and as keeping family relationships alive is obviously important, even if having your baby moistened by a priest isn't, we eventually gave in and did it. I lost all respect for my M-i-L at that point though, which doesn't really matter to anyone, but possibly could have turned out to be an issue if she'd lived longer

[G-Man]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Ek weet nie wrote: Humanist or Unitarian ceremony may be an option for you Balderdasha. A humanist naming ceremony is my preferred option - a christening is a lovely social and family occasion, I wouldn't like to miss out on that side of it.

Well, Mr Balderdasha might not see that as a viable substitute. Cultural Catholicism/Christianity in the Middle East is different from cultural Catholicism/Christianity in the West.

As Balderdasha alluded to, it's a crucial to the social and political identity of an embattled minority, maybe the primary identifier.

[Balderdasha]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

Mr Balderdasha is remarkably flexible given the family history. When we were looking to get married, for example, we did consider getting married in a Catholic church until we realised this would involve me having to be confirmed, convert to Catholicism, and attend months worth of Catholic pre-marriage counselling. So we had a civil ceremony in an old priory instead, and Mr Balderdasha took our rings to be blessed with holy water in a Catholic church before the ceremony. Our location had the history and atmosphere he was looking for but we didn't have to jump through any of the bureaucratic hoops and I didn't have to say anything I don't believe in. There are those in his extended family who will consider us not properly married because it was a civil ceremony, but immediate family are just thrilled he got married, and anyone who isn't can go take a jump.

Baptism is trickier. While we'd be happy to do a similar half-invented naming ceremony compromise, Mr Balderdasha would like the option for the little ones to attend a Catholic school if we happen to be near a good one when the time comes, and they're probably not going to accept a humanist ceremony.

And yes, he does view his religion as an important identifier. It really annoys him if people assume that he's Muslim because of his name or skin colour or the fact he's from Palestine. He has nothing against Islam, he just hates that the region's Christian population is being erased from history.

[G-Man]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

we did consider getting married in a Catholic church until we realised this would involve me having to be confirmed, convert to Catholicism, and attend months worth of Catholic pre-marriage counselling

There is no requirement for non-Catholic partners to convert to Catholicism. Whoever told you that was talking rubbish. But the pre-marriage course would have been obligatory, and I imagine that might have been a dealbreaker anyway.

[dalliance]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

What exactly does Catholic pre-marriage counselling entail and who delivers it?

[Calvert]

To Baptise or Not To Baptise . . .

A mate of mine did it. He had to go to a parochial house with his fiancé and listen to some sagart cunt on about how beezer Catholicism is. He's a rum sort, and said he was sitting there totally seething at every word this prick was saying including quite intrusive questioning about their sex life.

I imagined switching on the news one evening and hearing that a priest had been battered to death in his own church.