Taking it that Joe appears to have understood that you'd been teaching in Catholic schools feeling the same way about them that you do now, I can't see his comment as anyway out of line, or anything to get hot under the collar about.

A misunderstanding, but not an unreasonable one. If someone as hostile to Catholicism and all religious belief as you are now were to teach in a Catholic school for years on end, and go along with all the stuff you detest, wouldn't you see it as a bit off?

I quite accept that the kind of official evidence that you mention can be questonable. I've known cases where what seem to be pretty good schools have been downgraded in ways I thought were unfair. Likely enough it happens the other way too. I know it does in other fields, notably the Care Quality Commission, which has given favourable reports on some shocking care homes.

But the favourable reports on Catholic schools have been a bit too consistent to dismiss them out of hand, and throw them over in favour of anecdotal evidence - though I don't dismiss anecdotal evidence, which can be crucial in setting off alarm bells. But I think it's rreeasonable to accept that these schools do perform well in educational terms.

It strikes me that "serving others, tolerance, trust, respect, prayer and forgiveness" are a pretty good set of criteria", leaving aside "prayer" for you, and including it for me. These kind of blurbs for schools inescapably tend to be a bit pompous and remote, but St Mark,s seems a pretty decent school.

As for "falling back on God" What could I have been thinking of!