AS debate rages over how best to tackle the blight of bigotry in our society, some increasingly shrill voices claim the existence of denominational schools are at the root of the problem and go on to suggest that the problems of sectarianism and bigotry can best be tackled by closing Catholic schools.

This staggeringly intolerant attitude is symptomatic of a simplistic belief that educating children in a faith-based environment is wrong and will inevitably lead to conflict and strife in society.

Abolitionists say children who aren’t schooled together can never interact or relate harmoniously to one another in adult life. This is absurd. Taken to its extreme, this would suggest that children from different parts of the country, from different countries or with different languages are doomed to perpetual strife as adults because they didn’t share a playground.

If integrated schools are the answer to our ills, their existence conspicuously failed to lessen ethnic tensions in Bosnia. Sharing playgrounds did not stop Serbs, Croats and Muslims, many of them no doubt former classmates, slaughtering one another in former Yugoslavia.

It is time to tell those who attack faith schools they are wrong and the historical religious divisions that still leave us tainted with sectarian bigotry pre-date the existence of such schools, so it cannot have been created by them.

Perhaps we need to refresh this rather tired and stale debate with new impetus by asking a far deeper and more piercing question: should we have “non-denominational” schools? Following the decision by the Scottish parliament to remove the “Christian character” from Scotland’s non-denominational sector, the concept has become a bit woolly.

One local authority recently took to renaming such schools “multi-denominational” — a term that borders on the absurd.

Our education legislation does allow for other groups to establish state-supported denominational schools. Shouldn’t we be working towards plurality in our education system? Towards advancing the arguments for a sector that truly reflects the range of beliefs that exist in society — including the currently fashionable secular humanism — rather than arguing in favour of an unrepresentative system.

Many parents who are not Catholic nevertheless choose a Catholic school for their child. It is for those who would deny this choice to explain why they are so keen to destroy one of Scotland’s educational successes.

Peter Kearney is the director of the Catholic Media Office

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