Plans for the religious education of children enrolling in the new Meath VEC-sponsored community national school in Navan have not been agreed between the VEC and the Catholic Church, it emerged this week. The contentious plans for the new national school entered a new and controverasial stage this week when a representative of the local Catholic Church wrote to Navan town councillors contradicting a VEC statement that preparation for Catholic sacraments would be available to children attending the new Ard Rí school.
Navan Parish Administrator, Fr Declan Hurley (pic'd), wrote to Navan Town Councillors contradicting earlier VEC officials' statements on the issue.
VEC sources were taken aback when Fr Hurley told councillors that no discussions had taken place between Navan parish and the VEC regarding cathechetics in the school.
He said that no approach had been made to Bishop Michael Smith regarding this possibility and said that it was, therefore, "premature" of the VEC representatives to make such guarantees.
The issue had arisen in early June when two VEC representatives, Christy Duffy and the Ard Rí school's new principal Patrick Sullivan, made a presentation on the new school to Navan Town Council.
They said that children attending the new VEC-run school would be able to have religious education in their own faiths at the school.
A Catholic child attending the new school would be able to make their First Communion and Confirmation from the school, while a Jewish child would be able to prepare at the school for their Bar Mitzvah.
Mr Duffy told councillors the Government had been under pressure to address diversity in Ireland today.
He said the current system allowed for schools where one faith is taught or the Educate Together system where religious teaching is done outside the school timetable.
He added that a multiplicity of faiths would be taught in the new community national school and said it was a singular honour for Navan to be chosen as one of the first towns to pilot such a school outside the capital.
He explained that religious teaching would be outsourced to faith leaders and the school would become very much part of the community. He said teacher allocations would be strictly to department guidelines and the curriculum would be the same as in other schools.
Following the reporting of the town council meeting in the Meath Chronicle, Fr Hurley wrote to each councillor quoting reported comments by Mr Duffy and Mr Sullivan that Catholic children attending the new school would receive catechetics in the Catholic faith and would be prepared for First Holy Communion and Confirmation.
He then said that no discussions had taken place on this issue between the Navan parish and the VEC.
Asked to comment on Fr Hurley's letter, Meath VEC chief executive officer Peter Kierans said all its (VEC's) attention at the moment was on the recruitment of children for the new school, which is due to set up classes in temporary accommodation at Navan Rugby Club.
He said that, in September, when the VEC was able to get a profile of the religious requirements of parents, the VEC would then have discussions "with all the religious bodies involved".
The matter of First Communion for the children was "a long way down the road" because the children enroling would be only four years-old. Mr Kierans said that a national agreed programme on religious education was already in place.
A programme called 'Goodness Me, Goodness You', which had an ethical underpinning, would be undertaken by the children in September.
Cllr Joe Reilly, who was Mayor of Navan when the town council discussion took place, said yesterday (Tuesday) said that he had gone on a fact-finding mission about the religious education of children in the Ard Rí school and had been told that an agreed cathecetical programme had been agreed by an inter-faith body at national level.
He said he felt it was time the VEC and other organisations interested in the education of children to sit down with the national advisory body on cathecetics and work out arrangements for preparation for the sacraments for those children brought up in the Catholic tradition.
SIC: Meath Chronicle