Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, Church leaders have said.
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want special toilet facilities in schools to be adapted for Islamic cleaning rituals.
Their demands will shock both Catholic parents and the Government because they go way beyond the legal requirements on catering for the rights and needs of religious minorities.
But the bishops are keen to answer critics who say religious schools sow division - and to show that they are leading the way in building bridges between people of different faiths.
The bishops acknowledge in a new document proposing the measures that 30 per cent of pupils attending Catholic schools hold a non-Christian faith.
"If practicable, a room (or rooms) might be made available for the use of pupils and staff from other faiths for prayer," the bishops said in the document, Catholic Schools, Children of Other Faiths and Community Cohesion
"Existing toilet facilities might be adapted to accommodate individual ritual cleansing which is sometimes part of religious lifestyle and worship," they said.
"If such space is not available on a permanent or regular basis, extra efforts might be made to address such need for major religious festivals."
The Islamic cleansing ritual, called "Wudhu", is carried out by Muslims before they pray.
Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet.
Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts.
Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say.
The document has been published by the Catholic Education Service, an agency of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.
But it has been personally approved by Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham and the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor next year as the leader of the country's 4.3 million Catholics.
(more)
Source: Daily Mail (English)
The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want special toilet facilities in schools to be adapted for Islamic cleaning rituals.
Their demands will shock both Catholic parents and the Government because they go way beyond the legal requirements on catering for the rights and needs of religious minorities.
But the bishops are keen to answer critics who say religious schools sow division - and to show that they are leading the way in building bridges between people of different faiths.
The bishops acknowledge in a new document proposing the measures that 30 per cent of pupils attending Catholic schools hold a non-Christian faith.
"If practicable, a room (or rooms) might be made available for the use of pupils and staff from other faiths for prayer," the bishops said in the document, Catholic Schools, Children of Other Faiths and Community Cohesion
"Existing toilet facilities might be adapted to accommodate individual ritual cleansing which is sometimes part of religious lifestyle and worship," they said.
"If such space is not available on a permanent or regular basis, extra efforts might be made to address such need for major religious festivals."
The Islamic cleansing ritual, called "Wudhu", is carried out by Muslims before they pray.
Islam teaches that Muslims are unfit for prayer if they have not performed Wudhu after breaking wind or using the toilet.
Wudhu involves washing the face, hands, arms and feet three times each, gargling the mouth three times and washing the neck and inside the nose and ears. Some Muslims also wash their private parts.
Catholic schools would need to install bidets, foot spas and hoses to facilitate such extensive cleansing rituals, Muslims say.
The document has been published by the Catholic Education Service, an agency of the Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.
But it has been personally approved by Vincent Nichols, Archbishop of Birmingham and the favourite to succeed Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor next year as the leader of the country's 4.3 million Catholics.
(more)
Source: Daily Mail (English)
8 comments:
Many Muslims (so the Catholic church tells us) already attend State-funded Catholic schools and we've never heard of any complaints so far.
If they are really concerned about diversity and breaking down barriers, perhaps they should only supply one room, deemed a 'quiet room', that can be used by all pupils, regardless of whether they are religious or not. That way, they will be seen to be fair to all religions and the non-religious.
According to Ruth Kelly, migrants must learn English language to integrate. Learning English language is about as useful as learning Arabic, Urdu and other community languages. The British Establishment and society has systematically failed to understand the causes of migration, global terrorism and social and emotional, economic segregation. Muslims suffer different forms of discrimination which reduce their employment opportunities and affect their educational achievements. This can give rise to hopelessness and could undermine Muslims’ sense of belongingness. Islamophobia is a growing reality of racism around the world. The only way to stop it is by respecting the religious diversity. Communities are more divided than ever. The Government presses ahead with flawed policies and anti-terrorist legislation that created further resentment, alienation and criminalization. A dramatic surge of racist and religiously—motivated violence followed the 7/7, London and Glasgow bombing.
