Address of Archbishop Dermot Farrell to CPSMA Annual Conference Thursday, 13th May 2021

Address of Archbishop Dermot Farrell to CPSMA Annual Conference
                           Thursday, 13th May 2021

I wish to commence my address by thanking the school principals and staff for
how well they have cared for the school children throughout the Covid-19
pandemic that affected and disrupted freedoms, habits and certainties. You
have engaged very closely with parents and guardians throughout the health
emergency to ensure that the education of their children continued. I commend
the Catholic schools for their tremendous work in providing for and encouraging
young people, supporting their parents, and being of service to the community
more broadly. To be a school leader, or chairman of a Board of Management,
can at the best of times be a lonely occupation, but none more so than during
this present health crisis when for several months all activity had to be carried out
remotely without the actual physical presence of teachers, pupils and parents.
 I congratulate you on how you have embraced technology to ensure continued
interaction and teaching. Your generous engagement, and that of school staff,
in remote and online learning platforms has done a great deal to support the
children and their parents, and has greatly assisted them in navigating what for
them was a very abnormal educational landscape. The children’s wellbeing, and
indeed their mental health, has been a key priority for you and your staff. In this
way you have given a very strong witness to the nature of Catholic
education. There was a focus on and concern for children who didn’t have
resources, such as access to the internet, or those who did not possess a laptop
or an iPad. Notwithstanding these issues, the real benefit of technology has
been established by this pandemic.
At the same time, your decision to return to school, despite being apprehensive
about the coronavirus –putting the children first—is recognition that no
technological device can replace the dynamics of the classroom. When the
emergency situation passes, the perspective of the school community should not
be to revert back to the way it was before, but to innovate and improve, learning

from present difficulties. This challenge requires the commitment of all the
educational partners.
When students first went to a teacher training college – as it was known at the
time, they would have said that they had got the call to training! Teaching is a
call, a vocation. Teachers have in a very real, practical and resourceful way
proclaimed the Good News. They were called to be leaders in our Catholic
schools and they deserve great praise and recognition for their commitment.
We have seen evidence of the increased use this year of the resources for
Catholic Schools Week as they were online and thus very suited to the online
learning conditions. From my time working in parish I know the importance of
Grandparents’ Day for Catholic Schools Week. This year, however, they could
not come into the schools and they were really missed by teachers and children.
Children have come to appreciate school much more – its importance for
socialising in particular. Nowhere is this function more important than in the
schools who cater for the education of pupils with special needs. Following the
easing of restrictions, they were the first classes to return. ASD units and
Special Schools provide a most vital service to these pupils. I would appeal to
Boards of Management to be welcoming of a request from the National Council
for Curriculum and Assessment and the Department of Education and Skills to
open an ASD unit in their school so that children can be educated locally with
their family and friends. The DES, NCCA and HSE in making these requests to
Boards, must ensure that proper accommodation and all the necessary support
services are in place, so that students will receive an education that meets their
needs and that proper services are put in place to provide speech therapy,
physiotherapy and play therapy.
Out of the above will come a real sense of the importance of engaging the whole
school community in doing the very best for the children in their care. Parents
have come through the experience of home-schooling to a new awareness of the
vital role of the school and the teacher – this has led to and will lead to a real
appreciation and understanding on their part.
In addition, all the above has seen the teaching cohort carry out in practice the
real caring mission of the Catholic school. Schools really went the extra
mile! For example, some schools arranged that pupils who were availing of the
school breakfast and lunch services had the food service continue during the
lockdown. Schools supported families effected by Covid-19 and kept in contact
especially when a member of a pupil’s family died because of Covid-
19. Chairpersons and principals were available through telephone and email all
during the pandemic to the teachers, staff and parents for any issues concerning
the school, especially preparing for the establishment of ASD units for opening in
September 2020 and now for September 2021.

Pope Francis has described the principal element of education as learning to be
generous, especially in terms of the desire to do great things and responding to
what God is asking of us. This generosity the Holy Father tells us, is shown by
doing well the simple things, the daily chores and responsibilities and the
ordinary encounters with people. And above all developing the human virtues
such as loyalty, resilience, respect, faithfulness and commitment (Pope Francis
speaking with students and teachers from Italian and Albanian Jesuit schools in
Rome, 7th June 2013). Schools have modelled this generosity and these virtues
by the manner in which they have responded to the unparalleled situation they
have had to deal with since the sudden closure of the schools was first
announced on 12 March 2020 and again in January 2021 in response to the
Third wave of a lethal virus.
An immensely valuable component of the Catholic school is the partnership
between family, parish and school. This is not something that happens without
effort. There is a need for Catholic schools to work continuously at connecting
strongly with local parish/parishes – opening up what the school can give to the
faith community – and what it can receive from the faith community. The Covid-
19 pandemic made us realise that we are more fragile and dependent on each
other. Seek to revitalise the connections locally between home, school and
parish, such that the school can be a support to families in connecting with
parish, and to parishes connecting with families.

