IPPN

Published: 22 March 2011

DID the Archbishop of Dublin throw down the gauntlet to the Government last week?

Why would he of all people do that? And why would he choose the issue of children’s rights to do it?

He was speaking to the Mater Dei Institute, on the subject of relations between Church and State. Interestingly, he chose to emphasise at the beginning of his speech that he wasn’t suggesting in any sense that the new government was more anti-church than the previous one. He then went on to give something of a lecture to the new Minister for Education (whom he didn’t name) about the need for continued pluralism in our school system.

Now, I would have thought that if there was one politician in Ireland you don’t need to lecture about pluralism, it’s Ruairi Quinn. However, as the archbishop makes clear, when he is talking about pluralism he means the pluralism inherent in maintaining the Catholic ethos in our school system.

Fair enough, I reckon — what else would you expect a Catholic archbishop to say? But haven’t things come to a strange pass when a Catholic prelate needs to make an argument like this one in defence of Catholic schools: "But pluralism in educational provision is not an easy task to realise. Simply providing greater choice will not guarantee true pluralism. People may use pluralism in school choice to choose to opt out of pluralism. The temptation will always exist for parents to choose a school precisely because it is not pluralist, because there are no disadvantaged or marginalised children."

Like Ruairi Quinn, I believe in pluralism, and in choice. I’ve always believed that parents should be able, within reasonable limits, to send their children to the school of their choice. But in Ireland still today there are thousands of schools, primary and secondary, who use "membership of the Catholic faith" as a core selection criterion for admission. I don’t see anyone trying to force that to change.

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