Catholic Church isn’t a force of evil when it comes to schools debate

Protestant children are not in danger of any ‘contamination’ from a Catholic school, writes Victoria White

T’S CLEAR something has to be done about the use of baptismal certificates as tickets into over-subscribed schools. But I wish the debate weren’t framed as one between the forces for evil, namely the Catholic Church, and the forces for good, namely secularism and bizarrely, the Church of Ireland.

Minister Jan O’Sullivan stated this month that the Equal Status Act would be amended in the lifetime of the next Government to stop schools prioritising kids of their own faith except for “the small number of minority faith schools which serve dispersed populations”.