Ampleforth head calls for louder voice

BY PIERS McGRANDI
THE HEADMASTER OE one of the country's leading schools has criticised the
Catholic independent hierarchy for failing to promote Catholic education.
Speaking at a headteach ers' conference last week, Fr Leo Chamberlain, head master of Ampleforth College, said: "The bishops have said all too little over recent years about the importance of Catholic schools."
He also added that a new Catholic headteachers' organisation should be created to enable the whole sector to speak with a stronger voice.
However, he also offered his support for the bishops' recent statement about the excellence of Catholic schools. In a wide-ranging address that focused on the role of religious education in a secular society, Fr Cham berlain said: "In the last 20 years we have seen the emergence of the secular society, carried possibly to its most extreme in Britain, and expressed most aggres
sively in our uniquely horri
ble mass media.
"Where once our social codes were founded on a sense of personal duty, today they are propped less happily upon the concept of personal rights." Fr Leo attributed the growing sense of moral crisis in this country to a number of factors, includ ing the abandonment of marriage, abortion, the steeply rising rates of crime and divorce and the discov ery of scandals within the Church. The headmaster also re iterated the need for schools to be fully Catholic.
"Let's be quite clear: a school with a Catholic chap laincy is not the same as a Catholic school". Such schools, he said, were an essential element of the Church's institutional pres ence in society — to destroy the assisted places scheme would be an act of political vandalism. In a rousing call, the head master stated that Catholic schools both maintained and independent — offered spiritual and moral educa tion as well as excellent academic teaching.
"It must be our business, as it always has been, to ensure that there is no acad emic reason for Catholics to choose to go elsewhere.
"If the value of Catholic education is not championed
today, parents will not see
the need for any Catholic
schools tomorrow".
Fr Chamberlain's concern is echoed in the maintained sector, with many Catholic schools now having a mission statement.
A typical example, produced by St Gregory the Great School in Chel tenham, reads as follows: "We believe that God is central to our existence and that the Gospel message is integral to our daily lives.
"Each individual, as a
child of God, is valued and encouraged to develop their full potential to become active members of both the school and the wider community."
Catholic schools form 10 per cent of the maintained sector, with 450 secondary schools and 17 sixth form colleges.