Aoife Cassidy: School sacraments have no place in modern education 

'Why are we still having these ridiculous conversations every year about the cost of Communions with barely a mention of the religious aspect? When are we going to demand the change that is so badly needed in our schools?' File picture

The annual handwringing over Communion costs has begun. I’ve read at least three articles in our national newspapers on the topic so far this “Communion season”.

The really striking thing is that in many cases, the extravagance itself feels almost compensatory, as though the bigger the party, the more effectively it disguises the absence of any real religious significance. The sacrament becomes secondary to the venue, the outfits, the balloon arch, and the social media photos.

What was once presented as a milestone of faith increasingly resembles a cultural performance designed to avoid asking the uncomfortable question: if the faith element no longer really matters, why are Irish taxpayer-funded primary schools still devoting so much time and energy to facilitating it?

Every May, Irish parents lament the pressure, expense, and competitive excess surrounding Communions and Confirmations.

We hear stories of “mini weddings”, €2,000 parties, selfie mirrors, glam vans and chocolate fountains.

Yet beneath all the pearl-clutching lies a more uncomfortable truth: the entire spectacle is sustained by a primary education system still structurally organised around religious dominance.

Every year for weeks/months on end, normal schooling is disrupted so schools can rehearse hymns, learn about the confession of sins, practise readings, work on religious art to decorate the church, and organise religious ceremonies for children who, in many cases, come from families with little or no active religious practice.

Vast amounts of teaching time is diverted away from literacy, numeracy, science, the arts, sport, and genuine educational development towards maintaining what has increasingly become a nationwide social ritual.

The result is unfair on everyone and highly discriminatory for those who want no part of it.

It is unfair on children whose education is sidelined during what should be ordinary school time. It is unfair on teachers, many of whom entered the profession to educate rather than function as de facto religious missionaries and organisers of religious ceremonies.

And it is unfair and highly discriminatory on families who do not subscribe to the faith of the school their children attend but who must still navigate a school culture where opting out means exclusion, isolation, and very often being treated as an inconvenience and an afterthought, in breach of their actual, existing, and very real constitutional and human rights.

Children are invariably left languishing at the back of the church while their classmates practise for the big day. One of my children usually stayed behind in another classroom while his classmates went to church (only after we requested that he not go to church).

When they returned on one occasion, he was forgotten about, missed lunch break and had to go without food for the rest of the day, coming home hungry and upset. My older children frequently had to tag along to church, listen to sermons, miss days of school devoted to sacrament practice, stand without a rosette in a Confirmation photo with a priest, and participate in a class project to donate some of their Confirmation money — when they had none!

All of this after we had expressly “opted out” in writing to the school.

A friend’s opted-out son just this week was sent to the infants’ classroom while his classmates visited the church to practise for First Communion, and was then told to sweep the classroom floors while he waited for his peers to return from church. Cinderella, but make it Irish.

Parents themselves — and I can vouch for this — are often treated as pariahs, party poopers or met with awkward silence on the topic. Unsurprisingly, nobody likes a mirror held up to some of the ludicrous shenanigans that go on at this time of year.

Most importantly though, it undermines the credibility of the primary education system itself. A modern republic such as Ireland claims to be cannot continue pretending that a publicly funded school system dominated by one religion is compatible with equal treatment for all. The Communion season exposes that contradiction in plain sight every year. Everyone can see it and yet pretends they don’t.

If families genuinely value the sacrament as a meaningful expression of faith, that is entirely their right. Good for them. But faith formation and Confession, Communion, and Confirmation belong in families and parishes, not embedded into the daily functioning of schools.

And if, for many families, the day has effectively become a big party or a cultural rite of passage detached from religious belief, then perhaps the answer is not to spend less on the bouncy castle or the glam van.

Perhaps the answer is simply not to participate at all. Or if they feel they want to, then invest their own family time instilling a faith in their children with the support of their parish, rather than abdicating that responsibility to teachers, many of whom have no faith whatsoever.

We know from the recent parental survey that 40% of parents whose children attend denominational schools would rather their school was multi-denominational. We don’t know how many parents of preschool children feel the same way because the Department of Education inexplicably chose not to release those figures, but we can hazard a guess that it’s a significant number.

We know that the Archdiocese of Dublin said in September 2022 that it would move religious sacraments outside schools to the parish, as is standard practice in Church of Ireland schools and Ireland’s only Jewish school.

So why are we still having these ridiculous conversations every year about the cost of Communions with barely a mention of the religious aspect? When are we going to demand the change that is so badly needed in our schools?

And when will our minister for education ensure that children’s constitutional rights, in respect of which she is supposedly the guarantor, will be respected and upheld in our schools?

• Aoife Cassidy is communications officer at Education Equality, educationequality.ie

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