In this way the Catholic school will become fully engaged in its role of supporting
young people and their families when they decide in favour of sacramental
participation in the life of the Church – First Holy Communion and Confirmation
cannot be a one day ‘school event’ organised in a local church – young people
and their families should understand that the young person is registering for
initiation into the life of the parish community, deepening their life as a Christian,
committing to becoming step by step an engaged disciple of Jesus and an active
member of the Church, supported on this journey by the school.
Parents, when you enrol your children in the parish for these sacraments you are
enrolling them on a lifelong journey of faith, hope and love – and also in making
that decision you are re-entering yourself into awareness of the love you have for
God and the love God has for you throughout all the ups and downs of life. The
parish and the Catholic school are supports for you in developing your own
relationship with God and that of your young people. There is always room for
adult members of the Church, parents and grandparents, clergy, teachers, all of
us, to reflect further on our faith and re-engage with our own adult faith
development.

The Catholic school adds value. It promotes a positive spiritual reflection on life,
speaking to all that we learn from Jesus as young people and throughout the
whole of life. It sets the young person out on life valuing the spiritual, the
religious, the moral, as well as the intellectual, creative, physical and social
aspects of life.
The Catholic school speaks from its deepest values to all, opening its doors not
only to young Catholics, but to those of other denominations, other religions and
other worldviews, in a hospitable, respectful, inclusive manner – inviting them to
participate in appropriate ways in what it offers them.
In all of this Religious education is important. The suggestion in the Draft Primary
Curriculum Framework that Religious Education could somehow be separated
out, or even left out of a school curriculum, seems like a backward step. We
need young Catholics to be offered a holistic education, wherever they go to
school, that takes account of the spiritual and religious. In fact, I would suggest
that we need all our young people to be religiously literate and to learn at least to
respect the beliefs and understandings of others. Otherwise we leave ourselves
open to the possibility of a future where coming generations find themselves
ignorant of their own tradition and that of others. The place of Religious
Education in Catholic schools is central, and the curriculum should facilitate it
generously and with ease, not simply as a possible add-on. In all schools
Religious Education, in one form or another, has a contribution to make to the
holistic development of young people. In the plural reality of society today we
need to build up respect for others rather than diminish it by mistakenly
downplaying significant questions - such as the fundamental importance of
Religious Education in schools provided in ways that are wholesome and open to
difference.
Respect for all people, for human life at all its stages, and for the deepest
understanding of sacredness of human life, is a well-known fundamental
teaching of the Catholic Church. I welcome Flourish, the resource for
Relationships and Sexuality Education for Catholic Primary schools, available
now on the CPSMA website. Flourish is a series of resources designed to assist
teachers in following the NCCA Curriculum while being respectful of our Catholic
ethos. They were designed to fill a need which became apparent after wide
consultation with parents, teachers and school leaders in our sector.
Flourish, which is resource and not a programme, celebrates life and love. The
Introduction to the 1999 Primary School Curriculum included some specific aims:
“to enable children to apply what they learn to new contexts in order to respond
creatively to the variety of challenges they encounter in life; to enable children to
develop spiritual, moral and religious values; to enable children to develop
personally and socially and to relate to others with understanding and respect”
(pp. 34-35). Speaking about the theme ‘Fostering Wellbeing’, Flourish notes,

“this competency is understood as developing a pupil’s ability to be as physically,
socially, emotionally and spiritually healthy as they can be. It fosters self-
awareness and promotes the importance of children seeing themselves as
capable and resourceful. This supports their ability to deal with the normal
challenges of life, become resilient and cope in a variety of situations and
circumstances” (p. 5). Catholic schools seek to create reflective learning spaces
where all of life is dealt with in an appropriate, integrated, life-enhancing manner,
and where the spiritual is given its rightful essential role in the establishment and
maintaining of wellbeing.
One particular actualisation of a life that is flourishing is sacramental
marriage. While the concept of sacrament may be difficult to grasp, the reality of
sacramental life forms the bedrock of the Catholic approach to life and its
mysteries. Mystery, because of its depth and intensity, puts before us the
complexity and multi-layeredness of life. This is true for every person. It is a
mystery to be embraced, not a problem to be solved.
In this context then is the sacramental marriage between a man and a woman to
be seen. This does not mean that sacramental marriage in Church is for
everyone, but our faith asks that we put before our young people and their
families, such an understanding of marriage as part of their formation for life, and
in the faith.
That is not to say, that what is presented in a resource—even a resource as
contemporary as Flourish—may be assumed to replace the wisdom and love that
comes from the commitment and joy, the giving and the sacrifices that all real
marriages entail. You will know as well as I that pre-fabricated answers are no
substitute for the wisdom that comes from the experience of life. Indeed, there is
always the risk of life-sapping ideology, which is the very opposite of the
wellbeing, vibrancy, and hope that Flourish set outs to nurture.
Flourish affirms the core of the Judeo-Christian tradition: every human being is
made in the image and likeness of God and is loved by God as they are. The
resource material clearly states that any young person grappling with questions
around their own gender identity or sexual orientation is be treated with the
utmost care and respect. Flourish addresses the issue of family type and
acknowledges that love is at the heart of family life, no matter what type of family
it is.
The Catholic Church in Ireland and Catholic schools celebrate joyfully the
presence of the Risen Christ in the life of the Church. We cherish his presence
with us in love, supporting us and teaching us along the journey of life. May he
continue to bless our Catholic schools, showing us how to open ourselves to his
Spirit, share what we have learned, and become ever more responsive to the
needs of all.

In times of crisis, while seeking not to leave any child behind or alone, our
mission is to place greater emphasis on education, as it ensures a better future