People are mistaken who “think that most parents are less interested in a school with a Catholic ethos than previous generations,” Archbishop Dermot Farrell of Dublin has said. “We should not shy away from our ethos. We must put ourselves in the public square. If the Catholic school is to fulfil its mission properly, it cannot retreat into what it considers a safe space. A Catholic school that isolates itself becomes self-centered and self-referential,” he said.
Those with responsibility for such schools “now need to consider seriously what it is we do, how we do it, and how we prepare these schools to continue to reflect the Catholic ethos for the families who wish to enrol their children in them,” he said.
Archbishop Farrell was speaking on Thursday afternoon at a Mass for the Association of Patrons and Trustees of Catholic Schools (APTCS) in the Dominican retreat centre, in Tallaght.
“APTCS is ethos driven. The reason we are deeply involved in Catholic schools is to provide parents who wish to educate their children with a school whose ethos is Catholic. Such an education cannot just focus only on points, or academic subjects. We are not naked intellect. The school is not a laboratory for facts. Spiritual and moral formation are required, too,” he said.
The Catholic school “has a mission, but we would do well to heed Pope Francis’s observation that ‘many ecclesiastical establishments, at every level, seem to be swallowed up by the obsession of promoting themselves and their own initiatives, as if that were the objective and goal of their mission’,” he said.
Gratitude
He remembed “with gratitude the women and men of religious congregations who established the post-primary schools, at the invitation of the local bishop, for the education and faith formation of the children of the local parish.”
They were “especially concerned to provide for the most marginalised in the community, especially the poor in the parish. In particular, I thank those who initiated the project and those who brought it to completion.”
As a group of patrons and trustees, “we have a very serious obligation and responsibility to be faithful to the founding intentions of the women and men who began this work,” he said.
“The priests and religious who built, maintained and served Catholic schools for generations made great sacrifices; we stand on their shoulders today. As women and men of faith, we believe that God has chosen us, and those who work hard every day in Catholic schools across the country, to serve at this time,” he said.
