Source: Religion News Service
LEEDS, ENGLAND, September 7, 2001: That the UK’s Roman Catholic schools may play a roll in discouraging young Catholics from practicing their faith came under scrutiny at the annual meeting of the National Conference of Priests of England and Wales. Priests from northwest England said that in their experience teenagers who went to Catholic schools were the most likely to give up practicing their faith, while most of the teenagers who did come to church were those attending non-Catholic schools. “Young people at Catholic schools who go to Mass are subject to a kind of insidious bullying by their peers to give it up,” said Canon Brendan Hoban from Wallasey, England. He asked whether the phenomenon was confined to his region or was more widespread, and what could be done about it. “I sometimes wonder if Catholic high schools are worth preserving,” said the Rev. Peter Fox from Widnes, England. However, their proposal for an investigation into the “complex reasons why young Catholics cease to practice their faith during their school years” failed to gain enough support from the conference to be adopted as a formal resolution.