Catholic Culture Solidarity
Catholic Culture Solidarity
Catholic World News

Cardinal Nichols: value-free education leaves teens susceptible to terrorist recruitment

February 01, 2016

In a lengthy address to Catholic secondary school leaders, Cardinal Vincent Nichols of Westminster warned that a values-free education that emphasizes student choice has been adolescents susceptible to Islamic State recruitment.

Many have reached the age of 14 “without a firm basis of values or beliefs by which they can steer their lives or against which they can rebel,” he said on January 28. “In their formal upbringing many have been presented only with fleeting guidance, couched always in the tones of choice-- you must decide what you think is right or wrong for you; you must choose your identity.”

Cardinal Nichols called upon school leaders to emphasize the “framework of vocation, rooted in a relationship with Jesus and negotiating all the phases of [students’] emerging lives within the strength of that bond and all it entails.”

“The degree to which you achieve this, as many of you do, is the degree to which our schools will never be sending into the world ‘clean skins’ ready to be seduced by a corrupt and inhuman ideology, or by any other lesser versions of violence and degrading inhumanity that stalk our streets and our world today,” the prelate added. “At the center of it all is Jesus, indeed our Savior; in Him we put our trust.”

 


For all current news, visit our News home page.


 
Further information:
Sound Off! CatholicCulture.org supporters weigh in.

All comments are moderated. To lighten our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to see the comment form; otherwise please support our work, and Sound Off!

  • Posted by: rik92vin8086 - Feb. 01, 2016 12:44 PM ET USA

    the sad reality is that public education is filled with values not devoid of it. The problem is not the lack of values but what those values are. The values being promoted are anti-human dignity, anti-common sense, and anti-self control. They are well suited to a multicultural, depopulationist and a dangerous 'follow our social narratives' even when it contradicts what your eyes and ears tell you. Those ARE values and they are all bad.