The dispute at the Dunboyne Gaelscoil is the kind of thing that used to bring planeloads of Guardian journalists over in search of Machiavellian priestcraft. But here, on the contrary, we have not persecution of a minority faith, but the short-changing of a majority ethos in pursuit of piety and liberal approval, writes John Waters.
The principal of Gaelscoil Thulach na nÓg faces dismissal because of a dispute with both the school's board of management and the patron body of Gaelscoileanna, An Foras Pátrúnachta, over how religion should be taught. The dispute relates to a decision, originally taken by the principal, some parents and the board of management, that religious instruction for Catholic pupils preparing for First Holy Communion should take place outside school hours. Both An Foras Pátrúnachta and a new board of management have countermanded this decision, maintaining that such an approach undermines the ethos of inter-denominationalism. The principal is in trouble because of a letter he wrote to parents indicating disapproval of this reversal.
Gaelscoil Thulach na nÓg is an inter-denominational school, welcoming Catholics and Protestants. The whole point of inter-denominational education is that children of both faiths can be taught together, the theory being that exposure to each other's belief systems will serve to promote what are called pluralism and inclusiveness. This dispute suggests that such notions work better in theory than practice.
THE "compromise solution" was deemed necessary because of clashes of theology. The system of teaching contradictory belief systems to two sets of children sitting in the same classroom was seen to be creating confusion.
What a surprise! The word "compromise" reads here as a weasel word, if not in the sense of how the solution was arrived at, then certainly in the sense of why it was deemed to be necessary. The proposed solution was not a compromise, but one based on the marginalisation of the majority religion and the attempted standing-down of the essential philosophy of inter-denominationalism. For the issues in dispute do not arise from a problematic mixture of doctrinal matters from both faiths; they arise solely from Catholic beliefs which Protestants do not share. There are no Protestant beliefs which have been deemed unsuitable for teaching during normal school hours. Catholicism is the problem, which is especially puzzling since in this, the first year of the "compromise solution", there were no Protestants in the First Holy Communion class!
In truth, what we call "inter-denominationalism" is really an attempt by Catholic parents to bend over backwards to illustrate that they are not prejudiced against Protestants. But if a school established as an alternative to segregated education can come up with no solution to difference except new forms of segregation, then the possibility arises that inter-denominationalism, like multi-culturalism, is a contradiction in terms.
This would be unsurprising to any sensible person. The whole point about different religious beliefs is that they are in fundamental disagreement. If you have a disagreement about something as fundamental as transubstantiation, there really is no more possibility of compromise than between tigers and antelopes. The best solution is an agreement to differ.
Perhaps the most intolerant phenomenon in our political culture is the notion of "tolerance", which demands that everyone agree about everything, whether they like it or not. A "wide-ranging tolerance and respect for all cultures and religions" results in the demolition of the singularity which is a prerequisite of identity and belief. Pluralism leads not to diversity but to nothingness.
ECUMENISM is an admirable folly, based on the spurious notion that religious bigotry and prejudice arise out of the differences between beliefs, when they invariably result from some previous misuse of power which has set two tribes at each other's throats on the basis of a superficial apprehension of their more immediate differences. In as far as religion is an issue in the conflict between the two main tribes on this island, it is problematic not because of different perceptions with regard to the presence of Christ at Communion, but because of 800 years of radical interference by a foreign power spearheaded by an Established Church. Ironically (or perhaps not really) the very people who rush to prescribe "inclusiveness" are the very same people who go tut-tut when such an unexceptionable observation is made.
The week before last, 18 self-described "journalists, writers and broadcasters" , mostly from Northern Ireland, wrote to the Irish Times's Letters Page to decry the "echoes of the religious obscurantism of the past" which they discerned in the Dunboyne dispute. It goes without saying, of course, that if the issue was a decision to force Protestant children to learn after school about beliefs which were in conflict with Catholicism, these same journalists, writers and broadcasters would be the first to shout "Foul!" Doubtless, they would dearly love if some Catholic bishop would issue a fatwa against them, or at the very least burn a couple of their books. Alas, the bishops have other things to worry about, and so the works of these beleaguered journalists, writers and broadcasters must remain unproscribed. Religious obscurantism ain't what it used to be!