Archbishop Nichols: Children are polluted by market

[Dave Roberts]

MARKET forces, and society’s em­phasis on objectives and attainment, could pollute schools if they were allowed to take hold, the new Archbishop of Westminster, the Most Revd Vincent Nichols, has warned. Schools should be places where the “civic virtues” of trust, respect, honesty, and concern for each other and for the common good were generated, he said in a lecture given at Heythrop College on Saturday. “A good school will be able to show not just how it generates such civic virtue, but also give an account of why it tries to do so.” Catholic education was truly open to all that genuinely served the hu­man good, he told his audience. Devel­opment of the person, pupils, and staff took precedence over every­thing else, and was “more important than the success of the school, the demands of political pressure, and the requirements of the economy”.

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