In saying so, the Bishop of Waterford and Lismore contradicted Minister for Education Norma Foley, who said in response to questioning that the revised SPHE curriculum was “signed off by all of the different bodies, including management bodies, including religious bodies, religious representative bodies”.
“Look, just in terms of the whole SPHE and the changes that have been introduced, they were introduced as a consequence of enormous public consultation, and indeed you will be aware that many of the management bodies, both religious and lay management bodies, have all endorsed the new programme that’s out there,” Minister Foley said on that occasion.
In the diocesan video, Bishop Cullinan said that a viral video about the SPHE programme was causing “quite a bit of alarm,” because the programme in the video comes from an ideology that is “totally unsuitable for the Catholic setting”.
“The good news is that, in actual fact, that particular programme, even though it was said that it was approved by Catholic bodies, it was not. It did not get approval from any Catholic body, in fact it was not approved either by the Department of Education, and the ASTI, the main teacher’s union, alerted their members not to use it,” the bishop said.
“It’s good to know also that any programme that is being delivered to your child in secondary schools must, according to the law, be delivered consistent with the characteristic spirit of the school. In other words, the ethos of the school, and that, I believe, for parents to know that is a great comfort.”
Bishop Cullinan added that there are alternative SPHE programmes developed by the Irish Episcopal Conference for primary school students and students in the junior cycle at secondary school, with a programme for senior cycle students in development and due to be available in September 2025.
“That is something which all Catholics can support and be very comfortable with as an excellent resource for the imparting of knowledge of the vision of the person, of the vision for sexuality in God’s plan, in this whole area of SPHE,” he said, describing the materials as “beautifully consistent with Church teaching, with the Gospel”.
Bishop Cullinan said that he’d received supportive emails since putting out the video, and reiterated that the recently-exposed elements of a SPHE programme would be “unsuitable for anybody, any school”.
“In fairness to that lady, Mary Creedon, she highlighted something and she started a debate and let’s have a debate. Let’s have a discussion. That’s always good, and let us be reasonable about it,” he said.