Catholic Church 'should give up control of primary schools' - The Irish Times - Mon, Jan 25, 2010

Now that all the furore about clerical child abuse and the utter failure of the church authorities to manage the issue has died down, it is time for this state to take control of our schools. This is not an anti-church thread - I am not really interested in what the church does. This is simply a call to parents throughout Ireland to insist on the secularization of our schools. When I went to primary school myself I remember well that at least two years in a child's school years were dominated by religous doctrine for communion and confirmation. The rest of the years also had a strong presence of religous (catholic) doctrine. It is my contention that valuable school time in our kids lives have been and continue to be dominated by religion and in particular catholic education activities. Religion should be a subject in our schools but religous doctrine and preparation for sacraments etc. should be extra curricular.

As yet no political party leader has touched this subject (secularization of our schools). I would encourage them to think about taking up the issue and make it an election issue. I am convinced there is an appetite for change among parents in Ireland on this matter.

Aren't they already to a large extent? Isn't the Catholic Church's role nowadays is fairly limited?

Isn't there already enough threads on this ?

My son is in Junior Infants and an inordinate amount of his time seems to be taken up by religion. They have him learning off prayers. The time should be spent on teaching a foreign language and not wasted on that gibberish.

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Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum

Yes, they're are quite a few, but this one is in reaction to a poll in the Irish Times.

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Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum

You can send your child to a non-religious school if you wish.

Mine go to the local Catholic school and I am very happy with the ethos being taught.

It is interesting that the young people (18-24) in the above survey were most favourable (along with pensioners) of the churches retaining control of their schools.

I would have thought that the role of an entity that raped children would go further than being limited to being abolished. No?

In spite of the nearly 2:1 majority in favour of getting rid of the RCC from the primary schools, the politicians are afraid to rock the boat.
When will we elect a government to do what we want?

Why not let some Belgian paedo crowd run our schools? at least then the kids would pick up a foreign language.

This report is great news for those of us parents who want the choice of a secular education. Why should the schooling of over 90% of children be dictated by the wishes of less than a third.

The department of education should act now to ensure than every large town have a secular option for primary education. The schools should be relinquished by the church as penance for its many sins over the years as documented in the recent reports.

By all means let there be catholic ethos education for the minority who seem to want it but let the rest of us have an alternative.