Catholic schools continue to have a role in Irish life, by providing young people with “pointers to what is true 
and just and loving,” Archbishop Diarmuid Martin (pictured) has said.
And he said that some people were intent on blaming the Church for being “at the root of everything that went wrong in Irish society”.
Speaking at the Chapter of the European Province of the Congregation of Christian Brothers, Archbishop Martin said that, in today’s climate of secularisation “there is the temptation for men and women of faith to feel that there are people who are out to disconcert us”.
He said: “Traditional values are scorned. The contribution of the Church in the area of education is often presented in a negative light. Even the word ‘Catholic’ with reference to education is presented in negative terms, almost as if the Church is at the root of everything that went wrong in Irish society.”
He said he accepted that there were “unjustly negative images spread about the place of the Church in Irish society”.
But he said he wasn’t prepared to set out in response “in a purely defensive mode”.
“Unjust criticism must be refuted. But we must go deeper in our response,” he said.
He said that the Church had to be “the tender embrace of Christ’s love”.
Archbishop Martin added: “We can repeat doctrine ad nauseam. We can announce moral teaching with clinical clarity.
“But all of that will be worthless and the Church teaching will appear to others like any other ideology, if we do not reflect in our lives – personal and institutional – the loving embrace of the God revealed in Jesus Christ.”
Ireland, he said was a changing society and there was “a wealth of statistics, which would show the challenges we have to face and the difficulties we encounter”.
“I could give you a wealth of negative statistics, which would send a saint into despair!” he continued.
But he said that the challenge of authentic education was “a vital one for the future of Ireland”.
“Even though the Christian Brothers and the Presentation Brothers may not be as present in schools as they were in the past, the witness of the brother who is a man of God, a man of prayer, a man of wisdom, a man who represents the caring embrace of the Church is vital,” he continued.
He said: “Young people search for the meaning of what is deepest in their lives. It is not easy for them. They need anchors in their lives, they need pointers to what is true and just and loving.
“They will only find that in a Church which not just talks about the new commandment of love, but a Church, which becomes truly the mirror of God’s love through the way we show our love of God and neighbour.”