Parental choice must be respected

Yesterday Cardinal Brady launched Catholic Schools Week 2010 and inaugurated the new Catholic Schools Partnership.

Referring to the recent debate on the future of catholic schools Cardinal Seán Brady, Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of all Ireland said, “The presumption that the Catholic Church wants to control as many schools as it can, irrespective of parental demands, is increasingly seen to be unfounded.  Equally, the idea that the only way to accommodate religious and cultural diversity in society is to remove the Church completely from state funded schools, is increasingly seen as unjust, unhelpful and contrary to the principle of pluralism.” 

“This proposition ignores the rights of parents and children to a faith based education, a right acknowledged in international instruments of human rights.”

He emphasised that the State should support this right with public funds.  “It would be helpful if the idea that the Church has no right to be involved in schools which are paid for out of public funds was acknowledged as a complete red-herring and blatantly unjust!  Those parents who choose and value the Catholic education provided for their children are tax-payers in exactly the same way as parents who send their children to other types of schools.”

The Cardinal also stated that there is no such thing as a value-free school.  If parents want the Government to define and manage the ethos of schools, there are no clear proposals about how to do this, and as to what philosophy of life, of the human person, of the child the Government of the day would promote.

Fair criteria should be employed in the provision of new schools according to the Cardinal.  “Just as it is right to question the over-provision of Catholic schools relative to perceived demand, it is also right to ask why of all the newly built schools in areas of population growth in Ireland in recent years, very few are Catholic”

“Is it true that in every one of these cases only a minority of the population was Catholic or wanted a Catholic school?  There has to be an effective way of establishing parental choice when a new school is being built as a result of population growth,” he said. 

“The Catholic Church is open to diversity of provision but parents who want Catholic schools have to be treated as fairly and on the same basis as others.  They cannot be automatically excluded from consideration when a new school is being built.”

Speaking about the recent Ipsos/MRBI poll in The Irish Times suggesting that a majority of the public wants the Catholic Church to give up its role in the management of primary schools, the Cardinal said there was no clear indication as to their preferred alternative.  It would be unjust to dismiss the superb work of so many catholic teachers, principals, volunteers and boards of management of Catholic schools because of the terrible failings of some priests, religious and bishops.

He stressed that in the Ipsos/MRBI poll, younger people tended to have a more positive attitude to the involvement of Church than those in middle-age.  One possible reason for this may be their more positive experience of the Catholic ethos and atmosphere of modern schools - a far cry from twenty or thirty years ago.

“The cold and disturbing images of Catholic education evoked by the Ryan Report could not be in more stark contrast to the supportive and positive atmosphere of Catholic schools today,” the Cardinal stated.

This is where CSP, and the Trustee Support Service in the North, come in as examples par excellence of lay leadership in the Church.  They will play a key role in restoring the confidence of parents and wider society in the commitment of Catholic schools to the highest standards of safeguarding and welfare for every child in their care, according to the Cardinal.

He concluded, “The effort of teachers, principals, boards of management, priests and religious in recent years to ensure that Catholic schools are open, happy, stimulating, and mutually respectful community environments means we have nothing to fear from a future based on verifiable parental choice.”

Catholic Schools Partnership (CSP) was established by the Bishops of Ireland with the cooperation of the Conference of Religious of Ireland to support all partners in Catholic education at first and second level within the education system in the Republic of Ireland. 

Its equivalent in Northern Ireland is the Trustee Support Service. 

CSP includes patrons/trustees, management bodies including boards of management and teachers in Catholic schools.  While the CSP was officially launched yesterday, its office was established in September 2009 and is based in St Patrick’s College Maynooth, Co Kildare.

Speakers and participants at the seminar to mark the official launch and National Schools Week included, Cardinal Seán Brady, Bishop Leo O’Reilly, Sr Elizabeth Maxwell, Sr Eithne Woulfe, Ms Maeve Mahon, Ms Cora O’Farrell, Mc Catherine Wiley, Ms Rosemary Lavelle, Mgr James Cassin, Fr Michael Drumm and Mr David Quinn.
Resources to mark Catholic Schools Week and various talks are available on: www.catholicbishops.ie

by Ann Marie Foley