Sir, - The amalgamation of small rural Catholic and Protestant schools is suggested as a possible route to integrated education in Northern Ireland ("Learning Integration", The Irish Times, October 28th). This route would conserve resources and safeguard communities.
The motivation for such coming together would have to come from the schools themselves and would indeed be a very welcome development. It would mean that both Catholic and reformed churches had removed their opposition to integrated schooling.
It has long been a source of great sadness to the integrated movement that the Christian churches in a Christian country should oppose shared Christian schools. One is constantly dismayed that the Irish hierarchies and assemblies are so lacking in generosity of spirit, when such cooperation is possible in other areas of the world, including elsewhere in the British Isles.
What more radical form of reconciliation could there be than educating children together, Protestant and Catholic, in their formative years, with nurture and pastoral care from their respective clergy? - Yours, etc.,
Chair, All Children Together, University Street, Belfast 7.