Sir, - I read with interest the opinions of Mgr Denis Faul in your paper of December 1st.
His trenchant explanation of one traditional view of the benefits of Roman Catholic education is important and adds some clarity in a debate where views are often fudged. However, his rather snide and disparaging references to multi-denominational education seem to me to be unworthy. To associate multi-denominational education with wealth, good accents and connections, secularism and the Pharisee type described in his parable is as unhelpful as any other form of social stereotyping. It is also completely untrue as many Educate Together schools could amply show. In addition, it is a considerable slight on the hundreds of Roman Catholic families who send their children to Educate Together schools and whose children attend Roman Catholic religious instruction at our school premises.
Many of these parents have decided that the prime source of religious formation is the home and the church, and that allowing their children to be educated in an environment in which other views are recognised and respected generates a more open and conscious grasp of their faith. This parental choice in the matter of moral formation of their children is in our mind a valid one and is deserving of a more sympathetic treatment than that afforded by Mgr Faul.
His use of the term "multi-denominational secular schools" is to me not only a contradiction in terms but also a grave inaccuracy. Educate Together schools are not secular schools but schools in which children of all faiths and none are equally and positively affirmed. This is precisely what multi-denominational means. All our schools have a Religious Education Core Curriculum in which our core values of respect and welcome for ethical, cultural, social, racial and religious diversity are expressed. What we do not do is to authoritatively assert that one way is the only way or that we have any right to interfere in a family's choice of their religious views.
In conclusion, I must confess to be slightly bemused by Mgr Faul's view of the effect of such an education. He leaves us in no doubt of his opinions on the grave weaknesses in our contemporary social life. He is undoubtedly correct to condemn social injustices. However, as multi-denominational national schools have existed in the State for only 23 years and even now represent merely half of one per cent of the total number of national schools, the attitudes condemned by him in his article are practised not by the recipients of multi-denominational education, but of the denominational education which has up until now occupied a monopolistic position in the Irish system. - Yours, etc. Paul Rowe,
Chairperson, Educate Together, South Circular Road, Dublin 8.