Are bishops blind to intimidation in Catholic schools?

Dear Editor, Your October 22 front page headline ‘Some Catholic teachers feel “intimidated” in faith schools’, makes for very sad reading. Prompted by this and your August article on the quality of religious education (RE) in secondary schools, I have reflected upon my experience as principal of two English secondary schools.

English bishops organise regular four yearly comprehensive inspections of RE and religious ethos of all Catholic schools in their dioceses. Each school provides its parents with these published reports, which are often also available on individual school websites. These inspections include issues such as management, staff, student and parent adherence to the ethos of the school.

In addition the Catholic Education Council for England and Wales collects annual data on Catholic intake, Catholic staffing and public RE results for all schools. As almost all students at Catholic schools take public examinations in RE,  the bishops and their national and diocesan advisors have some excellent data on the state of RE and of general morale in their schools.

What if any similar research data is available to guide decision-making by Irish bishops? Are our bishops blind to the intimidation you report? What are they doing about it?

Yours etc.,

Alan Whelan, 

Beaufort,  Co. Kerry.