Madam, - In response to Mary Raftery's column "Church role in schools must end" (Oct 27th) I wish to make the following points: I share Mary Raftery's determination that abuse of children, whether in the school context or anywhere else, will never happen again. However, her espousal of this cause is not helped by her suggesting that the Church is a danger to children. Sadly, a number of clergy did use their positions to abuse children in the past and that is utterly reprehensible. To conclude from this that the Church is "an organisation whose very essence has now been unambiguously identified as a risk factor to children" is offensive.
Ms Raftery speaks of priests having positions of "absolute power within schools". Whatever about the past when the levels of responsibility may not always have been appropriate, since 1975 a new situation obtains. In 1975 boards of management were introduced in all primary schools. In many dioceses nowadays most chairpersons of boards are lay people, and this is increasingly the trend in all dioceses. Whether lay or cleric, the chairperson of the board is in a key position of authority within the school and the bishops accept fully the recommendation of the Ferns Report that appointment of chairpersons to boards "should be made with utmost care and diligence". In addition we would welcome the introduction of Garda clearance procedures for these appointments, such as already exists in Northern Ireland and the UK.
Ms Raftery also claims that bishops in their roles as patrons of schools are accountable to nobody, that in effect they too have absolute power.
This is simply not the case. While the patron formally appoints the board, he has power to nominate only two out of eight of its members, the others being representatives of the teachers, parents and wider community. And while the patron's approval is required for the appointment of teachers, it is the board that actually makes the appointments. The patron is accountable to the Minister in all the more important decisions that he takes. To say that the bishops, in their role as patrons, "are neither accountable nor answerable to any form of democratic control" is manifestly false.
Parents are entitled to expect that everything possible will be done to ensure that their children are not at risk of being abused while at school. There have been ghastly failures in the past and I apologise to all who have been hurt and damaged because of them. All schools are obliged to implement the 1999 National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children in Ireland, "Children First". There is also an obligation on schools to nominate a designated member of staff who has specific responsibility for child protection.
Nevertheless, I would encourage all parents to be aware of the child protection policies and programmes that are in place in the schools their children attend.
Modern Ireland calls for new initiatives in educational provision. The development of a multi- cultural society confronts the Irish education system with new challenges and there is need for debate on the future of education. The bishops welcome the growth of other patron bodies which will provide alternatives for those who do not wish to send their children to a Catholic school, but we continue to uphold the rights of those who wish their children to have a Catholic education and support the right of other patron bodies to do the same. - Yours, etc,
Bishop LEO O'REILLY, Chairman, Bishops' Commission for Education, Co Cavan.
Madam, - I am interested in Mary Raftery's article, "Reality of church role in schools", (Nov 3rd) as a number of her observations and comments ring true "north of the Border" too.
In Northern Ireland, in every social attitudes survey since the mid-1960s, about 62 per cent of the respondents (the same percentage of people who expressed a preference for non-denominational schools in the South) have consistently indicated a preference for integrated schools. The historic designations which use religious labels to define what is often a cultural or political affiliation or aspiration are fast outgrowing their usefulness. As the last census in 2001 clearly demonstrates, almost one person in six defined themselves as "Other" than Catholic or Protestant.
Northern Ireland, like the Republic of Ireland, is becoming more multicultural due to the considerable number of people from outside Western Europe who are living and working on this island. It is time that our school system matched the aspiration of our government's strategy for good relations, "A Shared Future", which affirms that "parallel living is morally unsustainable" and goes on to lay down a series of extremely sensible, yet challenging principles which should govern all public policy.
How different our educational landscape would be if government policy, supported by the churches, truly facilitated "the development of a shared community where people wish to learn, live, work and play together", and if we began to live according to the principles of "sharing over separation", acknowledging that "separate but equal is no longer an option".
We have an opportunity here that is not perhaps presented to our neighbours in the South to shape our "Shared Future". We can only do that by not doing apart what we can do better together. Let us begin the journey of putting sharing before segregation. - Yours, etc,
MICHAEL WARDLOW, Chief Executive, Northern Ireland Council for Integrated Education, Belfast.