Cardinal Desmond Connell said yesterday "the school has always been a part of the evangelising role of the Church". He was giving a homily at an Opening of the Academic Year Mass in the Church of the Holy Spirit, Greenhills, Dublin.
"I am conscious that religious education in primary schools has been in the news over the summer and that there is an ongoing debate about various forms of religious education, especially interdenominational religious education.
"I am fully committed to upholding the value of denominational education, whether Catholic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian, or indeed Jewish or Muslim. I do not accept that education can be value free or neutral in its approach to the great questions of religion and morality.
"As a recent document from Rome puts it: 'To claim neutrality for schools signifies in practice, more times than not, banning all references to religion from the cultural and educational field, whereas a correct pedagogical approach ought to be open to the more decisive sphere of ultimate objectives and focus on the human person in his or her integral, transcendent, historical identity.'
"At times Catholic education and in particular Catholic schools have been portrayed as somehow sectarian and intolerant. This misrepresents the nature of the Catholic school and in particular the true character of Catholic religious education. To be sure, Catholic religious education is concerned to communicate clearly the full meaning of Catholic identity and faith. However, I think it is also important to emphasise that Catholic identity and faith is of itself both ecumenical in relation to other Christian denominations and respectful of other religious traditions. Recent documents from the Catholic Church have clearly spelt out the ecumenical and inter-faith dimension of Catholic religious education," Dr Connell said.