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Sunderland to go comprehensive?
DROPOSALS are being con
sidered to adopt comprehensive education for the Catholic children of Sunderland.
It is understood that the proposals provide for three comprehensive schools, one for boys, one for girls and one co-educational. These would be based on the present St. Anthony's Grammar School for girls (run by the Sisters of Mercy), St. Aidan's Grammar School for boys (run by the Christian Brothers) and the present St. Thomas Aquinas School.
St. Thomas' serves parishes on the north side of the river. Its pupils would take the G.C.E. to "0" level, after which they could transfer to one or other of the other schools, St. Anthony's or St. Aidan's.
If the Education Committee accepts this scheme St. Aidan's could again apply for voluntary aided status which was refused last year by the Department of Education and Science on the grounds that the pattern of education had not yet been determined.
St. Anthony's School with its present 800 pupils, would need little alteration to fit in with the scheme.
St. Aidan's, however. calls for rebuilding and it is possible that a secondary school for the Western area of the town. which was included in the 1967-68 building programme could be used as a first instalment of St. Aidan's new school.
A system of zoning to allocate places in the schools would have to be prepared but it is likely that most children attending Catholic junior schools on the north side of the river would go to St. Thomas Aquinas School.
Nun receives Papal award
FOR 47 years' continuous service in one school a London Mother Superior has been presented with the papal award "for Church and Pope" by Cardinal Heenan.
Mother Regina. of St. Dominic's primary school, East London, will also receive the local parishioners' acknow ledgement of her half-century's work, in the shape of a visit to Lourdes which they are paying for.
The Greater
r"7 London Coun
cil too made her a long-ser cil too made her a long-ser vice award, pre
sented by Mr. John Branagan, vice chairman of the Council.
Mother Regin a In the audi
ence at the pre sentation, made at the Cardinal Pole Secondary School, East London, were grandparents of Mother Regina's pupils, who had also had their primary education from her. The grandchild of one expupil was heard to exclaim: "Sister must be older than God."
Church building pushes ahead
THREE churches at Wood
ford, Newmarket and Burton-on-Trent, ranging in cost from £46,000 to £60,000, have been opened by Mgr. John Howell, Bishop Parker of Northampton and Bishop Ellis of Nottingham respectively.
The new £60,000 church of Our Lady of the Wayside at Shirley, Solihull, is scheduled to be finished this month.
Work has begun recently on the new St. Benedict's Church at Garforth; there was a previous attempt here, which collapsed on the eve of its opening 16 months ago.
At 17 too old to become a priest?
Mexico's chronic priestshortage can be solved if a new type of seminary is built, says Fr. Frank Gelsky who has been having a brief stop-over in London.
He plans to build a seminary "something half way between the Beth and Osterley" on the outskirts of Mexico City to serve the whole country which has only one priest for every 5,000 Catholics and where some regions have not seen a priest for 40 years.
American-born Fr. Gelsky, says that at present between 70 and 95 per cent. of the young boys who enter seminaries— usually at the tender age of 8 or 9—drop out before ordination.
Those who do finish are hardly fit for pastoral work because of their very limited training. One diocesan seminary has a teaching staff of three—and two of these also act as parish priests. Sometimes no teaching on sex is given. And the curriculum is so rigid that if a "late vocation" of 17 wanted to begin, he would have to join a class of eight-yearolds.
Fr. Gelsky will build his new seminary to take men between 18 and 24, more and more of whom are asking to be trained as priests. SWISS CATHOLICS. — Mr. Oscar Grob of New Southgate has been appointed a Knight of St. Gregory the Great in recA,Tnition of his work for Swiss Catholics and other organisations in this country.
CARDINAL AT `111FSSIAH'. —Cardinal Heenan attended a performance of Handel's "The Messiah" by the Elysian Choir, conductor Eric Thiman, at the City Temple, London, last week. He described it as a "lovely preparation" for his Holy Week sermons.
BRITISH CHURCHES MEET.—The British Council of Churches will hold their 48th half-yearly meeting on April 1920 at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church, Sutton, Surrey.
COLUMBA, the monthly magazine published by the Knights of St. Columba will publish its last general circulation issue this month. With its 35,000 circulation it has not been able to attract enough advertising to continue, and will revert to a private magazine for members of the Order only.
RETHINK ON LUTHER.— The German bishops, at the suggestion of several catholic journals. have agreed to review textbooks used in Catholic schools for "historical errors". It has been suggested that Martin Luther, often described in Catholic textbooks as a "mad monk", should be viewed as a man who sought, at least at first, to reform the Church, not found a new one.