A report in last week’s Irish Catholic quotes teachers who say it is very hard to talk about their faith in….Catholic schools. The teachers attended The Iona Institute seminar on denominational schools a fortnight ago and spoke during the Q and A session.

This news might come as a surprise to some but it shouldn’t. The same tide of secularisation that is sweeping over much of society is sweeping over Catholic schools as well. Lots of teachers are imbibing the same general attitude of hostility towards the Catholic Church that exists in much of society as well, especially among those who are middle aged or younger, as many teachers are.

The Irish Catholic reports: “’I became a teacher in a Catholic school so that I didn’t have to hide my faith, that I could talk about it openly and be who I am’. However, she said her experiences with

“Claiming that many of her colleagues were openly ‘anti-Catholic’ and hostile to the Church, she said many of her suggestions to improve faith formation within the school were met with ‘eye-rolling’, before being “brushed off” as irrelevant by more senior colleagues.

“’I don’t know how much more secularised we can be. We are pretty much just doing first Holy Communion and Confirmation and there is very little in between.’”

A second teacher said he was made to feel “embarrassed” and “isolated” at times because of his Catholic faith.

“That’s the opposite of what a Catholic school should be,” he said, “it should be a centre for sharing and living the beauty of the Faith but if you believe that you are actually afraid to do or to say it”.

“Catholic schools are failing in their responsibility,” he said.

A third teacher said, “The school I work in is Catholic, but it’s more in a nominal sense. It’s not seen as a priority.”

He said that with regard teaching religion, some teachers have a very “flippant” attitude.

The question is, what is to be done about this? It is absolutely unacceptable that Catholic teachers who take their faith seriously feel beleaguered in supposedly Catholic schools. In the first instance, they should be supported by their principals. But they should also be supported by their bishops and by the agencies that help to run Catholic education.

A final question; why do teachers in a supposedly ‘tolerant’ country feel free to make their Catholic colleagues in Catholic schools feel so uncomfortable?