Archbishop Martin proved right about school patronage

Were he prone to such things Catholic Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin might have indulged in a satisfying “I told you so” when dealing with the issue of Ireland’s Catholic schools’ patronage in his St Kilian’s lecture in Wurzburg last weekend.

In that address he did not refer to the recent announcement by Minister for Education Richard Bruton that the Baptism barrier is to be removed for attendance at Catholic primary schools in Ireland. But it haunted every relevant paragraph.

Who could blame him? What Archbishop Martin did say was that "from the moment of my appointment as archbishop (2004), I advocated a process of divestment of a substantial number of Catholic schools to foster a more pluralist presence which would reflect changing demographics. It would also open the possibility of more clearly defining the Catholic nature of Catholic schools."

But he added,“I have to admit that I have been relatively unsuccessful in pushing that idea into practice”. The conclusion may be accurate but the fault lies elsewhere.

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Archbishop Martin has been something of a lone voice among his brother bishops in reading the signs of the times on the the matter of diversity of patronage. He has also been ignored by the usual “what we have, we hold brigade” in the church who see him chiefly as the enemy within.

Over 10 years ago, speaking at Dublin City University in September 2006, he said it was his is "strong conviction" that a pluralist society can be best served by a plurality in schools. There were, he said, "Catholic schools in Dublin where over 50 per cent are international children – in one school, the new entries are 80 per cent this year. Many of these will not be Catholics."

Greater diversity

Of his brother bishops only one, at least publicly, shared his view. That was Bishop of Kilmore Leo O'Reilly who also acknowledged a need for greater diversity of schools' patronage in an increasingly complex Ireland.

Silent resistance by other bishops and more vocal opposition from defenders of the status quo, such as the Catholic Primary Schools’ Association, meant that divestment of patronage – launched five years ago by former minister for education Ruairí Quinn – resulted in just 10 transfers from religious to multidenominational patrons by this year. This in a context where 2,880 primary schools in the state have Catholic patrons, or 90 per cent of the total.

Bruton’s announcement last month that Catholic primary schools will not be able to discriminate on the basis of religion in admissions policies has brought all of this to a new, acute level.

It was unfair, he said, that parents felt it necessary to baptise children to get a place at a local school, not least where last year’s census showed 20 per cent of children are of no religion.

So far resistance within the church to allow change in schools’ patronage has been met with great patience but also some anger and frustration. There has been no hostility, but that may change.

‘Hostile relationship’

Recognising this, Archbishop Martin warned in Wurzburg of growth in “a much more hostile relationship” over such matters. Exacerbating this delicate situation were those “within the church who see a Christian presence in a pluralist culture purely in terms of a negative culture war”, he said.

New realities had to be faced, he repeated. Not least in Dublin “where the presence at Sunday Mass is some 5 per cent of the Catholic population and, in some cases, even below 2 per cent”. And where “on any particular Sunday about 18 per cent of the Catholic population” attends Mass.

It was not much different in the rest of Ireland where attendance may be “higher” but that Dublin’s was “certainly not an isolated situation”. Pointedly, he noted too how “statistics about Mass attendance most significantly do not examine the age of those attending”.

Underlining all of this were the latest Irish census results which found that “the percentage of the population who identified as Catholic has fallen sharply from 84.2 per cent in 2011 to 78.3 percent in 2016”.

Meanwhile, the number who registered as having “no religion” grew by 73.6 per cent, “representing almost 10 per cent of the population”. Though Catholicism remained the largest religion in Ireland, next were those of “no religion”, he said.

Most striking of all was the fact that those numbered in the “no religion” category were “highest in the age group 20-39, the group with children entering school life and the group naturally most active in the formation of political culture for the future”, he said.

“The age group 20-39 accounts for 28 per cent of the general population but 45 per cent of those with no religion fall into this age bracket,” he noted. Yet “almost 90 per cent of all primary schools in Ireland are under religious patronage, and are almost fully financed by the State”.

Still, despite all of this, there remained “a stubborn reluctance within the church to allow that situation to change”, he said. The “Irish religious education establishment is fixated on questions of ownership and management and too little on the purpose of the Catholic school and the outcomes of Catholic education in terms of faith formation”.

He was clear in his conclusion. There was no reason “for maintaining patronage of most of the primary schools in the country, when more and more people want something else.”

The choice he posits is stark. Whether he was wasting his breath on the Bavarian air last Saturday, as has been the case where his warnings on this issue have been concerned in Ireland this past 13 years, remains to be seen.

But don’t hold your breath. Never doubt the Irish religious education establishment’s attachment to ownership and management.