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Homily given by Cardinal Seán Brady at recent Mass of Thanksgiving for CCMS at St Malachy's Church, Armagh.
My dear friends,
We are here to celebrate this Mass of Thanksgiving for the outstanding service given by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools to the mission of Catholic education.
It is fitting that our Mass takes place in the last week of the Church's liturgical year. We are celebrating a transition from the past to the future, from what has been and has served us with distinction, to what is new and full of promise.
I am conscious that all across our Primary schools at the moment, resourceful Key Stage One and Key Stage Two teachers are searching for scissors and paper and crayons. They are helping children to make Jesse Trees for the beginning of the Church's year - for the beginning of Advent. Each day between now and Christmas they will put a symbol on each branch of the tree. Each symbol will tell another part of the story of our salvation by a loving and merciful God. By Christmas Day it will be a powerful visual summary of God's plan unfolding in the lives of individuals and in some of the great events of human history. That plan culminates in the birth of Jesus Christ - the tree of life - the tree of life unto which each one of us is grafted by our baptismal faith.
That tree of life continues to grow through the work and mission of each of our Catholic schools. God's plan continues to be fulfilled. It is fulfilled in the all the things we do to help children to learn and grow. It is fulfilled in the policies we set for Catholic Education and the Gospel values we seek to build those policies upon. Jesus said that he came so that we might 'have life and have it to the full'.
As one of the landmark documents of CCMS by the same name - 'Life to the Full' - reminded us: 'The Catholic school is a vital instrument in the Church's mission. Inspired by the teaching of Christ the school's ethos seeks to promote a more just and humane world. This includes making the school itself a place where justice and compassion are cherished as real values. The trustees of the Catholic school have prime responsibility for establishing this ethos. They are supported in their endeavours by the governors, staff and parents of the school.'
These are just some of the branches of the tree - the governors, the staff and the parents. The Catholic organisations which support Catholic schools are also an important part of that tree of life which has Christ as its source. It is all too easy to diminish the significance of the administrative and managerial functions of organisations which support the community of Catholic schools. For over twenty years CCMS has acted as a vital source of cohesion and common values for the community of Catholic maintained schools here in Northern Ireland. Cohesion and community are not just human or cultural values for the Catholic community. They are religious values - Gospel values - values which mark and define the people of God as the Body of Christ. He is the vine and we are the branches. Just as we are united to the Lord, so we are bound to one another as Christ's very Body.
This means that Catholic schools have a religious and moral duty to work towards unity, communion and cohesion. While other types of school may stand alone or be bound together loosely by purely administrative or legal bonds, Catholic schools have a solemn bond of faith. They have a responsibility to one another based on the Gospel and on our one, holy, Catholic and apostolic faith. So when a Catholic school decides to 'go it alone' or when the decisions and policy of a Catholic school become detached from concern for the sustainability and good of neighbouring Catholic schools, a fundamental value of Catholic education is potentially undermined.
That is why, to respond to the myriad of changes which now confront all schools in Northern Ireland, CCMS, on behalf of the Trustees, has played a vital role in ensuring that the Catholic sector responds to that change in a creative, collaborative and effective way.
With typical vision for the future, CCMS established the Post-Primary Review initiative and with it a wider consultation between Catholic Primary and Post-Primary schools in particular areas. It is this mechanism which will provide a morally integral and educationally sound response to the related issues of Post-primary transfer, demographic down turn, the demands of the new Entitlement Framework and the responsibility of every Catholic school to work creatively and with others for a shared future on the island of Ireland.
Something which has plagued the debate about academic selection and post-primary transfer here in Northern Ireland has been the tendency to treat the issue of transfer in isolation. The community of Catholic schools is not moving away from academic selection at age eleven just because it is pedagogically unsound and a morally questionable approach to post-primary transfer. The Catholic Church is moving away from academic selection at age eleven as part of a comprehensive and long term response to all the changes confront education provision in Northern Ireland in the coming years.
This is one of the advantages of being the largest sector and a faith based sector in education. You can plan and respond in an integral way. You are not like an individual post-primary school which stands alone in competition with others. You are not left to measure academic and educational success by your own results alone. When you are part of a large, united educational sector you are uniquely well placed to develop strategies and area plans which raise standards across the sector. And this will be the test of the move away from academic selection. Not does a particular, well resourced, carefully selecting Grammar school do as well after academic selection as it did before; but does the whole system of education in Northern Ireland produce a better collective 'result', a more comprehensive, economically viable rate of 'success' than the current secondary/grammar system?
When you are the largest sector in Northern Ireland, you have the opportunity to do this, to increase the standards of the whole sector rather than a small number of advantaged schools. I want to assure every parent who sends their child to a Catholic school that there will be no compromise in the quality of education that will be provided as the Catholic sector moves away from the currently outdated and educationally flawed system of selection. I also want to state clearly that what will emerge from the Post-Primary Review process will not be a 'one-size fits all - comprehensive school solution'. There will be real choice for parents - and every choice will be a 'quality' choice, one based on a range of specialist options - including the option of specialising in academic interests.
I appeal to parents who have children approaching transfer age over the next few years - ask yourself what a quality education means for your child. Don't assume that the only school in which your child could achieve 12 GCSE A*'s or Five 'A*'s' at A-Level is a top name Grammar school. There are many non-Grammar schools where children do just as well in terms of results. Don't look to academic results as the only basis for an economically viable education for your child. I ask Catholic teachers and Boards of Governors to have confidence in their ability as Catholic schools to continue to raise standards. 'Ethos adds value'. Our Catholic ethos is an asset which brings added value to education. Thanks to CCMS, the Catholic sector has a proud record of raising standards. In a period of unprecedented educational change we should continue to believe that we can continue to raise standards for all children in our schools without depending on crude mechanisms of selection at eleven years of age.
