Irish parents want local schools to remain Catholic

More than 200,000 households submitted validated responses, alongside strong participation from school staff and boards of management. Forty per cent of parents who took part said they would prefer if their child attended a multi-denominational school, while 60 per cent said they would like their school to remain denominational.

The figures provide a national overview. The preferences within individual school communities will determine each school’s future direction.

The Bishop of Meath, Bishop Tom Deenihan, said local communities know very well the work that their local Catholic primary schools do and, as a result, these schools are supported.

“It is important that the wider community see the work that this school, and so many others, is doing and can appreciate for themselves the happy learning environment that has been created and is being sustained,” said Bishop Deenihan, who chairs the Irish bishops’ Council for Education and is also a member of the Commission for Catholic Education and Formation.

“It is a school that welcomes all local students, cares for them, allows them to reach their full potential and caters for their many and varied needs.”

Noting that there was a 40 per cent response rate to the survey, and so 60 per cent of parents did not participate, Bishop Deenihan said, “one would have to deduce that there is a greater likelihood that most of these (the 60 per cent) would also be satisfied with the status quo. Those who want change are always more likely to vote”.

The bishop criticised some adversarial depictions of Catholic schools that portrayed them as “grim places of indoctrination that children are forced to attend by Church and state”. 

While many have known this narrative to be untrue, “various groups, supported by funding from ideological philanthropical entities, many from outside the state, continue to lobby politicians and media with a rather narrow, nuanced and distorted narrative”, he said. 

He warned that view, though often accepted by society, was “pure revisionism and an unreflective absorption of a particular and, perhaps, fashionable narrative”.

FULL STORY

Bishop defends continuing positive ethos of Catholic education (By Sarah Mac Donald/The Tablet)

Survey shows strong support for Catholic education in Ireland (The Tablet)

Bishop Tom Deenihan (ICBC)