Paul Barber, director of education in the Archdiocese of Westminster, has written an article with title "More Catholic than the Church" in the current issue of the Tablet (16th October 2010). In this article, he explains why his diocese is waging a battle against schools that select their annual intake on the basis of how active parents are in their parishes. Two schools are mentioned: The Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School in Kensington, and Coloma Convent in Croydon (which is actually in the neighbouring diocese of Southwark), which were referred to the government's Schools Adjudicator by the dioceses last year for alleged breaches of the schools Admissions Code.
The point of issue is this. These schools are highly successful and oversubscribed, with a notable Catholic ethos. To deal with this excess of applicants over places, they seek to select their pupils, not on the basis of academic ability or social background, but on the basis of commitment to the church. To do this, they have implemented a number of tests, including involvement in parish life, regularity in receiving the sacraments, etc. The dioceses have objected to this arrangement, believing that Catholic schools are for all the baptized, and in case of too many Catholic applicants, then those who live closest to the school should be admitted. Tests of Catholicity that go beyond baptism, and possibly occasional attendance at church, are disapproved, and those who seek to apply them are described as being "more Catholic than the Church" (by which is meant the local diocese).
The ideal situation envisaged by Mr Barber is that Catholic schools, when oversubscribed, will apply a minimum test of Catholicity - being baptized as a Catholic. They will then choose among Catholic applicants by proximity to the school. Then the lax and the devout will be shared out fairly among the family of schools. Instead of the children of fervent and active Catholics being over-represented in certain schools, they will be spread around, and will act as leaven in the other schools. In this way, the overall quality of schools will be raised, rather than the quality being unfairly clustered in just a few places.
Mr Barber also claims that this policy has a long lineage, citing the example of Cardinal Manning and his successors, who prioritized the provision of schools for the large masses of the Catholic faithful, especially for the poor. "Super-Catholic" schools are betraying this inheritance. Furthermore, by trying to deviate from this diocesan line, they are displaying "congregationalism" rather than being true Catholics - an allegation that will make every true-blooded Catholic shudder, no doubt. These dissident schools should stop trying to be "more Catholic than the Church" and come into line with the wishes of their bishops.
It cannot be said that Mr Barber doesn't practise what he preaches. According to the Daily Telegraph, in a news item of 15th September, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8002896/Top-Roman-Catholic-school-split-by-legal-battle.html, the Diocese of Westminster education service has used the position of the diocese as trustee of the school to impose four new foundation governors on the school - including Mr Barber himself - in an attempt to bring one school into line. The news item reports that a group of parents have challenged this appointment in the Administrative Court. The result of this appeal is not as yet known.
Leaving aside specific schools, what is wrong with Mr Barber's argument?
1. Distortion of History. His representation of the history of Catholic education in this country as being a neat, top-down approach, co-ordinated by the bishops, is only partially correct. At elementary school level, there is truth in it. But in fact many Catholic secondary schools - certainly before the 1944 Education Act opened the governmental tap of finance - were inspired and administered by religious orders, rather than by the dioceses. Some were organized by groups of the laity. These schools had varying ethoses, and in large cities, parents often chose between them. These were welcomed by the hierarchy in the past, not regarded as a threat.
2. Uniformity versus Unity. He suggests that all Catholic schools should conform to his model of Catholic education, and have the same ethos. But why? Schools run by religious orders used to have distinctive ethoses, and models of education. The faith is an essential; unity in one church is essential. But exactly the same model of organization, curriculum, admissions policy, style of leadership? This is uniformity, rather than unity. It owes more to state socialism than to the much vaunted "family" of schools. Whatever Mr Barber pretends, it's never been the Catholic way. Furthermore, if he wants an example of "super-Catholic" schools he need look no further than the minor seminaries of yesteryear - that's precisely what they were, and were intended to be.
3. Dispersing Social and Cultural Capital. The idea that, by dispersing the pupils who at the moment are in the "best" schools among the others, that you will somehow end up with greater equity and better standards for all, is so threadbare that I'm surprised it is still being circulated. A particular school builds up standards and traditions over a long period, through the hard work of committed staff and pupils. Reorganizing that school does not result in this human capital being spread more fairly - it largely result in it being lost irrecoverably. The reorganization of the grammar schools in the 1970s is a case study of this - the high standards and cultural traditions of these schools weren't more fairly distributed; by and large they were lost. The national education system has hardly recovered from this systemic shock in the intervening decades. Is a similar fate to be inflicted on some excellent Catholic schools, whose main fault is to be outstanding?
4. Flight from Catholic Education. He is incredibly naive if he believes that parents from the schools that he has in his sights will just sit back and send their children to the local Catholic schools. If that is where they wanted their children, that's where they would be now. If these successful schools are made to conform to the diocesan ideal, then parents who can afford it will probably look to private schools - possibly Catholic ones, but more likely non-Catholic. The majority of parents, who can't afford private school fees - and remember that the schools we are talking about have a higher than average percentage of pupils from poorer and deprived backgrounds - will find the best state-maintained schooling that they can. This will most likely not be Catholic.
5. Provision or Nurturing. The way Mr Barber talks about provision of Catholic education to all the baptized as a public service puts me in mind more of laying a gas main or collecting rubbish, than nurturing the souls of children called to an eternal destiny. Where is the ideal of forming children with the best catechesis and spirituality that we can; of sending out well-instructed, devout young adults to transform our secular society; of ensuring those practising and active Catholics that parishes need; of nurturing vocations to the priesthood or religious life? Does he shirk from discussing these things, because the schools he directs are too feeble to deliver? But the ones he is attacking are conspicuously, gloriously successful at these things!
6. Success or Failure. It is unkind to speculate on people's motives. I do not know Mr Barber personally, and he may well be a kind, charitable man, inspired by the highest ideals. However, he is presiding over a Catholic education system which is conspicuously failing to deliver the goods. Poor catechesis, weak liturgical formation, lapsation on a grand scale, a vocations crisis, difficulty of recruiting Catholic school-leaders - these are the order of the day, and Catholic schools are, by and large, accessories to these things, if not actually the cause in some cases. Who could blame Directors of Education if they wanted to do away with schools that have shown an admirably independent spirit, but have succeeded in a measure that other schools cannot aspire to?
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