Maria Steen
Minister Simon Harris 
The summer has come and I am on holidays on a small island off the west coast of France. The landscape is a flat patchwork quilt of salt marshes criss-crossed with bicycle paths. Cycling from one village to the next, it is the landmark of the church spire that draws you to your destination. Village life bustles around the church, situated in the heart of each community: tourists gather in the local restaurants, elderly locals play pétanque in the square, while the church sits there, majestically looking on.
The churches – though of a historically-poor salt and oyster-farming community with a simple way of life – are beautiful, and easily the largest edifices in each village, dwarfing even the Mairie. As each church spire stamps the landscape from one village to the next, so also the churches have been stamped. Above the door of each one finds the inscription: République Française: Liberté Égalité Fraternité – a reminder to all who pass beneath the portal of God’s house who is really in charge.
As those who followed the sad news of the Notre Dame fire will be aware, Catholic churches in France are owned by the State – a relic of the French Revolution and the doctrine of separation of Church and State, in which the State took possession of the Church’s property and for many years even controlled the appointment of bishops and priests.
News cycle
Although determined, while on holidays, to remove myself from the depressing news cycle that fills the airways and clogs up our inboxes, news filtered through about Minister Simon Harris’s most recent tweet and I was reminded of the separation of Church and State debate at home and how increasingly determined the Irish State is to encroach on the freedoms of her citizens and on the life of the Church.
Not satisfied with gloating over the part he played in the Referendum that heralded the deaths of thousands of Irish infants – including the recent abortion of a healthy baby whose parents were told he or she wouldn’t live – he could not restrain himself from pronouncing on what he thinks other people’s children should be taught in school about sex – whether or not they consent to it.
On June 8, Harris tweeted: “Positive news. Sexual and relationship health is integral to overall health and wellbeing. Important our children have access to unbiased information. We must respect religious belief but all health education must always be based on facts, not ethos.”
This tweet was linked to an RTÉ article that detailed how parents at an Educate Together school in Castleknock protested against the Catholic agency, Accord, providing sex education to their children.
One parent quoted in the article, who produces children’s cartoons aired by RTÉ, said it was “totally inappropriate” for any religious body to deliver part of the curriculum in an Educate Together school, “especially to teach about relationships and sexuality”. Twitter revealed photos of parents outside the school in question, accompanied by Ruth Coppinger TD, holding rainbow flags and slogans such as “separate Church and State” – despite the fact they were protesting outside a State-funded, non-denominational school that had itself invited Accord in – of its own accord.
What is clear from the images and the parents’ tweets is that they are hostile to any religious (specifically Catholic) influence over their children. They are not neutral about Catholic values – they are actively opposed to them. That is their business. In response to the parents’ protests, Educate Together, the patron of the school in question, issued the following statement: “Educate Together will be writing to all schools under its patronage to ask them to ensure that relationships and sexuality education is delivered in a way that is consistent with its ethos and free from religious bias.”
Ethos
Consistent with its ethos and free from religious bias. Here, at last, is an honest admission: that Educate Together schools will deliver sex education in a way that recognises its ethos – that the bias will be their secular bias, not a religious bias.
Contrast this with Harris’s disingenuous tweet which states that “all health education must always be based on facts, not ethos”. Is he going to prevent Educate Together schools from delivering sex education in line with their ethos?
Of course not. His bias is clear: he is appalled at the idea that sex education might in any way be influenced by a religious ethos, but in the next breath is advocating that other parents (those of whom he doesn’t approve) should be forced to have their children indoctrinated in a State-sponsored sex education drive, the ethos of which is at odds with their own.
Never mind that this offends against these parents’ religious rights, their human rights – or indeed their parental rights. The difference in treatment stems from the fact that he clearly thinks Catholics are not the right sort of people and shouldn’t be allowed to educate their own children as they see fit. Neither should they be allowed to prevent strangers – strangers who want to talk to their children about sex – from having access to them.
One priest, a Fr Pádraig Ó Cochláin, dared to point out that Harris was operating under his own ethos, which was, as he put it: “ABC – Anything but Catholic.” In reply, Harris sniped: “Thanks Fr Ó Cochlàin for message. Judging my morality is probably above your pay grade. I’m happy to leave that to the man upstairs. Spreading division & judging others so harshly without ever having met them is not the Christianity that I know & respect. Every good wish, Simon.”
This is how the Minister, as representative of the State, treats a representative of the Church who refuses to bow to the new orthodoxy. If indeed the Catholic Church refuses to bow to the new RSE syllabus that is coming down the line, which the State will seek to impose on Catholic schools, despite being completely antithetical to Christian values, how will bishops and priests and other Catholics be treated?
Which brings me back to another local church here in France – that of St Martin de Ré, in which stands an altar, erected to the memory of the 1,023 priests deported under the laws of the Directory – the executive under the new French constitution during the Revolution – which hunted down “refractory” priests who refused to bow the knee to the new regime.
They were rounded up to be deported to Guiana for their treachery, and those who were sent there perished quickly. However, due to the threat to French ships posed by the English Navy, many others were interned in the citadel of St Martin. There they were incarcerated between 1798 and 1801, in squalid conditions, suffering food shortages and little or no medical care.
The inscription on the altar describes how the good souls of St Martin smuggled in items that allowed them to celebrate Mass in the gaol. The altar is dedicated to the memory of the 61 priests who perished there and who were secretly buried without honour, dignity or record.
How will Catholics who refuse to have their children indoctrinated according to the new orthodoxy be treated? How will brave priests and bishops who stand up and speak truth to power fare? Will we live to see our own Catholic institutions branded with the new motto of a triumphant and vindictive state?
