In the Dail yesterday Donnchadh O’Laoghaire from Sinn Fein asked the Minister for Education about sex education in schools. The Catholic Bishops have introduced a course called Flourish to primary schools. Flourish is Catholic sex education, and the programme is to be taught alongside curriculum...
Atheist Ireland welcomes the Pastoral Reflection by the Bishop of Clonfert, Michael Duignan, about changes in the Catholic Church, which Patsy McGarry reports on in today’s Irish Times. Bishop Duignan says that in the past, the Church tried to “engage with and convert secular society”...
A group of parents in Cork are organising to challenge the Catholic Bishops sex education course ‘Flourish’ in their children’s Primary schools. The Catholic Bishops plan to teach their new course alongside syllabus Social, Personal and Health education in schools. The parents say: “We’re a...
Census figures released today show yet again that Ireland is no longer a Catholic country. Our laws must catch up with this reality, and stop giving privilege to the Catholic Church. For the first time ever, in 2020, there were more Civil marriages than Catholic...
The Vice Chair of the INTO, Joe McKeown, said yesterday that the INTO would take steps to make sure that teachers are not disciplined or punished for a failure to use the Catholic sex education programme Flourish in schools. And Tanaiste Leo Varadkar said today...
Atheist Ireland has been working for several years on the issue of objective versus Catholic sex education in Irish schools. If you want to understand more about the issue, you can read our submissions and articles linked below. The Department of Education supports the integration...
As the NCCA is updating the syllabus for Social, Personal, and Health Education (SPHE), the Catholic Bishops are circling the croziers by introducing a new course called ‘Flourish’ in publicly funded national schools. Flourish is officially Relationship and Sex Education, and in practice is Catholic...
Over the past fifty years, the Irish education system has evolved to include religious discrimination that was not intended to be there. The influence of the Catholic Church has undermined attempts by politicians to respect and balance the Constitutional rights of all families. Please lobby...
In the aftermath of the Mother and Baby Homes report, Seamus McKenna outlines how the Irish Catholic Church has harmed our people, our schools, and our democracy. On the 12th of January 2021 the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes and certain related...
Catholic Archbishop Eamon Martin has called on RTE to immediately remove a television clip which he says it is offensive, outrageous, and blasphemous. He was complaining about RTE’s New Year’s Eve Countdown Show, which included a mock news review by Waterford Whispers News. The mock...