Bishop Tom Deenihan: Catholic schools must be about people

The Bishop of Meath, Most Rev Tom Deenihan, has this week moved to defend the record of the Catholic Church and Catholic education in this country.

At a Mass held in Athlone during the AGM of the Catholic Primary Schools Management Association (CPSMA), Bishop Deenihan said there were parallels between the comment of Christ himself that there is no respect for a prophet in his own country, and the current position which seemed to view Catholic schools as the reason for every current ill in the world of education.

“About nine years ago, an academic in the History Department in UCC, Gabriel Doherty, who sadly died a few months ago, told me that it was a feature of the papers that he was correcting in Social History that every one of the social ills that Ireland experienced was due, in the minds of his students, to the influence of the Catholic Church,” Bishop Deenihan said, describing this as “pure revisionism and an unreflective absorption of a narrative”.

“Yes,” he conceded, there had been atrocities: “We share that shame.”

However, he continued, Catholic orders and congregations were providing education long before free education in Ireland and religious congregations were providing care for those who were sick too.

Bishop Deenihan challenged those present to examine what their own schools are doing for their pupils, and whether they are, in the words of the founder of the Mercy Order, Mother Catherine McAuley working ‘to make the students fit for life without unfitting them for eternal life’.

“How would people recognise that your school is Catholic without a saint’s name in the title?” he asked.

Bishop Deenihan said a Catholic school must be about people; it should treat all its students equally: “If it were to be biased at all, [it] would be biased in favour of the weak,” he said.

“Ethos is, as you know, something that can be elusive, hard to pin down and intangible. But ‘to live as Christ did’ captures it well. It is about liturgy, sacraments, iconography, feasts and seasons but it is also about taking on board the preferences and biases of Christ. What did or what would Christ do?

“In that sense, ethos is about the marginalised and the weaker. Our schools, by and large, realise that and our schools are among the most inclusive. ESRI reports continually attest to this. But for board of management members, there are many implications in that sentence too.

“There are, for example, in that sentence and in that modus operandi, particular implications for admission policies and, in these days, special education needs and special education classes too.

“There are implications also for a discipline policy. Christ’s telling of the parable of the prodigal son and Christ’s kindness and compassion for the son who strayed must colour any disciplinary discussion at staff and board level. That is, after all, what Christ did.”

Bishop Deenihan went on to remind those present that the school had temporal responsibilities: “I know there are demands and important demands in terms of parent expectation, curriculum and post-primary progression, but there is another dimension, a spiritual and more, a religious dimension, that our schools must serve. And that religious side is important too.

“We do not serve just the wishes of the department and the hopes of our education partners. Though, of course, we do when we can. We must do more. To paraphrase St Thomas More, we are the department’s and our education partners’ good servants, but God is first.”

He reminded those present that school boards also had a responsibility to ensure religious education was catered for: “How much time is given to real religious education, food that endures to eternal life in your school? It may be a difficult question and perhaps an unwelcome one but it is an important one and it is our business and our responsibility.”

The bishop went on to say that it did not really bother him if Catholic schools were criticised – but it would bother him if Catholic schools were criticised for not living and not operating by the standards, principles and preferences of Christ.