De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

I am listening to the debate which continues to rumble on about religion in schools subsequent to the Trojan Horse affair , this morning on Radio 4. The effect of the discovery of an extremist agenda within certain schools with a Muslim majority has led to a renewal of calls to remove all religion from schools and instead pursue a secular liberal agenda. The justification is that despite the reality of an established Church in the UK, organised religion is virtually a thing of the past, and more and more people are secular and liberal. Religion is no longer relevant for them. From a Catholic perspective of course, this is strange, given the broad success of Catholic Schools, and their tendency to be over-subscribed. If we don't want religious schools, how do we deal with this inherent dichotomy? From a secularist perspective, faith schools should be abolished and secularism enforced. The issue is a separation of private belief from the delivery of a public good. That is w...

For some time I have found myself increasingly disconcerted with regard to modern so-called 'liberal' politics. I say so-called, because there seems to be a fundamental dichotomy between my reading of what philosophically led to liberalism and the way supposed liberal principles actually lead to dictatorial pontification in modern politics. There seems to be a growing trend for liberals to seen as the sole guardians of common sense and reason in this country. I must admit to being a bit left of centre politically myself, concerned about less well-off members of our community, social justice, the dignity of the human person, etc. Over the last ten or twenty years, however, I have found that some of these issues seem to have been hijacked and amalgamated with an increasingly  formulated ideology of forward thinking, development and freedom, which is then stuffed down people's throats as the only reasonable option. This seems, in essence, deeply illiberal. There ...