According to newspaper Sunday Mail from Brisbane, elite Catholic schools including All Hallows, Stuartholme and Loreto College are avoiding words like “father”, “son” and “Lord” in prayers and teachings.
Stuartholme Girls' School tweaked prayers and hymns to replace the word “himself” with “God himself”.
A spokesperson for Stuartholme said: “As we believe that God is neither male nor female, Stuartholme tries to use gender-neutral terms in prayers… so that our community deepens their understanding of who God is to them, how God reveals Himself. through creation, our relationships with others and with the person of Jesus.”
Students at All Hallows School refer to “the Creator, Jesus and the Holy Spirit” when they make the sign of the cross, rather than the traditional “the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”.
Andrea Dean, director of the Catholic Office for Women's Participation, told Sunday Mail that she was “excited” about schools practicing gender-neutral prayer.
“It's great that they are sensitive to the implications of what God is called. God is not of any gender. In the times when the Scriptures were written, [Lord and Father] were terms of honor – most terms of honor were related to men,” she said.
