Catholic parents must have their right to give their children a Catholic education vindicated by the State, Archbishop Diarmuid Martin said last night.

Such an education can only be guaranteed “by fostering Catholic schools that are truly Catholic and there is an obligation on the State to foster that possibility also,” Dr Martin added.

The Archbishop was speaking as part of the Mater Dei Institute’s Spring Lecture Series 2012 on the subject ‘Reform in the Catholic Church in Ireland: Facing the Future with Hope’.

He said there was “a strong move to reduce the number of schools under Church control” but added “on local level most parents still want their children to attend schools with at least generic religious inspiration”.

He acknowledged that there were few alternatives available for non-Catholics, but added that Catholic schools welcome children of all faiths and none.

He said: “This shows that the Catholic Church is open and welcoming to children of different cultural backgrounds but it has inevitably contributed to an erosion of the concept of what a Catholic school truly is.”

He continued: “Those parents who do not wish their children to be educated within a religious framework have their rights which the State is obligated to protect. Ireland needs plurality of provision of schools.

“But the rights of those Irish citizens who wish their children to receive Catholic education can only be respected by fostering Catholic schools that are truly Catholic and there is an obligation of the State to foster that possibility also.”

Referring to the Government’s proposed Constitutional Convention he said that proposals to change the Constitution “will inevitably mean that attempts will be made to change its definition of marriage”.

However, he said “[F]or the Christian tradition marriage remains a natural institution rather than just a social construction. The mutuality of the two sexes belongs, according to the biblical tradition, to the very essence of the human person since creation.”

Ireland, he said, was “a highly secularised society and secularisation should not leave us unmoved.”

He warned that there was “a certain ambiguity as to what “being Catholic” means in contemporary Irish society.”

He said: “There are multiple expressions of the claim: “I am still a Catholic, but…” Many people who no longer regularly practice will still come to Church on special occasions and on the great feasts and maintain some personal contact with the Church.

“In some cases people live out a sort of cultural Catholicism; in other cases what is called Catholicism is really a type of civil religion, a social spirituality without dogma, with blurred reference to a Jesus of one’s own creation.”

The Catholic Church in Ireland had to be “concerned about the lack of knowledge of basic elements of the Christian faith and of the nature of the Church among Catholics”.

“This is a situation which should be a cause of concern as it can only increase from one generation to the next,” he said.