This weekend, representatives of over 30,000 young people are meeting to chart a future devoid of sectarian division
For five years, senior members of the two scouting organisations, the Catholic Scouts of Ireland (or Scouting Ireland CSI) and the Scout Association of Ireland (or Scouting Ireland SAI), have been negotiating a merger of the two groups into a single entity, to be known simply as Scouting Ireland. Much has been achieved by the negotiating teams. A new constitution and rules exist in draft form and have been approved by scouting's umbrella body, the World Organisation of the Scouting Movement; there have been detailed consultation within both associations. It is to be hoped, therefore, that at this, the 11th hour, delegates to parallel CSI and SAI meetings tomorrow do not lose sight of the bigger picture.
Scouting is about developing healthy, confident young people who are mindful of the needs and concerns of others, forward in offering help, and appreciative of the world about them. Participants develop values and interests which they treasure throughout their lives and which help inform how they live. The children and adults involved are not Protestant children and adults, or Catholic children and adults. They are scouts and scouting is blind to denomination - or rather it should be. Scouting came to this island in 1908, not long after the ideas that underpin the movement were enunciated in Britain by Robert Baden-Powell in his short book, Scouting For Boys. The SAI, which traces its origins back to 1908, is not, and never was, a Protestant organisation. It is, and always has been, multi-denominational. A formalised religious divide within scouting in this State did not come about until 1927 with the creation of the Catholic Boy Scouts of Ireland - the predecessor of the CSI.
As the leaders of both associations have agreed, it is now time to consign this sort of division to the past and concentrate on scouting. Concerns have been expressed that the merger will diminish the ethos of one side or the other, or that there will be difficulties over property and finances. There will, no doubt, be some difficulties if the two associations do merge but none is insurmountable. The essential principles of scouting remain unchanged.
It is probable that SAI delegates (who include all Leaders and Scouts above the age of 12 and number some 5,000) will approve the merger. Less certain are the views of the 1,000 mainly adult delegates of the CSI. And less certain still are the views of the Catholic bishops who are urging a delay and may seek to stop the merger on present terms. But they too should be prepared to change.