The historical background to the age-old, deep-rooted sectarianism and the unholy mixture of politics and religion in Northern Ireland has been analysed many times over.

In this the churches have nothing to be proud of. Over the years they have trimmed their sails to the appropriate political breeze, Protestants to unionism, Catholics to nationalism, and have complacently retained offensive elements in their respective confessional and doctrinal statements - referring to the Pope as "the anti-Christ" or to the sacrifice of the Mass as "blasphemous fable" or to Anglican (including Church of Ireland) Holy Orders as "null and void", thereby adding fuel to the fire.

I am convinced that the most effective weapon against sectarianism is integrated schooling, all children together, a cause which surely is worthy of enthusiastic support from the churches in their commitment to reconciliation. It is a long process and it must begin, as we say, at the beginning, that is with the children.

The churches rightly tell us that we are all one family under God. If so we must, as Christians, ask ourselves if we are really sincere in preaching the Gospel of reconciliation while practising or condoning educational apartheid purely on religious grounds.

Where religious differences do not run deep, denominational schooling will not affect the status quo. Whether a pupil attends a Roman Catholic or Protestant school is of no more relevance, as far as the community is concerned, than the game he chooses to play or the club he chooses to join.

Where no division exists on political, patriotic, or racial grounds, denominational schools will not create one. But where the community is deeply divided on political and religious lines, as in Northern Ireland, division is perpetuated by educating children separately in denominational schools.

The churches, instead of taking the lead in promoting the cause of integrated education - which is the practical expression of the Christian Gospel of one family under God - have welcomed or encouraged or condoned an educational apartheid which implants in young, innocent minds a "them or us" attitude which can rapidly develop into a "we are the elect, the genuine article, the others are inferior in their religion and their politics". The "others" are stereotyped, depersonalised, and perhaps demonised, and become the objects of hatred and "good riddance."

Protestant identity and Roman Catholic identity are poor substitutes for a common Christian identity expressed in being together, learning from each other and practising together the Christian virtues of tolerance, humility, and mutual understanding, without which reconciliation is impossible.

Jesus never worried about identity, whether ecclesiastical, political, social, or racial. His only identity was with all humanity. He crossed the tribal boundaries of religion, politics, and race, and saw each person as a child of God, equally loved by the one God and heavenly Father of us all.

All our churches have been too ready to identify the institutional church with Christ. So the institution becomes an idol, worshipped instead of God, and this has led to a reluctance by the churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church, to do anything which might weaken the power and influence of the institution, particularly in education.

Sadly, the Church of Ireland also is seeking to increase its representation on the (Northern) state (often wrongly described as the "Protestant") sector management boards and to have a "transferrors' " council on the lines of the RC Schools Council, further emphasising the denominational divide.

But there is hope. "The common people heard Jesus gladly", we read. So it is today. The common people, using common sense, imbued with a common spirit, are realising that God is greater than any institution. Jesus is Lord. Not the institution.

"Take care that you do not offend one of these little ones," said Jesus. We offend the children when we implant division and segregation in their young, tender, innocent minds and infect a new generation with the poison of tribalism and sectarianism.

While Roman Catholic schools are on the whole monolithically Catholic in pupils and staff, the state (or "Protestant") schools have an increasing number of Roman Catholic children. A kind of unofficial integration is taking place but without planning as to ratio in numbers, teaching staff or management.

Most Protestants and a growing number of Catholics today look on schools primarily as places of secular instruction, with provision for prayers at assembly and some Bible teaching. Because there is nothing visibly or doctrinally Protestant about "Protestant" schools, Roman Catholic parents, should they wish, have no hesitation in sending their children to such schools, for whatever reason: size of school, proximity to home, good teaching and results, pluralist education, etc.

The movement for integrated education in Northern Ireland began in the early 1970s when segregation was almost 100 per cent, although 1960s opinion polls had shown 60-70 per cent of parents wanting to send their children to integrated schools.

The movement gained momentum and concerned parents opened Lagan College in Belfast in 1981, a postprimary, integrated co-educational college. It started with 28 pupils and now has 940, from 11 to 19-year-olds.

The NI Council for Integrated Education was established in 1989, as a central forum and umbrella organisation. Last September there were 42 Northern integrated schools, catering for 11,910 pupils. There are also eight integrated nurseries and five playgroups and parental demand far outstrips the places available. Yet of 300,000 Northern pupils, unfortunately only 3 per cent are in integrated schools.

The churches would do well to take to heart the words of the Most Rev James Doyle, Roman Catholic Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin, when he said in 1826: "I do not know of any measure which would prepare for a better feeling in Ireland, than uniting children at an early age and bringing them up in the same school, leading them to commune with one another and to form those little intimacies and friendships which often subsist through life."

Dean Victor Griffin is retired Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.