‘Breeds Resentment’: Catholic Priest Tells CNN He’s Against Texas Bible Mandate In Public Schools

A Catholic priest told CNN Friday that he’s against the state of Texas’s decision to require public school children to read Bible stories and verses in the classroom.

The state’s Republican-controlled board of education adopted the reading curriculum Friday that includes a biblical requirement for its 5 million public school students across the state. This makes Texas the first state to make such a religious requirement.

CNN’s religious contributor Fr. Edward Beck called the decision “a landmark moment.”

“I am certainly for the Bible. I think there are great lessons in the Bible,” Fr. Beck said. “But if you’re talking about just Christian texts and just Hebrews texts…but there’s no Quran, there’s no Torah, there’s no Buddhist or Hindu scripture. You know. And in Texas, more than half of the students are Black or Hispanic. Many Catholic, but many of other faiths, many of no faiths,” he continued. So I think the message is unmistakable. If you have only one religious text that’s mandatory reading, that’s not a literary decision. It’s a theological one.”

“And, you know, as a priest, I have to tell you… forced scripture doesn’t deepen faith. I think it breeds resentment when the state and not a family or a teacher decides which Bible passages children must read, I think something sacred’s been handed to politics,” he continued.

And it’s a Protestant-only list, by the way, which means that the translations that are going to be used, I think the King James and the English translation — they’re Protestant Bibles. So, that means some Catholic books aren’t even included in the translations that they’re using. So, if you’re calling this literary, but you have a Protestant-only list, no other world religions represented, and a board member saying that Texas is a Christian state, I think the defense, ‘It’s just a literary choice,’ is going to be very hard to make.

“I think lawsuits are coming,” Fr. Beck predicted. “And I would just say, yeah, there are great lessons to be learned here, but let’s learn as Christians, if you want to call it, the primary message of Jesus, which is inclusion, forgiveness, acceptance — and this just doesn’t seem to be about that.”

Watch the clip above via CNN.

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