BISHOP LEO O’REILLY’S HOMILY
AT A MASS TO MARK THE
LAUNCH OF THE PRESENTATION BROTHERS SCHOOLS TRUST
21 November 2009
I thank the Presentation Brothers for doing me the honour of inviting me to celebrate this Mass to mark the launch of the Presentation Brothers Schools Trust. And I thank the Bishop of Cork for his customary warm welcome to his diocese and his hospitality. Around 1882 a predecessor of his, Bishop Murphy, unwittingly played a significant part in the birth of the Presentation Brothers. Edmund Rice’s Christian Brothers had just amalgamated all their communities around the country and became a Pontifical Congregation. This gave the Order greater freedom from the local bishop in posting its personnel in their schools. But Cork is not the rebel county for nothing and the bishops of Cork are made of sterner stuff than most of us. Bishop Murphy wouldn’t allow the brothers in his diocese to make the change. It appears most of them slipped away quietly in spite of him – that shows you how much power even strong bishops really have! However, one Brother accepted the Bishop’s direction. He and some others continued as a Diocesan Congregation and eventually became a Pontifical Congregation themselves, the Presentation Brothers. And they continued the great tradition of education begun by Edmund Rice and his Congregation of the Christian Brothers.
Today marks the opening of a new chapter in the history of educational provision in the tradition of Edmund Rice as the Presentation Brothers launch this new Trust Body – which is a body of lay people – to carry on the work of educating the young people of Ireland in the distinctive Presentation tradition. This tradition is rooted in the gospel values of love, justice, freedom, mutual respect and hope. The new Trust will have eight schools, three primary schools here in Cork and five secondary schools, one of which is in Bray and the remaining ones in Cork and Cloyne.
I think it’s important on an occasion like this to pay tribute to those who carried the torch of education for largely poor people throughout Ireland for more than a century. It was wonderful to read the warm tribute paid by John McGahern to the Presentation Brothers in Carrick-on-Shannon. They persuaded his father to let him go to school in the first place and then to stay at it. They provided the surroundings and the stimulus for his young mind to open up to appreciate the joys of literature and the wonders of the world. The made education possible for his and thousands like him when there was no alternative. In doing so they did a signal service to the nation. Amid all the justifiable anger and outrage about the crimes and failures of some it is easy to forget the good that was done by the great majority and that was appreciated and valued by its beneficiaries. Shakespeare’s Mark Anthony was so right when he said: “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones.” Let is not be so in the case of the Presentation Brothers. We honour them and thank God today for their generosity and dedication.
But now the torch is handed on. The sacred Trust of educating the young in the Presentation tradition is now given to the direction of a group of lay people who will hold the schools and ensure that they continue to flourish and that they continue to be inspired by the vision of Edmund Rice. This group of people have the task of implementing the charter of the school which clearly outlines the key elements of an education in the Presentation Tradition. They will endeavour to see that it is a Catholic education that respects and cares for each member of the school community, an education that is comprehensive and holistic, an education that provides a vibrant experience of community and partnership, and, last but certainly not least, and education where there is a deep commitment to gospel values as lived in the Edmund rice tradition.
Some time back, when the issue of lay Trusts first came to the fore, the news that Religious were going to hand their schools over the lay Trusts was seen by many as the Church getting out of education. That was completely off the mark. These Trusts are Church bodies, just as much as Religious Congregations are. The difference is that their members are lay. And we still have a problem about thinking of lay people as the Church – even though they make up perhaps 95% of its membership. The Second Vatican Council taught that more than 40 years ago, but it is only now that we are beginning to see some of the practical fruits of that new understanding of the Church as first and foremost the People of God. So this transition is very similar to the earlier one, where the Christian Brothers schools in Cork diocese became or perhaps more correctly remained Presentation schools with a separate identity. This new trust is a public juridic body in the Church and that means that it is an official Church agency authorised to carry out its mission in the name of the Church. Far from being a sign that the Church is getting out of education, this Trust and others like it are the first shoots of a new flourishing of Catholic education under the leadership and direction of competent, dedicated and committed lay Catholic people.
And that is the second thing we celebrate today – in the famous phrase of Cardinal Newman, a second spring.
I congratulate all those involved in this development
I wish the new members and directors every blessing
Teachers, pupils, parents, boards of management.
