Joe Humphreys writing in The Irish Times on Tuesday [1] claims that the Catholic Church need have no fear of secularism. He is writing in opposition to public funding of denominational education. He admits that secularism can be hard to define, and so indeed is ‘liberal democracy’. He quotes Rabbi Jonathan Sacks in his favour but in doing so he only proves how hard it is to define these terms.
It is clear Humphreys and Sacks mean different things by ‘secularism’ and by ‘liberal democracy’ because, unlike Humphries, Rabbi Sacks is not opposed to State funding of religious schools. Indeed, in England there are 43 Jewish schools that are State funded.
The reason many of us do not want our children to go to State-run schools is because we are convinced those schools would not be neutral in terms of the values they would impart to children and that it is, in fact, impossible for a school to be neutral about values and beliefs.
The dispute over the proposal to teach a course called ‘Education about Religion and Beliefs and Ethics’ (ERB and Ethics) in primary schools in a case in point.
Proponents of ERB and Ethics insist that it is neutral between belief systems because it does not come down in favour of any one of them.
Opponents of ERB and Ethics say this is an illusion because the course will inevitably and unavoidably impart to children an implicitly relativistic attitude towards religion which is not neutral by definition. Relativism (overt or implied) is itself a claim about truth.
A relativistic attitude towards religion is completely at cross purposes with a core aim of a denominational school which is to teach its own religion as if true.
Since it is impossible for a school to be neutral (denominational schools are honest in that they don’t pretend to be so), the question then becomes; what should the values and belief system of a given school be?
Since there is no answer to this question that everyone can agree to, it should be left up to parents to decide what they want for their children. It should not be left up to either the State or the Church.
This will mean there will be a variety of schools teaching different beliefs and different values. The problem in Ireland at present is that there are clearly too many denominational schools.
I would hope that in a few more years, there will be more choice of schools in our education system. I hope that Joe Humphreys does not get his way and that all State funding will be withdrawn from the denominational system in the name of a fake and unachievable neutrality.
I would also hope that every school, no matter what its beliefs, would teach respect for those of other beliefs. That is crucial.