The phrase ‘faith formation’ in schools is not in the Constitution. Whether you refer to faith formation classes, or faith formation in the general atmosphere of the school, there is simply no Article in our Constitution that uses the term ‘faith formation’. It is not possible to remove what is referred to as ‘faith formation’ from schools without defining legally what this term means, and taking into account existing Constitutional rights, duties and powers. The Department of Education, Patron bodies and schools have no legal power to change or redefine Constitutional rights. The recent refer ..read more

The Irish National Teachers Association has voted to lobby to remove a religious education qualification that is required by all teachers who wish to teach in Catholic primary schools. They will also form a task force to look at the future of primary school patronage. This highlights one of Atheist Ireland’s main policy issues – that teachers in Ireland can be legally discriminated against on the grounds of religion. As the vast majority of schools in Ireland are managed by Patrons with a religious purpose, access to the teaching profession has been curtailed. It is a Catholic ethos that preva ..read more

The recent referendums have shown that words in the constitution matter. The Supreme Court has found that children have a Constitutional right to not attend any course in religious instruction. The Supreme Court also said that this right is based on the conscience of parents. Despite the fact that the right to not attend religious instruction in publicly funded schools is written into the text and structure of the Constitution, there is no practical application given to it on the ground. Students are left sitting in the religion class and no supervision is provided by schools. Article 44.2.4 s ..read more

Atheist Ireland has sent the following Petition to the Oireachtas Committee on Public Petitions and the Ombudsmen Petition : The Houses of the Oireachtas to guarantee and give practical application to the constitutional right to attend any school in receipt of public funding and not attend religious instruction The Constitution and Legislation relating to the right Article 44.2.4 of the Irish Constitution Legislation providing State aid for schools shall not discriminate between schools under the management of different religious denominations, nor be such as to affect prejudicially the rig ..read more

The CSO figures report that there were 3,350 Spiritualists in the country in 2022. That is, 3,350 people ticked the ‘other religion, if any’ box and wrote in ‘spiritualist’ as their religion. Yet the marriage figures from the Central Statistics Office show that in 2022 there were 4,504 marriages performed in accordance with the rites of spiritualist religions. That’s nearly one in every five marriages last year. The spiritualist religions whose registered solemnisers conducted these weddings are the Spiritualist Union of Ireland, One Spirit Interfaith Foundation, One World Ministers, Our Spir ..read more

Opening up 400 multi denominational schools throughout the country will never achieve pluralism in education. The policy of successive governments is to segregate children in some areas of the country on the basis of their parents’ religion. Even if the state opened up 400 multi denominational schools throughout the country it would still leave many parents in the position whereby they had no choice but to sent their children to the only local school under catholic patronage. Even the Oireachtas Education Committee said that “Multiple patronage and ethos as a basis for policy can lead to segre ..read more

Five years to the day after the public voted to remove Blasphemy as a crime, from the Constitution in the 2018 referendum, detailed figures have emerged today from the CSO showing Ireland is becoming more and more pluralist with each census. Top level figures published from the CSO last May 2023, from the 2022 Census, indicated over one million people (1 in 5) in Ireland, when asked “What is your religion, if any?” identified as having no religion (14%) or declined to answer the question (7%). Further breakdown published today, 26th October now gives further insight into the numbers of non-rel ..read more

This week’s Secular Sunday can be found here. To avoid missing out, sign up here to receive Secular Sunday by email. The post Secular Sunday #615 – Equal status for nonreligious beliefs appeared first on Atheist Ireland ..read more

The Department of Eduction is continuing the fiction that the government is transferring patronage of Catholic primary schools in any meaningful way. The Department is also complicating the matter by saying that parents of pupils at Catholic primary schools are to be surveyed to assess the level of support for such changes. But this imaginary divestment programme, even if it happened, could not solve the problem of providing equal access to primary schools without religious discrimination. At best it could relieve some of the problems for a small number of secular and minority faith parents, w ..read more

This week’s Secular Sunday can be found here. To avoid missing out, sign up here to receive Secular Sunday by email. The post Secular Sunday #613 – 11 new blasphemy laws appeared first on Atheist Ireland ..read more