Sir, – Patrick Swan (October 7th) states that the new religious education programme for Catholic schools, Grow in Love, teaches creationism to our infants. This is not the case. Such a position is not in keeping with the philosophy or theology of Grow in Love or indeed with the position of the Catholic Church.
Creationism, broadly speaking, is the denial of the contribution of science to understanding.
It is often accompanied by a literal interpretation of books of the Bible, especially the ones referring to creation itself.
The Catholic Church is not creationist and does not support creationism. It values science and all that it contributes to our understanding of how things work and came to be.
However, science is one form of knowledge. Scientific theories can tell us much about the world but it cannot explain why it came to be or whether there is any ultimate meaning or purpose to life. There are limits to the reach of science.
Part of the role of schools is to pass on trustworthy ways of making sense of the world and one’s place in the world. In a Catholic school, the belief that God made the world, is actively present in it today and that there is an ultimate purpose, value and meaning to life, is central to its worldview.
Consequently, the school has to work out appropriate ways to give children access to this tradition in an age-appropriate manner. Introducing infants to some of the great stories of the Christian tradition is one such way. However, as children get older, the level of critical, intellectual rigour in such religious education programmes will increase alongside their growing capacity for critical reflection.
Finally, I would like to take issue with Mr Swan’s claim that Catholic schools want to indoctrinate children.
To indoctrinate is to do harm to a child, in a deliberate fashion, and is opposed to good education.
While I’m unfamiliar with the research on which Mr Swan bases this claim, I am concerned with the inference that suggests that in religious education teachers deliberately do harm to our children. I reject such an inference. – Yours, etc,
Dr DANIEL O’CONNELL,
Co-author of Grow in Love
(Junior and Senior Infants),
Department of Learning,
Society and Religious
Education,
Faculty of Education,
Mary Immaculate College,
Limerick.
Sir, – Patrick Swan has a particular view of creationism that is not the normal understanding. Creationism is normally taken to mean a view that the story of creation as told in Genesis is to be read literally, describing events which we know from geology, archaeology, biology and related sciences took place in a totally different way over a period of perhaps a billion years. What Mr Swan is taking issue with is the belief that the universe was created by God in such a way that its development over time would lead to the appearance of the biological world, including ourselves.
There is nothing unscientific in this as there is absolutely no scientific evidence which contradicts this interpretation of the universe. There is no scientific evidence either way, but obviously strongly held beliefs on both sides.
This being the case, Mr Swan has no reason to expect that his view should dominate the teaching curriculum, particularly one which is specifically designed to teach religion.– Yours, etc,
PATRICK DAVEY,
Shankill, Dublin 18.
Sir, – I was educated in a Roman Catholic primary school, a Jesuit secondary school, and studied theology with Fr Alex Jones, editor of the Jerusalem Bible. I have never heard an educator in any of these contexts imply that the story of creation was other than that, a story. Nor have I ever heard criticism of Darwin. Once anyone accepts the concept of a God or gods, (which I no longer believe) it is quite rational to offer her or him thanks for the beauty of our universe. Stories are central to every culture, every family. – Yours, etc,
Dr MICHAEL CAROLAN,
Wigan,
England.