‘Let schools go to save Catholic education’ says Archbishop

ARCHBISHOP Diarmuid Martin of Dublin has intervened in the debate over school patronage with a call to the Church to free itself from control of schools and institutions, writes Sarah Mac Donald.

On Sunday, at a Mass in Dublin to mark the 170th anniversary of the Catholic Institute for Deaf People, Archbishop Martin acknowledged that the Church has been slow to adapt to the increasing pluralism in Irish society.

“Inertia may seem to mean that things can go on as they were and are; but the opposite is the case,” he warned.

Speaking to RTE Radio about his comments at the Mass, the archbishop said: “There is no future for Catholic schools if there isn’t a viable alternative and if there aren’t a wide number of schools available with a different ethos.”

He acknowledged that progress on divesting from Catholic patrons had been “remarkably slow” and that just three Catholic schools had so far been freed up in Dublin.

“The danger is that in the end we might end up without [any] Catholic schools,” he warned.

Speaking on Tuesday the Archbishop of Tuam, Michael Neary, said that it was appropriate that enough schools were made available for people of no faith.

But he added: “In an increasingly pluralist society, where there are more and more people of different faiths, we have to be clear about the difference between Catholic schools and other schools. We have to be clear about our own identity. We have Catholic schools because parents want them. It is parents who must insist that the religious ethos of our schools is respected.”