Ideological groups promoting ‘ill-informed and false’ campaign against Catholic schools

Bishop Deenihan also challenged the response of media to the recent national survey on patronage

The Bishop of Meath has accused ideologically-driven groups, many funded from outside the State, of lobbying politicians and media with a “narrow, nuanced and distorted narrative” about Catholic schools in Ireland.

Bishop Tom Deenihan, who holds the education brief for the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, made the remarks at the Fiftieth Anniversary celebrations of St Oliver’s National School in Navan on Wednesday.

“…various groups, supported by funding from ideological philanthropical entities, many from outside the State, continue to lobby politicians and media with a rather narrow, nuanced and distorted narrative,” he said.

The Bishop said the dominant public discourse on Catholic schools had focused not on what the schools do in supporting their students and that they are popular and well supported in the community but on an adversarial depiction of them. “It has been a more negative, ideologically driven and adversarial depiction of Catholic schools as being grim places of indoctrination that children are forced to attend by church and state,” he said. “That discourse and narrative has been ill-informed and false.”

He warned that the repetition of such narratives had real consequences. “We are almost at the point where some would want us to hide the fact that we are either patron of, teaching in, on the Board of, working at or attending or attended local Catholic primary and post-primary schools. That is what happens when narratives are repeated, unchecked and blindly accepted.”

Bishop Deenihan also challenged the response of media to the recent national survey on patronage, in which over 60% of participating parents favoured their school remaining under Catholic ethos. He said the surprise expressed by journalists and commentators at that result was itself telling.

“It is most surprising that our journalists and many of our commentators and politicians are surprised,” he said, adding that anything short of accepting the democratic result of the survey would “change the image of a reporter to that of an advocate or lobbyist.” He noted that in other countries, the term “fake news” had been applied to such a scenario.

He cited independent research in support of the schools’ record. “Independent and reputable research has indicated that Catholic schools are the most inclusive, not just in terms of religion but in terms of ability, socio-economic background, ethnic background and nationality.”