Pope Benedict’s critics are not too optimistic, but let’s wait and see

CATHOLICS were not encouraged to read the bible in this country, apparently because the hierarchy could not trust them to interpret it properly. It was symptomatic of a rather cavalier attitude towards education.

During the de Valera era, a postmistress in Co Galway decided it was a shame that her children were going to have to go away to secondary school, so she put up a petition in the post office for a secondary school to be built locally.

People were encouraged to sign the petition, but then the local parish priest came in and ordered her to take it down because, he said, young people would make better Catholics if they did not have a secondary education.