State must provide school choice reflecting the education parents want for their children

Across the island of Ireland, from Sunday, January 21st to Saturday, January 27th, the annual celebration of Catholic Schools Week will be marked in Catholic schools, which will pray on, and explore, the 2024 theme of Catholic schools as “communities of service”.

Late in November 2023, Pope Francis, who was recovering from bronchitis, met with Glasgow’s Celtic Football Club team in the Vatican. The club had been founded in Scotland in 1887 by the Irish Marist Brother Walfrid as a means to raise money in the area for the alleviation of poverty among the Irish immigrant community.

In prepared remarks, Pope Francis asked that players set a good example on and off the field of play, embodying “the virtues of courage, perseverance, generosity and respect for the God-given dignity of others”.

I reflected on these words of Pope Francis and the theme of Catholic Schools Week 2024 in the aftermath of the Dublin riots, which occurred just a few days before the pope’s meeting with Celtic. Ireland is struggling with our newfound plurality of peoples and values, and Catholic schools have a vital role to play in reflecting on how they as communities may serve that pluralism within and without the schools.

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The topic of pluralism and diversity was addressed in a recent opinion piece by Fintan O’Toole (‘In Ireland we barely talk about immigration. It’s easy to see why’) in which he correctly recognises the huge achievement of Irish society in “the settling of such a large influx of people”. He rightfully places the greater part of the credit for this, albeit not wholly successful achievement, not with any top-down initiative, but in the low-level work carried out “in communities and workplaces, in schools and churches, in sports clubs and voluntary organisations”.

There is no such thing as a value-neutral, ethos-free education

Catholic schools, alongside other schools, have played their part. They do so as part of a vast global family. The Catholic Church is the only truly global body involved in education, working to provide education to more than 60 million children across the globe. The church speaks in many scores of languages and has interacted with hundreds of cultures. By doing so, Catholicism has gained a rich understanding of humanity. This is an aspect of Catholicism that Catholic education should lean into and emphasise. Our schools are grounded in the local while being part of the global.

[ The contribution of Catholic schools is essential to a diverse society ]

Catholic schools across the world serve diverse communities, with some of our schools in Central Africa and India having majority enrolments from pupils of other faith backgrounds and philosophical beliefs. Our schools in our nearest neighbours, the United Kingdom and France, have proven to be popular with immigrant families, including those from other faiths. Across Europe, denominational schools in receipt of public funding are playing their part in responding to the increased diversity of the societies they serve.

In Ireland, there are those who would have us respond to the increased diversity of our society by creating a uniform education system. O’Toole appeals to Irish society to discuss immigration, identifying, in particular, the bringing about of a secular uniform education system along the lines of public schools in the United States. He argues that this was a crucial way in which the US responded to the influx of diverse people. However, it is increasingly difficult to hold the United States up as a model of a society comfortable with its diversity.

Our response to diversity is to start from a firm sense of who we are, and to respond to difference with dialogue and encounter, rooted in respect

Many of those in favour of educational uniformity as response to diversity claim that it will be “neutral”. However, there is no such thing as a value-neutral, ethos-free education. Those arguing for change along these lines rarely explicitly identify what ethical perspective they want for Irish schools.

Catholic education has been developing in its sense of mission over the last few decades, and under several popes. Our response to diversity is to start from a firm sense of who we are, and to respond to difference with dialogue and encounter, rooted in respect. We believe that the response to pluralism is not an imposed sameness, but rather a pluralism of approaches, grounded in respectful dialogue with other points of view, beliefs, and faiths.

[ Breda O'Brien: Move against denominational schools not a good idea ]

The State has a duty to provide for a plurality in choice of schools reflective of type of education parents and guardians desire for their children. The church has indicated its willingness, out of a concern for the common good, to assist the State in meeting that duty, and has positively engaged in a process to achieve reconfiguration of patronage at primary level. This process is not an easy one. However, all parties are determined to effect change and to identify a positive way forward.

Catholic education seeks to respond to current challenges with the values outlined by the pope in his comments to Celtic FC: “Courage, perseverance, generosity and respect for the God-given dignity of others”. Central to the Catholic understanding of the human person is that each of us is made in the image and likeness of God, thereby sharing in a common dignity, interdependent on one another, and being bound by a duty of solidarity with all men and women.

[ How secular should the state be? ]

For Catholics, and in particular for those involved in education, encounter is not a noun, but a verb. It is an action informed by love, building bridges across differences, reaching out to those on the margins of our society, and seeking the development and common good of all peoples. This occurs every day in schools with a Catholic ethos in Ireland, and throughout the world.

Alan Hynes is chief executive of the Catholic Education Partnership