The Portal March 2019 | Page 8

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