Sir, – How encouraging to read Carl O’Brien’s piece on the case for faith formation outside school hours in Ireland’s primary schools (“Secularisation of schools hasn’t worked. Hard to see how it will”, News, September 14th).
After two weeks of reading countless horrific testimonies of the sexual and physical abuse of children in our religious-run schools in the scoping inquiry report, and listening to first-hand accounts on RTÉ's Liveline, could it be that the dial is finally moving on this issue?
Moving faith formation to a class outside core school hours does not mean the end of Communions and Confirmations for those worried about their demise.
What it means is the end of “opt out” children being excluded and othered, sitting at the back of the classroom, the end of teaching a faith as fact and the opening up of the teaching profession to those of other faiths and no faith.
We live in a diverse, pluralist democracy. It’s high time our schools reflected that.
In the meantime, while we wait for political leadership on this issue, perhaps schools and their religious patrons might facilitate parents who want to opt their children out.
Parents need greater clarity on how their children will be otherwise occupied for the two and a half hours per week taken up with religious faith formation at school. – Yours, etc,
AOIFE CASSIDY,
Parent representative,
Education Equality,
Templeogue,
Dublin 6W.