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I'd do it again says Catholic principal who barred pregnant girl from school

Irish principal says protecting morals are more important than promoting education

ANTOINETTE KELLY,

IrishCentral Staff Writer

Published Thursday, July 26, 2012, 7:50 AM

Updated Thursday, July 26, 2012, 11:04 AM

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Padraig O'Shea

Photo by Irish Independent

An Irish school principal who refused to enroll a teenage girl because she was pregnant is now refusing to apologize. Padraig O'Shea, now the school manager of Saint Joseph's College in County Tipperary, has disputed the girl’s version of events and vowed he would do the same again.

O'Shea, speaking to the Irish Independent for the first time since the Irish Children's Ombudsman ruled that the Irish Catholic school had discriminated against the 16-year-old, insisted there 'must be standards of morality in every school and that is the wish of 99 percent of parents.'

Ombudsman Emily Logan told the press that the teenager applied to Saint Joseph's when she was pregnant and again after giving birth, but she was refused entry both times in 2009 and 2010.

O'Shea told the Independent that Logan and various politicians had 'gravely misjudged the moral integrity of the Irish people.' O'Shea added that he has received 'universal support' for his hardline stance and claimed Logan had refused to debate the issue on television with him.

'There is nothing to apologize for. I wish her every success in life,' O'Shea added.

'Parents appreciate discipline in a school. It is my duty to ensure that parents who repose confidence in me are duly rewarded, and my student body and my staff are people of the highest integrity and we shall retain our reputation in all respects. Simple as that,' O'Shea said.

The former principal retired in 2009 but he continues to work as school manager at the privately owned Catholic school, which has more than 300 male and female students.

'The teenager was in three schools before she sought entry here - the ombudswoman said she was in two schools. Now if you were principal, wouldn't that lead to questions?' he asked. 'Logan says she came a second time - I have no recollection of her coming a second time. There was also a statement made that students and teachers asked me to take her in. No student and no teacher ever asked me to take her in. Enrolments are done during the month of August when neither students nor teachers are present anyway.'

According to the Children's Ombudsman, the teenager said she felt 'hurt and discriminated against' after being refused admission to the school. 'I felt ashamed and embarrassed that someone could make me feel this way for being a single young mother,' she said.

The girl’s mother mother said that the school's actions had caused immeasurable damage to the girl's self-esteem, and that they had felt stigmatized and slighted as a family.

O'Shea countered that if faced with the same scenario again, he would still adopt the same stance and refuse the pregnant teenager entry.

'It took us an hour to get home from Mass the first day - the church is only up the road. They were holding us up and chatting to us in shops and all. They were saying congratulations,' he said. 'I got 92 letters in less than three weeks and several phone calls from past pupils and parents,' he added. 'Teachers from other schools supported me.'

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Andrew007 | Aug 04, 2012, 10:54 AM EDT

@Eiriamach Part #3 (aarrgh!); Unfortunately, the article made no mention of what became of the boy, and was in many respects scant on detail. I’d like to know quite a few things: #1: how was the boy treated and was he admitted to that Catholic school when she was not? #2: did the girl have other options for education in her town? #3: what steps did the public education system take to keep on educating her during and after her pregnancy? #4: who was it that went to the media first? #5: was she in fact a known troublemaker and had she been expelled from other schools before her application to the private school, which O’Shea alluded to (because that would mean she was being excluded not for being pregnant but for running amok)? #6: if she was initially a brat, what genuine steps she (and her parents) had taken to reform her behaviour, and had that been included with her application? The answers to all of these questions have major bearing on the case at hand, and without which, I simply cannot make a valid moral judgement call – despite my agreement with O’Shea regarding his legal right to make that call but my unease with his apparent lack of compassion.

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Andrew007 | Aug 04, 2012, 10:51 AM EDT

@Eiriamach Part #2; Right, back to the topic at hand! (Phew!) Eiriamach, I share your JUST concern with underage sex amongst children, and I agree with your comment that laws aren't necessarily moral nor effective at protecting the innocent (sometimes from themselves), and I agree with you that both the girl AND the (presumed) boy should be treated equally and fairly - both were to blame equally, so as a matter of justice (which I believe in), they should share an equal burden of the punishment (although, I believe their parents have a lot to answer for too). I also agree with you that to deprive the girl of schooling is punishment, and I would even say it’s excessive punishment, as it ultimately punishes not just the girl for her whole life but also the utterly innocent baby who will have to grow up in a household condemned to poverty.

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Andrew007 | Aug 04, 2012, 10:35 AM EDT

@Eiriamach Part #1: I thank you for your words of apology and explanation Eiriamach, which I gratefully accept. Please also accept my apology for my retort on Cahir's blog "As Good as It Gets", which was my reaction to what I believed was an uncalled-for insult against not just me but also - and *Especially* - my mother. I've only ever heard the term 'snarky' used before as an insult, and so when I saw it, after my shock, I reacted. Just so that you know, I only ever try to "play the ball, not the man". Yes, I'll be vociferous and direct in the expression of my opinions about public policy (and having been an NCO in the Army, I can even be very blunt at times should I believe the situation requires it), but when it comes to people's personal info I always try to tread carefully and respectfully first - as the saying goes: "walk softly but carry a big stick". I did actually send 2 other posts after my last (named) posting on Cahir's blog - the first WAS posted but weirdly without my name on it (despite being logged in), and the 2nd wasn't. The 2nd was an assurance to Cahir that despite our obvious moral/religious/philosophical differences and my concerns that remained (re social policy), that I had meant him no ill will in my post (describing only my 'lightbulb moment'), and that if he had taken offence then I apologised for it ... Altho please note Eiriamach that I can also be very dry, laconic and ironic at times, even to the point of being cynical and even a little sarcastic, but never when someone’s bravely exposing their emotions (well, at least not intentionally anyway – I am still human! :P ).

