A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World

Abstract

A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World Brian Flannery It is generally accepted that the levels of Catholic patronage in Irish education are out of kilter with the profile of Ireland’s new demographic. The current levels, put at ninety-three per cent at primary and almost fifty per cent for secondary, reflect an Ireland of some decades past. The increase in immigration has brought new people into the country and a once largely homogeneous nation now finds itself enriched by a new diversity of faiths and racial groupings. Another and more profound change, in an educational context, is the rise of secularism and an increase in the number of people who identify themselves as having no faith.1 The pervasiveness of Catholic schools, it could be argued, does not meet the needs of these new populations. We are living in a time-lag of sorts, as educational provision has not caught up with developments in Irish society. Whilst the responsibility for educational provision lies with the government and not with the Catholic Church – although the DES (Department of Education and Skills) can at times be quite disingenuous on this point – Catholic schools are currently faced with a very real challenge, which will only intensify as these trends continue to grow. Even allowing for the willingness on the part of the bishops to divest patronage to groups like Educate Together, there still remains a large number of Catholic schools that have to cope with the diversity of a pluralist Ireland. How does an institution which was established to educate the children of one faith-tradition respond to the new reality of having very mixed populations in its classrooms? Indeed, how does it respond to populations who are actively unhappy that no accommodation can be found that respectfully acknowledges their particular faith tradition or their desire for no ‘religious’ input at all? What to do? Professor Lieven Boeve of the Catholic University of Leuven has developed a very interesting and helpful framework by which to examine the identity A Locus of Dialogue: the Catholic School in a Pluralist World Studies • volume 108 • number 429 47 options available to Catholic institutions in a pluralising cultural context. He proposes that there are a number of responses that a school institution can make. In the analysis that follows, broad brush strokes will be used to describe each response and to make links with the Catholic educational scene in Ireland. Inevitably, this overview will simplify the richness of the typology from Leuven, but the commentary will hopefully serve to encourage reflection and discussion on the state of Catholic schools at present. It might be useful to consider which response most accurately reflects the reader’s own experience of Catholic schools as they see them and which response they find themselves most drawn to for the future. Institutional secularisation In this response the school is very attuned to changes taking place in wider society. As Christianity slowly disappears from the wider culture, there is a comparable erosion of Catholic identity within the school. The school population becomes increasingly mixed and inclusive of other religious outlooks and philosophies of life. In this new scenario, rather than promote a particular identity the school begins to downplay all identity in an effort to be ‘neutral’ and ‘inclusive’. Religious viewpoints become a private matter, and the school avoids all discourse around its founding mission. The process is implicit rather than deliberate, but it is only a matter of time before the preferential position of all things ‘Catholic’ is no longer recognised and then the names, symbols and rituals are all slowly discarded. Religious instruction is abandoned and the school instead offers broad courses in comparative cultural and personal formation. The school becomes colourless. It is effectively secular. In short – the school goes with the larger cultural flow. In the context of Irish Catholic schools the indicators of such a process might be the absence of the following: regular school liturgies and retreats, a meaningful Religious Education programme, explicit mention of the school’s mission on open days and school gatherings, little or no staff formation on ethos-related themes and an arm’s length relationship with...