States should wash its hands of all religious schools

If we had been more woke, as he refers to the ESS committee, we might have been able to prevent the institutional sexual, physical and mental abuse carried out in the name of religion over millennia.

The Catholic Church, which, he says, has been a fine teaching institution over the last 150 years, has over the last two decades been defending itself against the most horrendous accusations, mostly proved by independent means, from child abuse to the slave labour of unmarried mothers who had their children taken away never to be seen again, and let’s not forget the Vatican’s help in the relocation of known Nazi war criminals.

The list of priests, bishops and cardinals who were moved around various countries after being found abusing children by the Catholic Church was vast. The Church in its wisdom thought the perpetrators of these crimes were in need of a talking to and a new parish, not arrest and prison. They were allowed to abuse again, never thinking of the victims, until this present Pope realised the game was up and admitted the Catholic Church had behaved appallingly towards the victims.

What other business, other then religion, could or would have survived such scandalous behaviour? Yet people still stand by these intolerable rouges.

And Deputy Meerveld is upset at the way the committee treated the Catholic Diocese of Portsmouth.

Why politicians kowtow to these religious institutions is beyond me.

As a free democratic people we should have a separation of church and state. Although that doesn’t appear to be a working practice, it should be.

How these Catholic schools are funded I’m unsure, does the Church fully fund them, do the States of Guernsey or do they both contribute a certain amount?

That’s not my point, it’s how anyone can be part of and work with such an organisation and defend it, I do not understand. The fact the Catholic Church has paid out in excess of three billion dollars and set aside billions more in the knowledge it is going to have to settle lawsuits from many thousands of victims also shows it has huge wealth – surely if they are concerned with getting their dogma taught they have the ability and money to set up independent schools and parents who wanted to would still have the choice to get their children a Catholic education.

At this time when people and businesses are getting cancelled and shunned for inappropriate behaviour and remarks, it’s incredible that these religious institutions after all they have done these past hundreds of years are still able to operate purely on faith.

The States of Guernsey should wash its hands of all religious schools and become a truly secular educator and leave religion to the individual with whatever belief system they have.

MARK LE PREVOST