Sir, – Further to "Church should give some rural schools to State" (Margaret Lee, Rite & Reason, August 25th), why should the church give "some" but not all rural schools away? Which ones? The fact is that there is a majority of Catholic parents in almost all rural communities and a significant minority of non-Catholic parents. In such a situation, arbitrarily picking some schools for divestment is only going to increase the dissatisfaction of both Catholic and non-Catholic parents.
Brendan Hoban's argument ("Priest says demand for secular schools is low", August 25th) that "only Catholic parents" can make a decision on divestment is remarkable for its unabashed demotion of the rights of non-Catholic parents. Why is it that non-Catholic parents have no say in the running of their local schools? Of course he also resorts to the usual nonsense about Atheist Ireland "building their own schools" and so on.
I wonder does he realise who actually provides the funds, for example teachers’ salaries, to run these so-called “Catholic schools”. There is no sense in which schools are owned by patron bodies; these patrons are merely acting as agents of the community and of the State, and they would do well to remember that.
We find ourselves in a democratic society in a situation where a majority group – in this case, the Catholic Church – essentially controls the entire primary school system. In this situation, democratic principles insist that the majority group should actively protect the rights of the minority. Thus it is the responsibility of the Catholic Church to provide an education system that meets the needs of both Catholics and non-Catholics alike.
In practice, that means abandoning preferential admissions for baptised children and it means offering realistic options for parents to opt their children out of faith formation while still including them fully in the other activities of the school.
It is perfectly possible to organise school activities so that children can opt in to religious activities without imposing a sense of exclusion on those that choose not to opt in.
A simple but important step would be to stop using core school hours for sacramental preparation. There is no good reason why this activity should take place in publicly funded schools. Why are teachers being paid by the State to participate in such activities? – Yours, etc,
JAMES CRUICKSHANK,
Headford,
Co Galway.