If parents of school children want a more pluralist patronage system,
they must engage fully with the system and not “opt out”, the
Archbishop of Dublin has said.
Speaking at a symposium
at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, on Catholic higher education, Dr
Diarmuid Martin said it was inevitable the Catholic Church would have
less future involvement in the patronage of schools.
He said his
status as patron to almost 90 per cent of all Dublin primary schools was
“a relic of history”.
However, he was quick to reassure Catholics that
this did not mean the church could simply “pull itself away from
education”.
Alternatives
At present, a
debate concerning the future patronage of schools in Ireland is being
undertaken. Questionnaires have been sent to schools across the country
seeking their views.
“We have to know what these alternatives are
about,” Dr Martin said. “There are parents who don’t want their children
to have a religious education; there are those who want to have a
religious education as part of a curriculum of an overall policy, and
there are those who want a good robust Catholic ethos for their
schools.”
However, he said, with more and more children being
driven to school, parents were not choosing their local school, which
was a problem.
“Some people will cry out for pluralism and they
themselves will opt out of pluralism. They won’t send their children to a
school if there are Travellers or if there is a high-level of
educationally disadvantaged,” he said. “Education has to involve the
entire community.”