This week an American judge will decide the case of the Romeikes, a German family seeking political asylum following persecution from the German government for homeschooling their children – which is a crime in Germany.

For years, Mr and Mrs Romeike have had to pay thousands of euros in fines, been threatened with imprisonment and had their children seized and forced to attend a local state-run school.

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The Catholic Church has always taught that parents are the primary teachers of their children. Children should attend school only if the parents are certain that what is taught there is in line with the family’s religion.

Here in Australia, government-run schools are, by law, “secular” — meaning that God’s existence must be ignored in them.

In Victoria, Australia, one role that secular schools give themselves is to take teenage girls to “family planning  centres” to collect morning-after-pills if they  indulged in sex the previous night. The parents are not informed. Schools also supply contraceptive pills to young girls.

Health bureaucrat, Dr Rob Moodie, said this “radical approach” is needed as an antidote to “prudish” approaches to teen sex that “risk lives”.

He also supports installing condom machines in schoolyards.

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Anybody sending their child to an Australian government-run school will have to explain to God on Judgement Day why they didn’t take the child out of the system and teach them themselves.

Are “church schools” a satisfactory substitute?

If you think so, you should probably look more closely at what goes on in them.

Almost all Australian church schools accept subsidies of government money. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

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Mary MacKillop, soon to become Australia’s first Saint, never accepted government money at any of her schools.

She said that once the government money moves into a school, respect for God is moved out.

Australians pretend to honour Mary MacKillop.

They do so with their lips only.

Their hearts are far from her.