The former leader of Irish Labour, Ruairi Quinn, once wrote that “there were three kinds of Catholic: Catholics by conviction, Catholics by culture and Catholics by compulsion”.
He was speaking in relation to the stranglehold the Catholic Church has on primary school education in the Republic of Ireland. He felt it was time for the institutional Church to divest itself of at least half the schools under its control.
Quinn’s witty observation has more than some truth to it.
Faith-based schools are an important part of societal fabric but increasingly in the north being Catholic is as much about culture as it is about faith. At one level there is nothing wrong with this but at another level is its deeply perilous to the Church as an institution.
As a boy and adolescent I spent fourteen years under the watchful eyes of the Irish Christian Brothers. It wasn’t the happiest time of my life.
In fact, I erased most of it from memory.
From my sketchy recall, primary school was a nurturing experience. Prayer was fully integrated into learning with school assembly, classes and even lunch all started with an invocation.
(The latter made in most forlorn of hopes that the food would be somewhat edible. So bad were school dinners, any home made meal seemed as if it was prepared by hands of a Delia Smith!).
The primary school had the ‘feel’ of being Catholic and certainly, the cassock wearing Christian Brothers had the whiff of both chalk and incense.
Most teachers genuinely seemed to be people of faith too. Though the brutality of a few belied any true Christian values.
Priests, brothers and nuns had an air of authority and indeed superiority within schools, so much so that even parents were part in awe, part fearful and always deferential towards them.
Holy Communion and Confirmation were rites of passage within a Catholic primary school and catechism preparation was left to teachers rather than parents.
Church, school and parish all seemed so integrated - though as ‘west-enders’ in Newry we were known as Dominican Catholics.
We were Catholics by conviction.
Though culturally too because of the sense of identity and community it gave. In uncertain and dark days being Catholic also meant security.
As Brendan Behan described himself, I felt Catholic - though a bad one. But it seemed better to be a bad Catholic than none at all.
That was then. Things have changed somewhat.
Churches are no longer full. Some parishes are so tiny they can’t cover cost of heating buildings. Priests and religious are mostly ageing and thin on the ground. The legacy of the institutional Church, the history of abuse, the unrepentant nature of so many detached and aloof clergy, has cast long shadows and cut deep scars amongst ordinary Catholics.
Those clerics and religious who carried out sexual and indeed violent physical abuse did not damage just the reputation of the Church as an institution or betray their vocation and colleagues, they also diminished the sense of what being a Catholic meant and stood for. Their shameful and shameless actions became a collective shame. Unfair maybe but somewhat true.
Northern Ireland is a deeply divided and sectarian society. Those divisions can’t be solved by maintaining separate school systems.
At the very least all pre-school and primary school provision should be fully integrated. The case for not doing so is weak. Children should play and learn together from the earliest age. The faith-based elements of their lives should come from parents, families, parish or clergy.
There is still a place for faith-based post primary schools, if parents desire them or local geography pre determines it. Bussing is not viable.
The institutional Irish Catholic Church was once built on the twin pillars of obedience and fear. By relinquishing some control of education they could concentrate better on matters of faith and charity.
