Page 4, 6th December 1996
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Time to support our RC schools
You aneoter Dom Leo Chamberlain of Ampleforth as stating that "the bishops have said all too little over recent years about the importance of Catholic schools" (Catholic Herald, 22 November). This is surely one of the main reasons why so many more Catholic pupils now attend non-Catholic schools.
The tendency accelerated in the early 1980s when Eton appointed a Catholic chaplain and no objection was made by the hierarchy. (Twenty years ago there were comparatively few Catholic Etonians but now there are about 300.) Very many non-Catholic schools have followed Eton's lead for example, Marlborough or Epsom College in appointing Catholic chaplains and tapping a hitherto Maccessible source of pupils. In consequence, Belmont has closed and even Downside has been in trouble. At all our
Catholic schools there are more empty places every term. And, as Fr Leo emphasises, "a school with a Catholic chaplaincy is not the same as a Catholic school".
Until quite recently, the hierarchy encouraged parents to send their children to Catholic schools, actively discouraging them from attending non-Catholic establishments.
What makes the abandonment of this policy so extraordinary is that three of our present archbishops went to Benedictine schools. The decline of such schools strikes at the very foundations of the great Benedictine monasteries which are among the glories of England.
When is the hierarchy going to come to the Benedictine schools' aid, and to that of every Catholic independent school?
Desmond Seward Brighton
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