Catholic teachings at odds with civil rights

Ms B. Cotter (Letters, Irish Examiner, March 15) is unlikely to have been schooled in civil rights or a citizen’s constitutional obligations, for these are in tension with her Catholic Church’s interests.

That’s true of schools or teacher-training colleges under any Church’s control.

Education Minister, Ruairi Quinn, has made no “attacks on Catholic schools” and such inflammatory language is unlikely to put him off his duty to society, which is governed by our Constitution and civil laws and not by what a Church/foreign state wants. Catholics pay taxes as citizens, not based on religion. Catholic parishes shouldn’t have to contribute financially to national schools under their aegis, but perhaps they are paying for religious instruction or ownership? Ms Cotter implies that Catholics’ wishes should therefore take precedence. As the ‘advancement of religion’ is charitable, the Churches are very heavily subsidised by society, which has to pick up the tab for the taxes.

Out in the world of work, a ‘Catholic ethos’ is not normal, nor is it necessary in the interests of public morality. Religious beliefs survive better in a challenging environment as opposed to one where a Catholic set of ethics is fostered to the exclusion of competing views (in other words, where neighbourhood children are schooled together and religious indoctrination is provided separately). In today’s Ireland, more people have no religion than are Protestant. We are not homogenous.

I wish your correspondent was present at the Irish Human Rights’ Commission’s day-long seminar, to hear the pleas of parents who didn’t want their children indoctrinated in Catholicism in their local national school, and of parents who were bullied by the schools into conforming.

The Catholic schools that Ms Cotter says are in demand abroad are entirely privately funded; she can have them here on the same basis.

John Colgan

Leixlip

Co Kildare