The Post-Primary initiative is still developing and I have no doubt new and more permanent mechanisms of consultation between Catholic Schools and between Catholic Schools and the new Trustee Support Body which will replace CCMS will eventually emerge. Such ongoing collaboration between Primary and post-primary schools in the Catholic sector is and will remain vital to the future cohesion and effectiveness of Catholic education. So also is effective collaboration between North and South. One of the strengths of the new system of Trustee management and support which will replace CCMS is that, for the first time since partition, it will be part of an all-island Catholic Education Service. This means that, in addition to new and exciting opportunities for shared resources and insights, common issues such as ethos development and pastoral care policies can be developed in a coordinated way. Catholic education, I am proud to say, will shortly become one of the largest and most stable north-south enterprises on the island.
I once heard it said that you won't miss the shelter until the tree falls. I suspect that this will be especially true of CCMS - we won't miss the shelter provided - the shelter of efficient and expert professional support - the shelter of a symbiosis of Catholic educational values driving all aspects of employment, management and development - we won't miss that shelter until it has gone.
That is why it is imperative that all those who believe in the right of parents to a Catholic education for their children, and of the Church to fulfil its mission of preaching the Gospel - as highlighted in our Gospel - it is imperative that we work to ensure the legislation for the new Education and Skills Authority does not dilute the hard won rights of Catholics and others in this area. I want to make it clear that the Trustees have not agreed to or signed off on any aspect of the proposed legislation for the ESA. We remain very concerned about certain aspects of the draft legislation, especially in relation to the employment of staff and the proposals for area based planning. We will continue to scrutinise the proposals and test them against the rights of every parents to have their child brought up in accordance with their religious and philosophical convictions, a right recognised and protected by the European Convention on Human Rights.
This is a challenging time for Catholic schools in Northern Ireland. It is a time of unprecedented and dramatic change. As we close the door on one chapter of that change with the closure of CCMS, I want to pay tribute to all those who worked for and worked with CCMS here in the diocese over the past twenty one years. I think of Monsignor McEntaggart and the late Dean McLarnon who was so instrumental in negotiating the legislation for CCMS with the then Secretary of State Brian Mawhinney. I pay tribute to the excellent, hard-working and thoroughly professional staff who have worked in the Armagh Diocesan Education Office based in Dungannon. We really were blessed to have so many superb, committed and highly motivated CCMS staff working here in the Diocese. The quality of our schools in this Diocese is a tribute to them and to our teachers, principals and Boards of Governors. I want to take this opportunity to say a sincere and whole hearted thank you to you all.
Our first reading in the Mass today was from the Book of Proverbs. One of my favourite sayings from the Book of Proverbs as a teacher was: 'Those who instruct others unto justice will shine like stars for all eternity'. CCMS in Armagh was awash with many a bright star. It also helped many other stars in our Diocese to shine even more brightly!
Ultimately, however, CCMS was an advocate for a Catholic philosophy of education which remains in great demand around the world and across Ireland because of its commitment to excellence for all and an education based on the message and values of Jesus Christ. It is always worth reminding ourselves that it is this which our system of education distinctive. It is this which makes it attractive and chosen by so many across the world, not just Catholics.
CCMS was, and the new Trustee Support Body which replaces it, will be an advocate on behalf of all Catholic Schools in Northern Ireland.
You may remember that the Advocate or Paraclete - was one of the names given by Jesus to the Holy Spirit whom he promised to send to his beleaguered apostles after his Ascension. The Holy Spirit came to empower the Infant Church to get on with the task entrusted to it by Jesus - The Advocate came to help it 'Go make disciples of all nations'. So today we thank God for those who, aided by the Holy Spirit all those years ago, came up with the idea of getting an Advocate to support the management of Catholic schools through the Boards of Management. We thank God for those who enacted the legislation which created CCMS and for those who, down through the years, worked in various CCMS offices; went to CCMS Committees; and sat on Boards of Management. We see CCMS as a gift of the Advocate - the Holy Spirit - to the Catholic Church in Northern Ireland over the years and we give thanks for the manifold graces it brought to us all.
In conclusion, let me say that I picked up a book recently with a very consoling title. It was called Meetings Matter - Spirituality and Skill for Meetings. The focus of this book is, as it says, on the often ignored faith dimension of meetings. When viewed through the light of faith, elements of an ordinary meeting are transformed.
The thesis of this book is that God is involved with groups and uses our help there to achieve the common good. It argues that the Spirit works in every group and that as Christian participants at meetings we must go beyond passivity and place ourselves at service of spirit. So we thank God for that new an very helpful understanding of our meetings.
We thank God for the many meetings sponsored, facilitated, prepared and implemented by the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools. We thank God for the Agendas of all the meetings. It may not have felt like it all the time - but God in those agendas and in those meetings. He was working out his plan in the seemingly ordinary business of managing and envisioning our schools.
It is worth remembering that God also has an agenda. As I said at the beginning, the Jesse tree reminds us that God's loving plan unfolds down through the centuries. It reminds us that God's promises to us are fulfilled. It reminds us of the Christmas message that God-is-with-us - in the future as in the past. As we open the door on a new future, as we give thanks in this Mass for the blessings brought to us by CCMS - we place our future hopes in the hands of the woman who believed that all God's promises to Her would be fulfilled. We ask Mary, the Mother of God's Wisdom made flesh in Jesus Christ, to guide all our future efforts on behalf of children and parents in Catholic schools. We ask Her to give us her wisdom as we face the challenges, as well as the successes which lie ahead. Mary, Seat of Wisdom, pray for us. Amen.