The Problem; The Solution

Have one tenth of Irish Catholic priests and one third of German Catholic theologians considered that four decades of their agenda are precisely why a handful of countries, including theirs and this, have not participated in, among so many other manifestations of vitality, the seventy-two per cent increase in ordinations worldwide since the election of John Paul the Great?

So, while I am not without sympathy for the English Baccalaureate (and, unlike Michael Gove, I am a supporter of the institutions necessary to deliver it, namely the grammar schools), I have far graver reservations about the calls being made in the Catholic press for RE to be recognised alongside History and Geography for Baccalaureate purposes. In principle, yes. But the rubbish passed by the Bishops' Conferences as RE in this country's Catholic schools would not be permitted, even now, in any other discipline.

We need people in Parliament who will put down an amendment, such as would probably get through with only an angry Tablet and a quietly exultant Catholic Herald noticing, that all RE textbooks, resources and inspectors in State-funded Catholic schools must be approved directly by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Most people probably assume that this is already the case. Would that it were.

If there were still a Labour Party responsive to the communities that sustained it, then that would indeed already be the case. Roll on electoral reform, and decisive public participation in the selection of candidates.