Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Matt G on May 2, 2012 at 9:59am

I'm sure lots of them are.  Especially here in the UK.

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Permalink Reply by mark martin on May 2, 2012 at 10:15am

Ah! do you think we are being infiltrated by covert catholics? should he be 'outed' ?

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Permalink Reply by Matt G on May 2, 2012 at 10:28am

?

Who is we and who is infiltrating?  You asked if a catholic school teacher could be atheist and I said they already were.  I am not sure if any of them are 'out' about it.

 

Your discussion title seems to have lost a word?

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Permalink Reply by Marc Poulin on May 2, 2012 at 11:02am

My wife is a catholic school teacher and she would classify herself as agnostic more than anything, but a job's a job and the money is great, so she doesn't mind playing along. 

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Permalink Reply by Tr Dev on May 2, 2012 at 11:45am

There ARE lots of Atheists that hold jobs or positions in religious facilities.  With the economy the way it is, a job is a job.

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Permalink Reply by mark martin on May 2, 2012 at 12:31pm

hmmmm. a bit of an easy way out. what about convictions

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Permalink Reply by Matt G on May 2, 2012 at 12:44pm

One's conviction could be, as was mentioned, ameliorating the unopposed indoctrination......as well as teach kids in an envirnment that is better than many other schools, due to the nature of the selection, at least in the UK.

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Permalink Reply by Nelson on May 2, 2012 at 11:51am

Can a Catholic school teacher be an atheist? Certainly. Obviously. Without a doubt there are atheists who teach at Catholic schools so the question must self evidently be answered in the affirmative.

Probably what you wanted to ask was SHOULD an atheist teach at a Catholic School.

In that case, what has to be decided is whether implicit support for sectarian religious– but particularly Catholic– schools as a teacher is overridden by the fact that they might be able to do some good in the position, working to reduce the purity of the bullshit the kids might otherwise be taught.

It seems the question can only be answered on a case by case basis as the answer will depend on which classes the particular teacher teaches. I say this because if the individual teacher is teaching something like English, something unlikely to offer opportunities to challenge the bullshit the kids would otherwise be taught, as opposed to teaching Physics or Biology which ought to provide those opportunities. There's also going to be the question of how permissive the individual school is. Because even if the teacher is teaching Biology or Physics and would normally have those opportunities, except that the individual school kept a tight rein on what the teachers are teaching...

So... it depends.

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Permalink Reply by Sean O' Byrne on May 2, 2012 at 6:43pm

Yes, of course, especially in Ireland and the U.K. The majority of schools here follow a religious ethos of some kind and I know several people that teach in these schools who are atheist or agnostic. It's out of necessity and lack of an option not to more than anything else!

To me separation of church and state should mean no school should have any religious ethos but it's far from a perfect world! 

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Permalink Reply by Andrew on May 2, 2012 at 9:41pm

probably not openly.

i went to Catholic school, and I'm pretty sure I had some non-Catholic teachers, and I'm also pretty sure they weren't allowed to discuss that kind of stuff with us. 

What I wonder about, though, is: Are Catholic schools allowed to fire you for not being Catholic? Would that violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964?

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Permalink Reply by Lyra Porcasi on May 3, 2012 at 12:12am

I have to comment on this because it hits home for me on a personal level.  I am a math/science teacher, an Atheist, and I've taught at a private Catholic all-girls school.  The nuns that ran the school knew that I was not Catholic but they offered me a job based on my qualifications anyway.  I'll tell you exactly why I took the job.....MONEY.  If we can't destroy the stupidity behind the ideals of any church, then we can at least take some of their money away from them.

I could not STAND the fact that I was asked to hold prayer at the beginning of every period.  Since I could barely vomit up such words myself, I almost always asked a student to lead the prayer for me, and that was fine with the students and the school.  I was also required to "be a good role model" for the students and attend the school's monthly mass.  I did what I was required to do, barely holding in blazing fury the whole time.  I never took communion because that was not a requirement (many of the students didn't do it either).  If I'd had to swallow (literally) that body and blood BS, I truly would have lost my stomach.

The student body of this school was about 50-50.  By this I mean that half the girls were there because they were smart, sweet, and had great potential for great futures.  The other half were moron rich bitches who'd already been expelled from other schools and this Catholic stuff was their parents' last ditch attempt to keep them out of prison.

Alas, I was forced to not only leave the school's employment, but turn around and sue them for wrongful termination, before the first year was done.  I had some very un-Catholic-role-model type happenings in my personal life, which I'd put into an online diary.  Some of the prison-bound teens I've mentioned, who hated me because I gave them the grades they deserved and didn't let them cheat on tests, managed to hack into that diary, print it out in full, make copies, and distribute it to the principal and their friends and parents.

I was told to leave the next morning because, even though the school had known I was not Catholic, now the parents would also know, and the school would start getting angry phone calls about what kind of sinning whore the school had teaching their perfect little angels geometry. 

Like I said, I was able to sue the school for my lost wages for the remainder of the year, mostly due to the threat of my going to the news media and putting the Catholic church under scrutiny for yet another discrimination fuck-up.

The really fun part, I discovered later, was that the students who got into my diary and caused the whole problem had online journals on the same website and were writing things like "I'm going to burn that fucking school to the ground and kill all of my teachers!"  Guess what the school did to punish them?

Not. A. God. Damned. Thing.

Big surprise there.....

How can anyone wonder why I'm an Atheist?

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Permalink Reply by Rachel on May 3, 2012 at 1:25am

There are religious teachers in public schools who teach evolution, but profess not to believe it themselves. Still, they teach it because it's their job. Therefore, I don't see why an atheist can't be a Catholic (or any other religion) school teacher. They may not believe it, but they teach it because it's their job, and it pays the bills.

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