391. Mother Teresa: An Offence to Non-Catholic Children
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| Blessed Mother Teresa Nobel Prize for Peace 1979 |
In Italy, of all
places- in the town of Vittorio
Veneto, a colleague of mine, let’s call her Paula, a teacher of Religious
Education with 20 years experience was asked to take down a poster of Blessed Mother Teresa since it offended the
non-Catholics pupils in her class who in effect amount to one or two.
Paula, who does not
want to be identified for obvious reasons, told me she was
left incredulous that an image of Mother Teresa could cause offence to anyone,
Catholics, non-Catholics, atheists, agnostics- whoever, let alone the children
in her class who knew Mother Teresa well anyway from the media since she
undoubtedly is not only a public figure, but a universal one too, venerated by
the people of India in particular, by Muslims and Hindu alike.
Paula also told me that what the
headmaster and deputy head-mistress objected to mostly was the caption above
the image of Mother Teresa, taken from one of her own celebrated quotes:
“I am a little pencil in God’s hands.”
The word “God” was totally unacceptable, the deputy
and head had claimed.
When my colleague asked why “God”
should be unacceptable, the other two maintained there were other children in
the class, who not being Catholics would find it offensive.
My colleague defended herself by saying
that the word “God” is applied by all religions, not just the Catholic one.
Furthermore, even non-Christians faiths used the word “God” to define the
supreme immortal being they believed in, but apart from that, she had been
appointed as a Catholic teacher to actually teach the Catholic faith even
though she was open-minded enough to be aware of the needs of other faiths or
non-believers. She also noted that she had been appointed to teach the reality
and facts of faith, in other words the truth and not opinion which the two
heads were in effect expressing.
The head teacher is
ultimately responsible for this idiotic prohibition on not
allowing the poster of Mother Teresa to be used as a visual aid and although it
is not a valid excuse, it seems however he was pressurized by other members of
staff in the school to act because one of their representatives had the day
previously, cautioned my colleague that the poster of Mother Teresa was “inappropriate.”
Teaching religion is one of the
hardest subjects under the sun to teach and when you have to do it without the
support of your colleagues it is harder even still as it isolates the said
teacher completely. However, it becomes intolerable when such a teacher is
prevented from teaching her given subject and yet she must nevertheless
struggle on in such poisonous atmosphere..
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| A view of Vittorio Veneto (Treviso) Italy where parts of "In Love and War" was filmed |
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Is it not time
something truly effective is done to overcome such narrow-minded prejudice in
the reverse?
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IMPORTANT UPDATE 24 October 2013
It seems what the head master was referring was not his opinion at all but such
as was referred to him by other members of staff. As far as he was concerned
Paula did well to exhibit a poster of the beloved Mother Teresa and not only
did he congratulate Paula on her enterprise but encouraged her to continue to make
well loved persons known to her pupils and posters of St Francis, St Anthony,
St Bernadette or whoever, not only would be welcomed but desired regardless
what other teachers thought.
Ha! Thought
I, victory, for once the Devil was put to the door… Even so, I wondered, would
any of this have come about if someone had not published it?
Long live the
blog-sphere!
