The Catholic trustees have totally given up on running a Catholic school system. It is now a defacto multi-faith system.
even though “Open Access” to all faiths applies to only Grade 9-12, the Ottawa OCSB allows anybody to go K-Grade 8. They don’t even know how many non-Catholics go to their elementary schools. One retired principal stated that his elementary “catholic” school was >50% non Catholic. (OCSB definition of “Catholic” is a child that has a stepmom or non-custodial parent have an old Catholic baptism certificate laying around)
One OCSB student said his homeroom in Grade 11 was >60% muslim and he was the ONLY student in entire class that attended Sunday mass!
The Catholic Bishops only accepted “Open Access” reluctantly after Bill Davis lost his majority and the Liberals/ made it a condition of full funding! Even 15 years ago, there was consideration in Catholic circles to go back and get Open Access revoked.
https://www.ocsta.on.ca/ocsta/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Resource-Material.pdf (page 6)
Now OCSTA has TOTALLY thrown in the towel. They realize that Catholic-only schools will fail due to demographics (even with a loose definition of a student’s Catholicity (stepmom birth certificate)
The result? Catholic school grads are less biblical than public school grads! Maybe 3% Sunday mass attendance after age 18.
The bad news is that Public “Catholic” High Schools are WORSE than
Public schools in many areas:
– more likely to support Same Sex Marriage
– more likely to want even bigger government
– more likely to feel helpless in dealing with problems in life
– more likely to believe that Religion is a Private Matter that should be Kept
Out of Public Debates about Social and Political Issues
– less likely to feel an obligation to vote
– less likely to believe God or the Bible Help Me Decide what is Right
and Wrong
– less likely to have boycotted a company for its political or social views and less likely to have participated in a demonstration or protest
Areas where Public and Public Catholic are virtually identical:
– volunteer hours
– rate of cohabitation before marriage
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2016 results:
•no difference with public schools of rate of divorce
•Catholic grads more likely to be gay/bi/trans
•same as public school in believing so-called gay marriage is ok
•do not volunteer any more than public school grads
•more likely to believe that science conflicts with religion
•-Less likely than public school grads to believe the bible is an infallible guide for behaviour
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https://catholicintelligenceblog.wordpress.com/2015/02/11/how-catholic-are-ocsb-elementary-schools/
https://www.ocsta.on.ca/ocsta/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Resource-Material.pdf
OCCB’s education officer, Msgr. Kenneth Robitaille, and an expert on separate school matters, Fr. Raymond Durocher, prepared for the bishops a commentary in response to Davis’ proposal. With regard to open access for students, they wrote that that requirement did not make sense because the highest court in the land had described a separate school as one characterized by a class of people united by one faith, by trustees elected by these people, by teachers of the same faith selected by the trustees, by programs controlled by the trustees which reflect the tenets of
the faith, and by pupils of the same faith. In other words, separate school trustees have a
constitutional right to admit only Catholics to their schools and to accept a non-Catholic student only on an exceptional basis.
Nevertheless, the OCCB decided to accept the premier’s condition. In a public statement and a pastoral guideline, the bishops expressed their assurance that the arrangements required with reference to the admission of non-Catholic pupils could be made without endangering the
Catholic character of the Catholic high schools. They also expressed the concept that the
admission of non-Catholic students was congruent with the ecumenical mission of the Catholic school.
By the time the Ontario legislature considered Bill 30 on funding for Catholic high schools, there was a minority government under Liberal Premier David Peterson. His minister of education, Sean Conway, presented legislation which provided for non-Catholic students who needed to attend a Catholic high school for reasons of special programs or geographical accessibility, or who simply wished to enrol in a Catholic high school. Students attending the school out of necessity would be exempted from religious education. The others would have to apply for exemption to the separate board, which could grant or refuse the request. Furthermore, admission
of non-Catholics would be subject to the availability of space. After first reading of Bill 30, the legislation was referred to the standing committee on social development.
The Committee’s New Democratic Party and Progressive Conservative members objected to the space limitation to open access and to the trustees’ power to grant or refuse exemption from religious education classes and asked that these clauses be removed from the bill. Conway realized that refusal to accede to their demands could result in the defeat of the bill at second reading — the PCs and NDP constituted a majority of the legislature. The final version of Bill 30 provided that any child of a public or separate school supporter could attend a Catholic high school and that no child of a public school supporter would be required to take part in any\ program or course of study in religious education where a parent or guardian applied in writing
to the Catholic school board for exemption.
St Gabriel’s teachers room:
CIA Blog 