Bishop accuses State of diluting role of Church in schools

THE Government was accused of diluting the role of religion in education by what the Catholic bishops said was a “policy assumption” that all secondary schools should be multi-denominational.

Less than half of secondary school pupils are now educated in Church-run schools and a similar situation is developing in primary schools, according to the chair of the Bishops’ Commission on Education, Bishop Leo O’Reilly.

He criticised the treatment of the Church in the Government’s new codes of practice on planning for schools which he said “relegate them to the past” and “consign their role in school ownership to history”.