Scottish Catholic Observer

The fall of a city after a long siege is always horrific. Through the exact details of what is happening in Aleppo remain unclear, as always happens in war, the weak, the elderly and the children will suffer most.

It is just the latest grim moment in a decade long smorgasbord of despair. The Syrian civil war has been a carnival of atrocity by participants on all sides. There seem to be no good outcomes and no good forces. But there are good people.

Sr Annie Demerjian, who has stayed in Aleppo through the long siege, is one of them. She has risked her life time and again to help those who remained in the battered metropolis. Few would be so brave. So when she says she hopes and prays there may now be some sort of peace in her city, we can only hope and pray she is right.

Whatever happens next, the Syrian nation is in tatters. Healing will take decades. Its people need our prayers and our help.

The latest figures from the Scottish Government show the numbers of children attending Catholic schools have hit a ten year high. This speaks to just how attractive the Catholic ethos of these schools is to parents. That ethos instils something in the schools that just works. It helps kids learn more effectively, and become better people.

Increasingly non-Catholic parents realise that a Catholic education is a rare and precious gift to a child. In parts of the country, Catholic schools are absolutely bursting at the seams for this reason. At a time when the Scottish Government is under increasing pressure over the quality of education in Scottish schools, the Catholic sector stands as a positive example to the rest. Let us hope than in the years to come non-denominational schools in Scotland can learn to emulate some of the success of Catholic schools.