Press release by The Iona
Institute

No Catholic schools should
be transferred without guarantees says leading
educationalist

January 21, 2012
– NO Catholic
primary schools should be handed over to new patron bodies without firm
guarantees that the ethos of the remaining schools will be properly respected,
one of the country’s leading Catholic educationalists has said
today.

The comments were made by
Professor Eamonn Conway at an event in Buswells hotel today organised by The
Iona Institute. (See below for full text)

Professor Conway, a priest of
the Tuam archdiocese, is head of the Department of Theology and Religious
Studies at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

He also said that the
proposed new programme for primary schools, Education about Religion and Beliefs
(ERB) should not be made mandatory because it “could teach pupils in a
secularist view of religion and thus undermine the school’s characteristic
spirit”.

Professor Conway drew
particular attention to recommendations of the Report of the Forum on Patronage
and Pluralism.

He said these recommendations
if implemented would force denominational schools to display all religious
symbols along with their own and to vet prayers to ensure they are sufficiently
‘inclusive’.

He also expressed concern at
proposals to weaken Section 37 of the Employment Equality Act which protects the
right of religious organisations, including schools, to employ only individuals
who will respect the ethos of their employer.

Professor Conway said he
supported the transfer of some Catholic schools to other patron bodies, but this
could not happen without “guarantees regarding the protection of the
characteristic spirit of the stand-alone schools that will not be
divested”.

He concluded: “Only [with
such a guarantee] will our schools not merely be products of a part
evangelisation but agents of evangelisation into the
future.”

ENDS