“In using the Catholic school system to process the entire baptised population through the formalities of practice, we have effectively destroyed faith as a lived reality.”

So insists Brian Mooney, an assistant school principal and guidance counsellor, in an article in the Irish Times, (7th September, 2021)

Pointing out that, ‘huge numbers of teachers who are tasked with transmitting faith are not practising members of any religious community’, Mr Mooney believes that ‘it is evident to the students and their parents that they are simply fulfilling a contractual obligation’. This in itself ‘destroys faith’.

“The place to nurture that is within the community, centred around the parish and not in the school system. I spent many summers in California living with family and saw how the local Catholic community and other denominations operated.”

Brian Mooney’s voice will add to the growing chorus for radical change towards parish-centred faith-formation of both adults and children. That should have begun in 2011 with the implementation of the catechetical scheme Share the Good News. Why that plan was never implemented has never been explained by its sponsors, the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference.

This issue bids strongly to be top of the agenda for the promised ‘Synodal Pathway’ announced by the ICBC in March 2021.

To read Brian Mooney’s complete article in the Irish Times, click here