Courtney McGrailThe issue of school divestment is being driven by a highly motivated minority within society, writes Colm Keaveney
Colm Keaveney
The issue of school divestment recently became topical again. It is all too easy to write this off as being entirely down to a certain political party spinning its wheels looking for traction on an issue, any issue, in a desperate search for support. There is, however, also a significant amount of ideological intent behind securing significant and fundamental changes to our system of education.
Like many other items on the social agenda, the issue of school divestment is being driven by a highly motivated minority within society. It is undoubtedly popular with much of the media, broadcast and print, and those committed to it are dominant on social media. But, as Ruairí Quinn found, once you get around to actually implementing it, particularly in the absence of a partnership approach, you run into significant resistance.
Last year, The Irish Times reported comments made by Archbishop Diarmuid Martin that in many cases attempts by the Archdiocese of Dublin to divest schools were hampered by resistance from TDs, including TDs from Mr Quinn’s own party. These Labour TDs, vocal in their support at a national level for a policy of divestment of schools, found that that they could not support it in their own backyards, given the resistance of a majority of parents within particular schools against a proposed change of patron and ethos.
Change in ethos
While an area might have a sufficient number of families who wish for and would support a non-Catholic ethos school, no particular existing school in the area may have a majority of parents who support a change in ethos of that school. These families need to be accommodated in their wishes, but how to do so is the question.
One solution that presents itself is that the State, and/or other bodies interested in providing a non-Catholic ethos, should set about establishing new schools in order to meet that demand. However, the economic crisis, and the current Government’s commitment to prioritise tax cuts over public services, means that there was little room within the education budget for such capital expenditure. Divestment then seems like another possible solution; particularly if you take account of the perceived wish by many for non-Catholic ethos schools and the current dominance of the Church in the education sector.
On the Church’s side of the issue, I have had discussions with several senior clerics* who also, albeit for different reasons, support divestment. They recognise that the Church in many parts of the country is struggling to resource the Catholic ethos of their schools. They also believe that the ethos of at least some Catholic schools is being eroded by the lack of commitment to the Faith by significant numbers of families within the schools.
For them, divestment would mean an opportunity to focus resources onto those who wish to live the Faith and want to see their children educated in a genuine and uninhibited Catholic ethos.
While the above view of some bishops and priests may not be universal, it indicated to me that some compromise might have been possible. Unfortunately, any chance of compromise on this issue was destroyed by the intransience and hostility of elements with both Fine Gael and Labour.
Labour, or at least influential elements within it, supported divestment but wanted it entirely on their own terms. Shortly after the General Election in 2011, then Minister Quinn set up the Forum for Patronage and Pluralism. Its final findings were never in doubt given its ideological make-up.
The Advisory Group to the Forum’s final report called for the divestment of a significant number of schools but also recommended that any schools remaining under a religious ethos would have to promote ‘inclusiveness’. Some of the specific actions called for in respect of the latter point would result in Catholic ethos schools compromising their ethos to the point that it no longer had any substantive or distinctive qualities to it.
In other words, this was not to be a compromise but in reality a wholescale reordering of our education system in line with a secularising ideology hostile to the rights of parents to have their religious beliefs inform the education of their own children. This would have impacted on all religious communities in Ireland, not just on Catholics, despite the fact that significant numbers of families continue to want their children to be educated within a religious ethos.
As a trade unionist, with plenty of experience in negotiation, I understand that compromise on all sides isnearly always required. Compromise requires the goodwill of all sides and recognition that zero-sum games cannot be part of the desired outcome.
However, much of the goodwill on the Church’s side has been eroded by the hostility of the current government parties towards the Church. I am not referring here to the Government passing laws contrary to the Church’s teaching: most Catholics I speak to accept that our laws cannot seek to enforce the morality of a particular Church, nor even that it is always desirable that the law criminalise morality as such.
I refer instead to the general attitude of the current government to the Church and to the habit of government ministers in using the Church as a handy target to score points off. The so-called bravery of the Taoiseach’s Cloyne speech and Eamon Gilmore’s closure of the Vatican embassy comes to mind. You cannot continuously attack an organisation and then expect to maintain the goodwill necessary to effect a compromise that all sides can live with.
The issue of religious ethos in our schools and the challenge of responding to the greater pluralism of our society can be solved, but can only be done through honest engagement, a willingness of all sides to compromise, and the maintenance of goodwill through respect for the other side to the negotiation. In the specific case of our schools, local engagement with communities and families of pupils will be needed. The current Government have run out of both the time and the goodwill needed to address it.
(*For the sake of clarity, I should say that I have not yet discussed this particular issue with my fellow Tuam resident, Archbishop Michael Neary, and that I have no knowledge of his views on the matter.)