IRELAND'S CATHOLIC bishops have appealed to "all people of goodwill" to respect the spiritual needs of children and adolescents, particularly as these relate to family life and to religious practice on Sundays.
And they called on parents to refrain from organising events which clashed with religious services on Sunday mornings.
In a statement issued at their spring meeting in Maynooth yesterday the bishops said: "Catholic parents and guardians, too, can lose sight of their responsibility of attending Sunday Mass because they may need to travel with young people to events or attend to support them."
The bishops continued: "Sunday is different in character to the other six days of the week, a day when we set aside all non-essential work so as to be free to devote time to family, to religious practices, to visiting the sick and the elderly and to leisure and recreational pastimes.
"Until recent times we maintained a good balance between these elements of Sunday life. Now, however, there seems to be an ever-increasing frequency in the scheduling of under-age training sessions and competitive games for Sunday mornings."