Muslim communities are angry at plans to “spy” on Muslim students at universities. The proposal is an act of racism. Universities are not the problem. Just because some of the 7/7 bombers were graduates, does not mean they formed their ideas in a university. It is the western society which is creating extreme Muslims all around the world. Young Muslims are becoming more separated from society than their parents who were not well versed in English while young Muslim generation is notoriously monolinguals. Schools do not encourage and teach Arabic, Urdu and other community languages. They are even discouraged to speak mother tongues at home. They only learn British History not their own history. The British society was and still reluctant to open up its sense of citizenship to all those that have come to live here. Integration is a two-way process. Many Muslims acknowledge that they need to do more to engage with wider society. At the same time British and European politicians must make stronger efforts to promote meaningful intercultural dialogue and tackle racism, discrimination and marginalization more effectively.
The British establishment is wrong in thinking that Imams are to blame for extremism. Imams are not solution to the problem for extremism. Extremism is nothing to do with Imams. Extremism is not created from abroad, it is coming from within. Britain fails to help Muslim communities feel part of British society. Race trouble is being predicted by the Daily Express, because of an ethnic boom in UK major cities. Muslim communities need imams for the solutions of their needs and demands in their own native languages. Muslim parents would like to see their children well versed in Standard English and to go for higher studies and research to serve humanity. The fact is that majority of Muslim children leave schools with low grades because monolingual teachers are not capable to teach Standard English to bilingual Muslim children. A Muslim is a citizen of this tiny global village. He/she does not want to become notoriously monolingual Brit.
Iftikhar Ahmad
Iftikhar Ahmad, your disgusting, wide-ranging rant is such a typical Muslim response - nothing is ever the Muslims' fault, everything (including Islamic terrorism) is the fault of the West. You blame anti-terrorism legislation for creating resentment, when the truth is that ISLAMIC TERRORISM is the problem, not efforts to stem it. You lash out at "religious-motivated violence" in the wake of the 7/7 bombings (name an example, I dare you), when the truth is, the horrific bombings THEMSELVES, which you do not condemn, were "religious-motivated violence."
Your claim that integration and a sense of belonging is fostered by encouraging diversity and discouraging learning a common language is completely self-contradictory; and besides, no place in the world is more respectful of diversity than the West, certainly not Muslim countries, which actively stamp out everyone and everything non-Islamic.
Be honest - what you and others like you want is not respectful diversity at all, since you have no respect for infidels or their culture at all. What you want is to come to the West to take advantage of its economic opportunities and its freedoms, because the Muslim world lacks these things, but you have no intention of integrating into the larger society; on the contrary, it is your goal to establish a parallel but separate sharia-based society which will ultimately establish superiority over the West.
I don't have time to completely demolish every willfully wrong-headed and offensive statement you made. Let me just say that if England is making things so difficult for you and other Muslims, why don't you move to Muslim lands? Problem solved.
Iftikuar, change the record, why don't you? You've been saying the same thing all over the web for years but nobody's interested in your daft ideas.
Right that goes too far. Under sharia law christians are killed and imprisoned for their faith in Christ.
Islam is trying to become the one world control faith. And if people don't stand up to it. Then it is very sad news for all of us. The things that go on under sharia isn't morally right for any religious belief.
In Islamic contries as a christian you are not allow to have your own holy bible. Or go to church. Um there are no churches over there in the middle east. Not very many of them. They won't allow it. So why should we allow them to come over here in the uk and divide us and our historical culture. When my grand parents thought agasin't people like this . The last time was the 2nd world war and a adolf hitler nearly take over. We should fight for our freedom again now we have the war on Islam. Not the people just the religion.
christiangirl
If you are in London on Saturday, you could join us on the One law for all march.
Christian girl, I live in Bahrain which is in the Middle East and there are lots of churches here. Christians don't seem to face any problems whatsoever. There are Christian Arabs in case you don’t know. Also, the number of Christian expatriates just keeps rising.
Your war on Muslims will just result in more reverts to Islam. This is evident from the outcome of 9/11(product of US Govnt.)and cartoons published in Denmark. No matter how hard you try, you cannot extinguish the truth.
shahbaz.abdulla
I don't suppose you have any decent evidence that the US Government killed so many of its own citizens, do you. And please not the usual crap conspiracy nonsense.
The cartoons are interesting. They had been published for some time before some Imams decided to add a few others and take them to Saudi. It was that that stirred things up.
The sooner we have secular governments who neither privilege religions nor discriminate against them, the better for everyone.
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