CHILDREN from Eastern Catholic churches are being discriminated against in Australian Catholic schools, according to complaints by Australia's Eastern Catholic bishops that are attracting international attention.Eastern Rite bishops met in Sydney last month, protesting to the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, the national Catholic Education Commission and Catholic education offices.
Two priests from the Ukrainian Catholic Church wrote a report published on Catholica, an online Catholic forum, claiming that Catholic schools were harming the Eastern students' Christian upbringing.
Eastern Rite churches are Catholic churches that recognise the Pope but have their own rites and traditions. Four Eastern churches have bishops in Australia: the Ukrainian, Maronite, Melchite and Chaldean Catholic churches.
Catholica editor Brian Coyne told The Age there was strong tension between the Eastern churches and the Vatican over perceptions that Eastern Rite churches were treated as second-class Catholics, and particularly over delays to a decision to appoint a Ukrainian patriarch.
Perth academic and Catholic commentator Andrew Kania said whenever an Eastern Catholic child in a Catholic school was alienated, the Latin Church revealed itself as not completely understanding its own identity and mission.
There are about 35,000 Ukrainian Catholics in Australia, with thousands of children in Catholic schools, while immigration from the Middle East has greatly increased the numbers of other Eastern Rite children.
According to the priests' report, Eastern Rite children are being so indoctrinated in Latin spirituality at school they tend to abandon their Eastern church heritage.
"The cold reality is harsh. Many things continue to happen which do harm to the Christian upbringing of Eastern Catholic children," it said.
Clergy refused communion to children who were entitled to receive it.There were many attempts to confirm children who had already been confirmed, and schools treated the prayer rope as a piece of jewellery and forbade students to wear them.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: CNA)