The Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies (CCRS) is a certificate awarded by the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales.
It is designed:
- for teachers who will be in Catholic schools, so that they may have a basic understanding of the church, its teaching and way of life, to enable them to contribute to the maintenance of the ethos of the Catholic school;
- for catechists, to give them a basic understanding of the faith of the Catholic Church, as a foundation for their ministry; and
- for adult members of the church, to enable them to continue to grow in understanding and living their catholic faith.
It does not automatically carry academic credits, but some Universities offer it as a component of another academic award.
The Course is offered in all five Catholic Colleges of Higher Education and at centres in every diocese in England and Wales.
It is traditionally thought of as a pre-requisite for a job as a teacher in a Catholic School. However, schools will often employ non-CCRS teachers, or ask newly employed teachers to work towards the award.
Famous quotes containing the words catholic, certificate, religious and/or studies:
“You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing interest ceases also.... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“God gave the righteous man a certificate entitling him to food and raiment, but the unrighteous man found a facsimile of the same in God’s coffers, and appropriated it, and obtained food and raiment like the former. It is one of the most extensive systems of counterfeiting that the world has seen.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“We are not a religious people, but we are a nation of politicians. We do not care for the Bible, but we do care for the newspaper. At any meeting of politicians ... how impertinent it would be to quote from the Bible! how pertinent to quote from a newspaper or from the Constitution!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)