The social campaigner Sister Stanislaus Kennedy has urged the
Catholic Church in Ireland to begin to disengage from managing schools.
Sr Stanislaus Kennedy has told a conference in Dublin that it should
be left to the state to
provide schooling for a diverse and multi-faith
society.
Speaking at a Royal Irish Academy event Sister Stan said that our
society was now a diverse one and that it was no longer appropriate that
most schools were under church management.
She continued, it was the role of the state to provide education for our children regardless of their faith.
Sr Kennedy said that the church's task was to spread its faith, ethos
and values while recognising the ethos and values of other religions
and faiths. She said it had a proud record in education.
She criticised the Government for rejecting almost half the
applications for citizenship that it receives saying that Britain and
Australia had a 90% acceptance rate.
Sr Kennedy said that those who had been lawfully resident in the
Republic for five years were eligible to apply but that often those
applicants who were rejected by the Minister for Justice were not told
why.
President Mary McAleese told the gathering that, for the first time,
the country had a cohort of immigrants who were steeped in the languages
and cultures of the countries we hoped to export to. And she said they
would attract foreign investment here.
SIC: RTE/IE