Trust parents and not the space cadets

I HAVE read a report that the Irish Catholic bishops are taking the first steps towards drawing up a new course of study of religious education in primary schools.

This major project comes at a time of mounting concern at young people’s ignorance of their faith.

In the past number of years parents who were concerned at the textbooks and other methods of so-called teaching of religious education were dismissed as cranks, those in authority forgetting that parents are the primary educators of their children, and that the faith taught at home was not compatible with the textbooks.

Bishop Martin Drennan says the new syllabus will include the essential elements of our faith which must be taught and known, but the only way it will succeed is if the bishop keeps the ‘space cadets’ off his panel of experts.

Betty Harrington,

36 Ashleigh Gardens,

Skehard Rd.,

Cork