Divestment needs courage, not just commissions

As Catholic Schools Week is marked across the country, news that the Bishops’ Conference is establishing a commission to examine how the Church might aid the process of school divestment will be welcomed by many. It suggests a long-overdue action to engage seriously with a reality that has been discussed, debated, and deferred for more than a decade.

Intentions

But good intentions will not be enough. Those familiar with previous attempts know that the establishment of yet another committee risks becoming a holding pattern unless the real obstacles to divestment are confronted honestly and decisively.

There has already been discussion, it is understood, about drawing up a list of schools that could be divested. That idea has been tried before. It failed then, and it will fail again, unless fundamental roadblocks are cleared.

The bishops are entirely entitled—indeed obliged—to state clearly that the Admissions Act is tying their hands”

The most significant of these is the Admissions Act. As it currently stands, it acts as one of the barriers to divestment because it does not adequately protect Catholic parents. In a town with, say, three primary schools where two are Catholic and one Protestant, where agreement might be reached that only one should remain Catholic, Protestant parents have explicit legal protection to be admitted to their school, Catholic parents do not. Without a legislative ‘backstop,’ divestment risks undermining the very families Catholic schools exist to serve.

The bishops are entirely entitled—indeed obliged—to state clearly that the Admissions Act is tying their hands. Any proposal that involves identifying schools for divestment must begin with parental consultation. That was the lesson of earlier failed efforts. Everyone acknowledges the need for change; what remains unclear, as it has for years, is a viable pathway.

So what is to be done?

At a conference some years ago, a bishop memorably remarked that sometimes one must lose a limb to save the body. The insight was bracing—and telling. There has been little appetite among the bishops collectively to accept such pain. Yet the reality remains: unless the Church is willing to divest a number of schools, it will need more and more resources to be able to sustain those it genuinely wishes to keep.

Afford

The Church can afford to think in centuries. Civil servants, parents, and governments cannot.  One possible approach would be a structured, time-bound transition: a ten-year phase-out in certain schools. New intakes would no longer receive sacramental preparation; religious education would gradually be withdrawn. This would not be an attack on Catholic education, but an honest acknowledgement that some schools are no longer Catholic in anything but name.

The deeper problem is not structural but human. Some bishops have little interest in education. Others fear being the first in their diocese to divest schools”

That distinction matters. Not all Catholic schools are the same. Some are intentionally and vibrantly Catholic. Others are Catholic but under-resourced and in need of support. A final group—perhaps a third—are culturally Catholic only. They mark no Catholic Schools Week, have no shared Catholic ethos among staff, and little sense of ecclesial mission.

If schools were assessed against clear markers of Catholic identity—a mission statement that explicitly names Christ, a visible sacred space, a lived sacramental life—this reality would quickly become apparent. Patrons could then focus their limited resources where they will bear fruit, while engaging more lightly, and honestly, with those schools for whom Catholic identity has already faded.

The deeper problem is not structural but human. Some bishops have little interest in education. Others fear being the first in their diocese to divest schools. Still others believe, against mounting evidence, that schools cannot ultimately be taken from Church patronage.

That belief is dangerously complacent. Who among the senior bishops would have imagined, twenty years ago, that abortion would be legal and widespread in Ireland today?

Diluted

Change often moves incrementally—hours of religious education reduced, admissions policies altered, control diluted. But moments of sudden change come too. The Department of Education’s recent school survey, launched without advance notice to the bishops, points to a relationship marked by low trust. In the right public mood, and at the right political moment, a referendum removing Church control of schools is not unthinkable.

If modern Ireland has taught us anything, it is this: never say never.

Commissions can be useful. But without courage, clarity, and a willingness to bear short-term pain for long-term mission, they will achieve little. Catholic education in Ireland does not need another report. It needs leadership prepared to act—before events act upon it.