Madam, - Fr Séamus Murphy's claim that secularism is the functional equivalent of religion (April 9th) is false in confusing secularism with atheism.
Unlike the athiest, the secularist cannot be presumed to hold a particular religious view, and we know that many devout believers have also been strident secularists (the Constitution of the United States springs to mind).
Secularism simply holds that certain practices or institutions should exist separately from religion or religious belief. That the state ought not privilege or endorse any particular religion, as Fr Murphy concedes, is the core secularist argument.
Thus, we arrive at Fr Murphy's argument, which properly relabelled, amounts to the rejection of state endorsement of religion, including a belief in the rejection of state endorsement of religion. A philosophical conundrum beyond my skill.
Yet even if we allow the argument that rejects secularism on the ground that it would privilege the secularist "religion", then this rejection is equally applicable to the concept of religious ethos that Fr Murphy defends. By definition then, the continuance of religious ethos in state-funded schools, where the population served is religiously diverse, in every practical sense radically abrogates the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the family as the "primary and natural educator" of children by arrogating religious education.
By contrast, to exclude particular a religious ethos from our schools is to embrace pluralism. It at once acknowledges the primacy of parents to educate on religious matters as they see fit, giving them exclusivity in that domain, while providing a core education to all.
The approach has brought demonstrated success in multi-denominational schools across the country, where children of all faiths and no faiths are educated together, the religious background of each child being truly respected. - Yours, etc,
STEPHEN BARRETT, de Vesci Hill, Abbeyeix, Co Laois.