Letters: HSC results

The
Catholic Weekly
Online

Sydney
8 February 2004

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HSC at St Edmund’s

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Editorial: Suffer the children

Letters: HSC results

Conversation: Fr Arthur Bridge, patron of the arts - Parish priest who likes to face the music

Fathers and sandcastles

Tribute to ‘the Chief’

Parish Profile: A gifted beginning ...

Life in a seminary

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Kicking goals with kids

Letters: HSC results

I would like to raise a matter of accuracy in relation to recent articles on Sydney Catholic schools’ HSC results.

The page 3 correction (Top performer, CW 25/1) regarding the HSC results for St Patrick’s College, Sutherland, and St Patrick’s College, Strathfield, is still inaccurate.

St Patrick’s College, Strathfield is not a systemic school. To my knowledge it has always been, and still is, a congregational school under the auspices of the Christian Brothers.

Strathfield may have indeed had the best results for all Sydney Archdiocesan congregational and systemic schools, but this was based on the criterion of the number of students in the NSW top all-rounders list.

A further question – if this was so, why was Strathfield not included in the list under the heading Catholic all-rounder students in HSC 2003 (CW 11/1)?

Only the Catholic Education Office or Catholic Education Commission personnel would be able to verify this information as it is not made available by the Board of Studies to all schools.

However, St Patrick’s College, Sutherland, an archdiocesan systemic school, did achieve the best results based on the criterion of percentage of HSC courses above State average.

The rationale for the Catholic Education Office Sydney using this method was clearly explained by the head of secondary curriculum, Tim McMullen, in the article of January 11.

The inaccuracy of January 25 also arises from the content and structure of the first two paragraphs of the January 11 article, HSC pupils in top class.

The first paragraph introduced the topic by way of reference to both congregational and systemic schools in the NSW top all-rounders’ list.

The second paragraph then stated: “...The best performing of those systemic schools was St Patrick’s College, Sutherland”.

This sentence was indeed a factual statement but the criterion, referred to later in the article – number of HSC courses above State average – was not stated at this point.

There needed to be some sort of appropriate connecting statement between the two paragraphs.

Therefore, if St Patrick’s, Strathfield, a congregational school, did achieve the highest number of students in the NSW all-rounders’ list for the Sydney Archdiocese, then the article of January 25 needs further editing and the two criteria made clear.

St Patrick’s College, Sutherland, did achieve the best archdiocesan systemic results based on the number of HSC courses in which the mean was above State average.

Michael Crawford
Director of Studies
St Patrick’s College, Sutherland.

CATHEDRAL

I thought it appropriate that I should write and express my feelings of the new St Patrick’s, Parramatta.

I was schooled at the Marist Brothers next door from 1944–54, as well as confirmed and married at St Patrick’s. The church played an important part in my earlier life.

I saw how the fire had destroyed the cathedral and felt I should return after the ceremonial opening, attend Mass and view the new complex.

It was a shock. Having read of plans to build a new cathedral as well as retain the former building, I found the exterior of the new building a disappointment.

The interior was singularly unchurch like; no focal point such as tabernacle, three points in an aisle (for the Mass liturgies) and parishioners facing each other. It reminded me of the Sydney Entertainment Centre.

The stunning and wonderful crucifix held my attention. There was a lack of the traditional symbols associated with church interiors.

Despite the modern transformation of the former church, now known as the chapel, I did feel more comfortable inside. At the end of the day the parishioners and the diocesan fathers have made their input and, the complex is theirs – vox populi, vox Dei!

Adrian Mitchell
Pennant Hills, NSW

FULL COMMUNION

No matter how often I read Anglicans Look To Rome (CW 25/1), I could not help but arrive at the conclusion that it is now conceivable for an Anglican to enter full communion with the Catholic Church and yet retain worship based on the Book of Common Prayer devised by the self-appointed deconstructionist of the sacrifice of the Mass, Thomas Cranmer.

Furthermore, according to Edward Pentin’s article, reprinted from London’s The Catholic Herald, the green light for this baffling novelty is a ‘Pastoral Provision’ offered by the Pope as long ago as 1980.

While acknowledging that recent controversial events have brought anger and disillusionment to many Anglicans, especially within the US, Kenya and Nigeria, one’s thoughts necessarily turn to that long-suffering, ridiculed and often ignored band of Catholics who, for nearly 40 years, have known all about the anger, disillusionment and heartbreak that flow from unexplained and quirky liturgical experimentation, catechetical dilution and, saddest of all, the abandonment of their Catholic heritage by so very many of their children.

Might not a Pastoral Provision or two for them be opportune?

Patrick Keegan
Bankstown, NSW

BROTHERS

The item on Br James McGlade (Master teacher, CW 25/1) recalls the brothers at Lewisham in the 1930s.

These men in their late teens and early 20s taught school each day, had a quick cup of tea, then attended university in order to obtain their degrees.

Geoffrey M Prendergast
North Ryde, NSW

ABORTION

One of the pre-eminent social causes of our time is surely abortion, which is a crime that no human law or authority can claim to legitimise.

A Catholic has a grave and clear obligation to oppose any such law by conscientious objection, by prayer and even by sacrifice.

Under divine law of the commandments of the Gospel no Catholic can licitly take part in a political campaign favouring such an immoral law nor vote for such a law nor ignore others that promote such a law, yet here in this once great land overnight by the stroke of a pen, it is now legal to purchase over the counter the oral abortificant that will deny the lives of thousands and thousands of children.

Jack F Turner
Bilambil Heights, NSW