How can RE teachers grab the interest of pupils? Catholic schools risk alienating many potential churchgoers unless they start to speak a language young people can understand

I observed a young student teacher deliver an RE class to 11-year-olds in a Catholic primary school in an isolated rural area in the west of Ireland. She was trying to connect the liturgical theme of the Rosary to the children’s lives. She focused on the mysteries of light and introduced the Transfiguration of Our Lord.

The children stared uncomprehendingly. The Rosary meant little. Mysteries less. The Transfiguration nothing. She showed an image of Jesus dressed in a long white robe radiating light. She slowly pronounced and wrote the word “Transfiguration” on the board. A child raised a hand. “I know what that means. It’s when Jesus was trans and he changed his figure from a man to a woman.”

This moment, in October 2017, was a watershed for me. The children were more connected to transgender culture than they were to the Catholic spiritual tradition that had been the bedrock of many of their grandparents’ and, to a lesser extent, their parents’ lives.

For many children in this rural heartland, Catholic culture and literacy was not making much sense. It made me ask, what should educators do if Catholic doctrine and ritual are not connecting with children’s lives? I have come across countless examples of a growing fracture between the Catholic tradition and today’s learners.