The Bishop of Clifton says he was “saddened” by the decision of a Bath school founded in 1830 to educate Catholics to “disassociate” itself from the Church.
On 13 September, Prior Park College announced it would become “a Christian school in the Catholic tradition”.
Bishop Bosco MacDonald described the change as “following on” from an inspection by the Catholic Schools Inspectorate (CSI) earlier this year.
The CSI advised the school to “strengthen the centrality of Christ” in the daily lives of students and staff, “so that they can better understand the Catholic life and mission of the college”.
A statement on Prior Park’s website said the CSI report had no bearing on the change.
“Our trustees took the decision to become a Christian school in the Catholic tradition for many reasons,” said the headmaster, Ben Horan.
Approximately 18 per cent of the student body is now Catholic, said Horan, who described how Prior Park had become “increasingly diverse … with people from different backgrounds and sexual orientation now represented across both the student and teaching body”.
He told The Tablet: “The school has been told not to engage with movements such as Pride, despite many students and families wishing us to.”
The question of Prior Park, affiliation with the Church and safeguarding all young people in today’s Catholic schoolsBy headteacher Ben Horan |
A former deputy headmaster of the school said these comments betrayed “a curiously dated picture of the Catholic Church”.
Wilf Hammond, deputy at Prior Park from 1983 to 1991, said: “This is not the Church of Pope Francis, or Timothy Radcliffe. The pastoral reality is sustained movement towards what Francis calls a Church of Mercy.”
Horan said the school would “support” Pope Francis’ approach, but that regarding sexuality, “young people are not blind to the teachings of the Church”.
Bishop MacDonald said the diocese’s Catholic schools “embrace and welcome families of all faiths and none”.
Many families were drawn to the schools’ “inclusive vision” which sought to help students discover in themselves and others “the truth, goodness and beauty of God, no matter who they are”, he added.
Dr Giles Mercer, a former headmaster of Prior Park, said the change had elicited “anger” in Bath and beyond. He said: “The question people always seem to ask is, ‘How can [the headmaster and trustees] do this legally?”
He accused Horan of “misunderstanding” Catholic education, which “should be about the education – mind, body, soul – and priceless worth of every person”.