Church urged to face up to secular effects on faith schools

The Irish Church has done little to counter the dramatic negative effects of secularism on younger Catholics’ understanding of their faith, Baroness Nuala O’Loan has said.

She warned that people who have been preparing children for First Holy Communion and Confirmation “have been aware for quite a while that the wider cultural shift away from religion has made passing on the faith an extremely difficult task.

“But, even though we’ve been aware of this, very little has been done,” she said.

Comments

Her comments come as the country’s most senior Churchman is set to tell a major Dublin conference next week that the Church here may have been slow to face up to the impact of secularism in handing on faith to future generations.

Archbishop Eamon Martin will explore whether the traditional reliance on the relationship between parents, the local school and the parish is fit for purpose in a country where the religious landscape has shifted dramatically.

Archbishop Eamon will give the keynote address at the national education conference in Dublin’s Gresham Hotel on Thursday October 26. In his remarks, he will reflect on the fact that “for years we have taken for granted an assumed ‘alliance’ of home, school and parish as three ‘pillars’ in handing on the faith, but perhaps have not been fully alert to the shifting sands, disturbed by waves of secularisation, which have been undermining these pillars at their foundations”.

Vision

According to Archbishop Eamon, “the vision for evangelisation and catechesis articulated in the National Catechetical Directory, Share the Good News, sees a continued role for all three partners – home, school, and parish.”

However, with family as the starting point, Archbishop Eamon says he “will attempt to re-imagine and re-configure the traditional ‘triad’ of home, parish and school, and draw out the positive contribution that all three, together, can make to the building up and personalising Church and society in Ireland.

Other speakers at the conference will include Baroness O’Loan, David Quinn of The Iona Institute, Prof. Eamonn Conway of Mary Immaculate College, Limerick, Jonathan Tiernan from the Alliance for Catholic Education and Patrick Treacy from Faith in Our Schools.

Anyone wishing to attend the conference can register by calling 01.687.4024 or email events@irishcatholic.ie. Tickets for the all-day conference, including lunch and refreshment, are €65.