THE
P RTAL
March 2019
Page 8
“Some people became Catholic. We have Ordinariate
people in the Catholic Parish here. I use Evensong
from the Customary during the week. There are some
good singers here and they form a choir. It has the feel
of Anglican Patrimony. We use incense to mark the big
occasions during the year. who could be teachers. So who are you going to get?
Schools are tough places. And you can’t expect a non-
Catholic to come in and do that; you can’t give what
you haven’t got.
“It was agreed that the CofE school would have
Catholic provision in it. So the title of it is Reveal CofE
School (with Catholic provision). That really means that
I do an assembly once a week and there is mass for days
of holy obligation and other times. We also appoint a
Catholic RE teacher who is acceptable to the Catholic
Church, so the school would interview and it has to be
someone who would stand in a Catholic church. “I am committed to the Ordinariate and I always
identify myself as an Ordinariate priest, even though
I have lots of questions and reservations as to how
things are going, but I wouldn’t want to be disloyal at
all. However, I still think there are enough priests in
the Ordinariate to do something creative. There are
enough of us who are young enough, and who have
enough energy, but we need a common vision.
“It’s a five school academy with a central board and
an executive head, The diocese here say all schools
“There is a sense of community because it’s a small by 2020 need to be part of an academy. The vision is
parish and people take more responsibility for it. So we no school will be on its own. But that means you no
have things like Union of Catholic Mothers, a justice longer have a local head teacher. It’s a head of school
and peace group, a prayer group and a Guild of St now. This changes the dynamics of the school. Now
Stephen for servers. Lots of community stuff goes on all head teachers are line managers, with an executive
here. We also have good links with the local community head to whom they report.
and Churches Together, which is all right actually.”
“Local schools need to be linked to the parish. An
We were interested to know what Fr Matthew thought academy removes control from the local people and
about Catholic Schools. He told us that in 1997 the places it with the board. The board of directors doesn’t
local authority had a reorganisation of village schools have a link to the local school, so you lose the local links.
and they closed most of them and focused on the new They make a decision and it’s uniform across all of the
school in the old building which is the Reveal school.
schools, so it doesn’t allow for local diversity or quirks.
“The School where I work in Nuneaton is a secondary
school. I enjoy it. There is a chapel in school, so each
day I am there, we have a mass. I spend lots of time in
confession. That’s a big thing, students really engage
with it. The students prefer having a screen, so we have
had to create that.
“There is a programme of Exposition and Adoration
that is linked to the whole timetable. Students will
come to exposition at least once a term, and the school
is very good with that. It’s not just taking children out
of RE. If it’s a science lesson the science teacher will
bring their class, so what we do is we link adoration to
the subject so that what students are given is a prayer
guide to help them through; if it’s a science lesson they
will have a leaflet about catholic scientists; IT they
have a leaflet to do with that; if it’s music they will have
something with that. So there is always a subject twist
that links it.
“Schools are challenging. You have lots of indifference
from the students. Many of the students are indifferent
to the Catholic faith. There are difficulties about
Catholic schools. Getting Catholic teachers, for
instance is hard. If you’re honest and look around
the pews there are not many people of working age