In an unfunny twist to my previous blog post, “What makes a dirty word dirty?“, an Australian father is contemplating on suing St. Peter the Apostle School in Australia for refusing to admit his son on the basis of their surname.
The youngster’s dad, 45-year-old Alex Hell, has expressed outrage after the primary school in the southern city of Melbourne allegedly refused to admit his son, Max.
“We are victims of our name,” said Hell, whose name is of Austrian origin.
“We’re quite devastated by the whole thing,” the Catholic father of three told the Australian Associated Press.
“It’s 2007, not 1407 — it’s not the Dark Ages.”[AFP via Inquirer.net]
So I was mistaken in my previous post — it’s not fundamentalist Christians: it’s Catholic bigots.
In an age of religious tolerance and moderation, it is unfortunate that some conservatives feel threatened enough to lash out at just about anything to “preserve the integrity of their religion.” Whatever integrity that is however is eroded by irresponsible policies — something rampant in Catholic schools.
In some local Catholic schools, for example, illegitimate children or children of single parents aren’t accepted on that basis. As if the child had a choice in the matter.
When will these so called “Christians” start practicing the real message of their God that they supposedly preach? Jesus was supposed to have taught understanding, forgiveness and compassion, not narrow-minded bigotry as exhibited above.
2 responses so far ↓
1 benj // Jul 12, 2007 at 2:37 pm
Well, to be fair to those christians, tolerance wasn’t quite that consistent in the Old Testament. Jesus only became the King of Mercy in the New Testament. As for the old books, it was genocide, pestilence and racial discrimination galore.
2 Jon Limjap // Jul 12, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Which is why they calling themselves “Christians” is fairly inaccurate, as Jesus is a New Testament artifact that takes a back seat when their “moral sensitivities” are miffed. Consider the fact that Jesus freely mingled with the prostitutes and the tax collectors, and preached the value of the Samaritans and other Gentiles.
The Christ’s message is that of tolerance — anybody who goes against that message loses the right to bear the name “Christian”. It may be “fair to those christians” but it’s infinitely unfair to the messiah they are supposed to emulate.
Leave a Comment