In defence of Weaving the Web

IT IS very important that readers of the Catholic Herald are made aware of the context of your headline story on "subversive" religion,s F.ducation (Pebniary 14). While you quoted those unhappy with the series, you gave no acknowledgement of the diocesan secondary advisers and the very large number of heads of religious education departments in Catholic schools all over the country who have found Weaving the Web an invaluable tool in the development of their programmes of religious education.
Your report also does less than justice to Weaving the Web. You attributed to Mgr McHugh the statement that it was originally intended for county and not for Catholic schools. This is inaccurate. The series emerged after a serious process of consultation begun in the Catholic schools of the north west but continued in schools in many other parts of the country, as well as involving diocesan religious education advisers.
It emerged from the consultation that what was needed was not simply a revision or restatement of content but rather resources which would promote curriculum development in religious education. That is precisely what Weaving the Web is designed to to do. To criticise it for failing to be anything else is to miss the point entirely.
In addition to the consultation process the series was pilot tested in schools all over the country, involving over 40,000 pupils and their teachers.
Your description of the aims of Weaving the Web was also inadequate. It provides for far more than "an understanding of religious concepts and different world religions". That is but one aspect of a multi faceted process Bishop David Konstant's foreword to the teachers' book makes clear that "more importantly" it will engage pupils "on an inner journey towards maturity, the deepening of their own spiritual lives and commitment to their own faith".
The publication of Weaving
the Web was a pioneering venture. The teachers' book made clear it was not a syllabus. It put religious education at the forefront of curriculum development.
As with all developments in the curriculum the skill, commitment and expertise of the teachers using the material are critical. In service training in dioceses was designed to help schools develop their own programmes suited to the particular needs of their own pupils. Two dioceses decided that different resources were needed in view of particular circumstances of their own schools. However, these diocesan responses are of a very different nature to those of the two pamphlets by Piers Paul Read and Fr Marsden.
The authors of the series recognised that their work was but the beginning of dialogue. Diocesan advisers are engaged in the on going dialogue, with our bishops, priests, teachers and parents, as to how best we can respond to the religious spiritual and moral needs of our young people, both through their programmes of religious education and their experience of the total life of the Catholic school.
It's important that the dialogue continues, and attempts to polarise the debate will contribute little to the process. WITH reference to your report (November 8) "Parish pushes BBC into Temptation climbdown", Scorsese's film The Last Temptation of Christ does not suggest that Christ had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalen. It actually suggests that in his final hour on the cross when his pain was at its greatest, Christ may have been tempted to be led down from the cross and accept a human life on earth of marriage, work and children.
The controversial scene in question depicts part of this temptation. Jesus is later shown to grow old and to be on his deathbed, but when all seems lost he rejects the temptation and "returns" to the cross. This gives new meaning to his final words: "it is accomplished", for it shows that Christ had to die willingly, to finally reject human passions.