Amy links to a story about a Muslim student at a Catholic school who has decided she wants to wear her headscarf now. But the school told her that she cannot because it is not part of the uniform. I don’t understand what the big controversy is. She decided she wants to go to a private Catholic school with certain requirements. She is not required to attend the school and if her conscience impels her otherwise, then she is free to find another school.
As one of Amy’s commenters put it, would there be a controversy if a Muslim school told non-Muslim students they couldn’t eat pork in the lunchroom?
Dom:
You sound an awful lot like our favorite spokesman, Fr. Coyne, when he was responding to Talking about Touching.
“At some point, you buy into the program.”
Facts are that Catholic Schools are not Wholly Catholic anymore. They are mostly secular schools, run by the Catholic Church.
St. John’s Prep has a large non-Catholic population, keeping prices WAY UP, and taking spots for Catholic kids. They even have a GAY STUDENTS ORGANIZATION.
I say: Accept ALL Catholic kids who apply to Catholic Schools, before you accept ONE non-Catholic into a Catholic School.
Remember, these were not founded for the smartest and wealthiest. They were founded to help pull immigrant kids up from the ashes, and to firmly ground them in the faith.
Oh, how we have become lost.
-Joe
P.S. I fully expect pleanty of “Counter-Battery Fire” for this one! Innnnnn commmmmmmiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggggg!
Come on, Joe, this is completely different which you prove by your later point. Talking about Touching undermines the faith of the kids and the relationship between parents and kids. In that case, the parents want the Catholic school to be Catholic.
In this case, it’s a non-Catholic who wants the Catholic school to make accommodations for her religion.
I think it’s hypocritical in many cases to hide behind ‘school uniform’ regulations. These are perfectly flexible when it suits the school administrators; no reasonable school uniform is so regimented as to cover every detail of one’s garb. It sounds to me like some thoughtless disdain for an innocuous custom, perhaps stemming even from bigotry.
Let’s not assume facts that are not in evidence here: We don’t know anything about the quality of the school vis a vis orthodoxy. In fact, for me it’s not so much about Catholic schools as it is about school dress codes.
I think a private school can enforce a uniform dress code as long as it is consistent and spelled out in advance. If a non-Catholic private school forbade the wearing of visible jewelry, I would be okay with them telling the Catholic girls they can’t wear their crosses outside their blouses. They should have known that going in.
At this particular school, are the Jews allowed to wear yarmulkes? If so, then the girl should be allowed to wear her headscarf. Consistency.
The school may have a perfectly good reason to ban headscarfs along with hats and the like, perhaps for gang reasons.
The headscarf is not a mantilla so let’s not get caught up in that argument either. But what if the girl had decided she wanted to follow a radical form of her Islamic faith and decided that now she wanted to wear a burka? Would that be satisfactory? How would that undermine the school’s dress code and it’s aim of uniformity and conformity (which the Sixties turned into bad words)?
It looks like the school agreed with those who said it should allow the headscarf and accommodate the girl’s religious beliefs.
http://www.cleveland.com/cuyahoga/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/1062236314108621.xml