The Fourth R

The National Secular Society is exactly wrong to suggest that RE should become "optional, like languages". It is languages that should not be among the ever-increasing number of academic disciplines restricted to those whose parents can afford to pay fees, or obscenely inflated house prices, or both.

The Berlin Pro Reli campaign argued that State involvement was necessary in order to ensure the quality of teaching. They intended that against the sorts of Muslims who do not appear on their own Establishment platforms, of course. But the spirit of the thing is as Catholic as it is Lutheran (or Anglican): that was where Luther (or Cranmer) got it from - from Christendom.

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.

As for whether there should be State-funded Catholic schools, I canot see where else the money is supposed to come from, and "the separation of Church and State" is nothing other than a direct disobedience to the Magisterium.