Why is everyone so surprised that the Catholic Church won’t divest schools or respect human rights? It is increasingly clear that the Catholic Church will not divest any schools to other patron bodies unless they are forced to do so. In fact they have reinforced their position of opposing human rights standards in education, by rejecting the Toledo Guiding Principles. Even Prof John Coolahan (Chair of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism) is now saying that the Department of Education needs to wield a stick to make divestment happen. Also, even if the Catholic Church did divest a number of schools, that would still not address the State’s obligation to provide a religiously neutral education for children, in classes other than religion class, even in schools that retain a religious ethos. The only real solution is for the State to implement the Recommendations of the UN Human Rights Committee, the Irish Human Rights Commission, and the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism. In an article in the Irish Times Prof John Coolahan is quoted as stating that the Department of Education needs to wield a “stick” against the Catholic Church if it wants to make progress on the divestment of schools to other patrons. He also stated that the church’s refusal to take “a proactive stance” in promoting the divestment of schools undermined the process from the outset, and he suggests cuts in school funding might be considered to concentrate minds. We have been wondering why everyone is so surprised about the failure of the Catholic Church to divest schools or implement human rights. It is difficult for those that are denied their human rights in the education system to accept that the Chair of the Forum on Patronage and Pluralism and the Government actually believed that the Catholic Church would just willingly divest schools or accept that all families were entitled to their human rights in the Irish education system. atheist.ie/2015/01/divestment-catholic-church-schools-human-rights/
Posted on: Sun, 04 Jan 2015 00:26:06 +0000