Madam, – David Grant (March 21st) needs to calm down and make himself a nice cup of tea. The existence of schools adhering to a Catholic ethos does not inevitably lead to the murder of non-Catholics, as his ridiculous tirade clearly implies. I was educated by the Christian Brothers and have managed to restrain myself from killing anyone in the 25 years since I left my local CBS.
Perhaps it has something to do with those anachronistic Ten Commandments, the fifth of which states: “Thou shalt not kill”. Hasn’t it occurred to Mr Grant that the perpetrators of such terrorist murders in Northern Ireland might not be, in fact, the most devout Catholics around?
Having dredged up jaded hyperbole on this topic – “educational apartheid”, “divisiveness”, “livid intolerance”, “sectarian and triumphalist brainwashing” – Mr Grant concludes that a Catholic ethos is “hardly one which recommends itself to right-minded people” and that “young people deserve better than this”. No prizes for guessing who gets to define what constitutes a “right-minded” person.
Personally, I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea of failing to meet Mr Grant’s criteria and instead, freely exercising my right as a parent to educate my children as I see fit by sending them to a Catholic school. If Mr Grant believes young people deserve better than this, he is free to make a different decision and I would fully support him in this. But only for his own “young people”, not for mine.
Indeed, it is notable that parental choice features nowhere in Mr Grant’s letter. All we are offered is a feeble caricature of an obsessive cardinal busily inculcating, indoctrinating and imposing all sorts of nasty ideas on the impressionable young. As it turns out, no doubt much to Mr Grant’s dismay, the educational ethos so ably defended by Cardinal Brady is highly valued by a great many Irish parents, North and South, myself included. Long may it continue. – Yours, etc,