The Department of Education is being very foolish indeed if it thinks it can dismiss the problem in Thulach na nÓg as a one-school situation. The dispute in the Dunboyne Gaelscoil where Tomás Ó Dúlaing was dismissed as principal raises questions about the place of religion in the curriculum which concern all schools, including denominational ones, writes Breda O'Brien
In a cosy multi-cultural vision of the world, division is supposed to be dissolved in a warm glow of mutual understanding. Dunboyne, which is not a dispute between religious traditions but between people with differing visions of religion in education, shows how difficult it is to resolve divisions in the real world.
I suspect the founders of Thulach na nÓg did not think through the fact that teaching about faiths and formation in faith are two very different things.
Most parents who are committed to their faith want more than information about religion from their school - they want the school to encourage belief. When there is a clash of beliefs, interdenominationalism falls down. Given that it was these very divisions which it was supposed to help people to live with, this is a sizeable drawback.
All either side could offer to deal with these fundamental differences was segregation of one kind or another.
Either Protestant children had to leave when Catholic sacramental preparation was going on or Catholic children had to prepare for First Holy Communion and Confirmation outside school hours.
I doubt if complete interdenominationalism can really work. Trying to teach in a completely interdenominational way would mean, in a fictional scenario, little Harry, possibly the only Church of Ireland child in the class, sitting patiently through preparation for communion, a sacrament of which his church has a very different understanding and which he will not receive himself until he is 12.
You cannot teach faith in a classroom where you tell one group of children that this sacrament involves the bread becoming the body and blood of Jesus in a real sense and then smile sympathetically at Harry and say "Harry's church believes something different though they have communion, too."
You then risk isolating Harry and confusing everybody else.
If you remove Harry, or indeed the other 31 pupils who are Catholic, what's interdenominational about that? You certainly can teach children from different traditions about the huge areas Catholics and Protestants have in common. You can even teach in neutral terms about the differences between Catholics and Protestants, but only at the risk of entering the realm of relativism, where no objective truth claims can be made on behalf of either side.
This is completely different to the kind of teaching which goes on in preparation for a sacrament.
To question the possibility of complete interdenominationalism is not to endorse the attempt at unilateral change of the nature of the Gaelscoil, but to suggest that such an enterprise is very, very difficult.
When educating religious traditions together, the multi-denominational position may be more realistic, because a core curriculum is taught which is non-contentious and expressions of faith are dealt with by being bracketed outside the school life. Yet even here, differences are being dealt with by separation, this time by separation of contentious religious beliefs from school life.
Despite criticism of them, denominational schools, that is, schools with a Catholic or Protestant ethos, can encourage mutual understanding by grounding people in their own faith in a way which allows them to be secure enough to respect difference without denying its reality.
However, denominational education as it now exists faces important challenges.
In my own son's class, a significant number did not present themselves for First Holy Communion. If this trend continues elsewhere and a majority of parents no longer subscribe to key tenets, this calls into question what Catholic education really means.
Denominational education in the Church of Ireland may come under challenge in other ways, for example, when the sibling of a Catholic child already in the school is not accepted because the place is needed for a Church of Ireland child. Parents will indignantly question why this should be so.
A survey some years ago among Church of Ireland primary teachers showed that 95 per cent of them were happy to teach religion. That may not be true of Catholic schools. There have been rumblings from a significant minority of primary teachers that they should not have to teach religion. No doubt this group will become more vocal, forcing the Catholic Church to decide whether it is the role of the Catholic school to educate all comers. Or should it concentrate on those who really subscribe to the teachings of the church?
And how many of those are there? There is a growing demand for secular education, never mind multi- or inter-denominational. Parents have a right to educate their children as they chose, so once this group reaches a critical mass, the Department of Education will have to look very carefully at where it is placing its resources.
In the future, most sacramental preparation may have to happen at parish or community level, as already happens to a degree in the Church of Ireland.
This may be no bad thing. The numbers will certainly be smaller, but will be a more honest reflection of the state of belief in Ireland. In no sense are Catholic parishes geared to cope with such a development. At present, children find little or no reinforcement at parish level of what is taught in school by thousands of dedicated teachers. Parish catechists, like those they have now in the developing world, will have to become a reality in Ireland, too.
The Dunboyne dispute is not between Catholics and Protestants, but it is a reminder to Christians of all traditions to work together.
It would please some commentators to see religion disappear from the curriculum completely. However, religion in this country, in spite of all its huge flaws, has been a positive force in socialising people into values which offer some opposition to a dominant consumerist ethos.
Those who have successfully undermined the role of faith communities have failed dismally to build a better society as a result. If faith and religion is not to become completely marginalised, we need to find better ways to both honour our own deepest-held beliefs and respect those of others.