“Catholic schools guarantee a moral foundation for which there is a terrible need today”, declared the archbishop of Birmingham, Msgr. Vincent Nichols, speaking in recent days at a conference organized by the Catholic Education Service in London. The archbishop rejected the idea that Catholic education is a sectarian and narrow-minded enterprise: “Nothing that is truly human is excluded by the Catholic Church. Each day in our schools we are called to reply to the fundamental moral grammar of our being: I am interested in others, in my neighbour, all people have value for me”. The former Education Minister Charles Clarke was supposed to have addressed the conference, but was recently transferred to the Home Ministry, after a government reshuffle. The archbishop, however, pointed out that, according to Clarke, “Catholic schools furnish values of vital importance for society”.