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eiriamach | Aug 02, 2012, 03:54 PM EDT

I understand, Andrew007, I also wrote in annoyance, at not being able to reply to your reply on Cahir's blog "As Good as It Gets." IC has a software glitch that allows postings with no name; the next poster's name gets attached to the no-name posting. Since there's a no-name posting there, I cannot reply there and will take this opportunity. I thought I was being mild in commenting only on the *tone* of your posting ("snarky"), rather than inferring any anti-gay animus from it. One of the things I like about Maureen Dowd's NY Times column is that she is sometimes quite snarky, so that word is not always an insult when I use it (I usually agree with Dowd's politics, though not with her judgments about people). When I wrote that word, I meant to express my concern about what lies beneath the tone of your words. There have been many postings on IC lately that are openly racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. Editors remove some of them, but the number is worrisome. I should not have written the insult about morality. I know nothing about your morality, so I apologize. ~~~~~ I have followed cases of "violation" of underage girls reported in Irish newspapers and have read the laws, which changed recently. The fact that the law does not define intercourse with an underage girl always as rape does not mean that the law is a moral one that adequately protects children. I'm no fan of statutory rape laws, but if we're not going to punish the (presumed) boy, we ought not to punish the girl, and depriving her of schooling is punishment, whether the school is public or private. Add shaming to the rejection, and it's clearly mistreatment of a child. I base my view on the moral principle of equality, not the law as written.

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Andrew007 | Aug 01, 2012, 01:00 AM EDT

@Eiriamach, I do apologise, my post to you was not as calm as I'd hoped, as I'd written amidst my annoyance at your insult.

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Andrew007 | Jul 31, 2012, 11:50 PM EDT

@Eiriamach(Part 2): #3. There are wider factors at play here, not just your narrow focus on the rights of the girl and her need for schooling and her demand to be taught at that PRIVATE religious school (as opposed to elsewhere). I raised them as questions in my posts (and elsewhere), but your failure to even consider them and, worse, your decision to attack and engage in personal insult just because someone said something you disagreed with, reflects poorly upon you I’m afraid.

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Andrew007 | Jul 31, 2012, 11:48 PM EDT

@Eiriamach: #1. I say again, your concern regarding the girl’s age when becoming pregnant is understandable (and commendable), but LISTEN to what I say and please read the relevant laws dealing with under-age pregnancies and statutory rape BEFORE you start ranting again and displaying your ignorance and obvious prejudice (even Wikipedia is a better place than none to start with). Even just a cursory inspection strongly indicates – as a generalisation - that providing that the female is at least pubescent (depending upon the jurisdiction, 12-14yo), males can be (depending upon the jurisdiction) up to 3 or even 4 years older than the under age female in question WITHOUT the consensual sex being deemed statutory rape. This means that in these “exceptional” so-called “Romeo and Juliet” cases, it is NOT RAPE. The facts of the case in question suggest that the girl became pregnant when she was 13, and thus – judging by the lack of ANY mention of a claim of rape or charges for statutory rape in the article (which I’m sure the author would’ve done so had it happened), that the act was consensual and almost certainly with a boy around her own age. #2. You stated the obvious when you mentioned that the law (and traditional morality) frowns upon underage people having sex and producing babies (which of COURSE I don’t dispute), but erroneously focussed on the health complications for 15-16yo girls (which again I don’t dispute despite the fact that 16yos can often physically bear children well and the girl in question was 13) as opposed to the very real and almost universal fact that teenagers of BOTH sexes are notoriously irresponsible and, as you correctly say, are in many ways still children (although of course decreasingly so) – especially boys who emotionally mature later than girls, and as teenagers and youths have testosterone-fuelled drives that help cause reckless behaviour (unless contained and directed by good fathering).

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misneac | Jul 31, 2012, 09:00 PM EDT

I totally support Mr.OShea .He has no obligation to lower the standards of an institution to which any caring parent would wish to send their child .Dont try bringing in any red herring issues about " Catholic " morality .You sign up to get an education in an institution with high educational and moral standards ,if you dont obey the rules then why should other children and parents tolerate your indiscipline ? No wonder society in Ireland is populated with unmarried mothers and "partners " ,all of whom think that the taxpayers should subsidise their lifestyle ! If I was in Social Welfare I would teach them a lesson .

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eiriamach | Jul 30, 2012, 12:59 PM EDT

The fact that it IS a crime when the male is older is enough to tell us that the law frowns upon intercourse with 15- and 16-year-old girls. Teen pregnancy imposes a risk to life, both to the pregnant girl and the fetus; if she can carry it to term, her health may be compromised for the rest of her life and the child would have a high risk of abnormalities. The law should protect girls for this reason, since, obviously, boys and men often lack the sex education or common sense, not to mention responsibility, to consider the health consequences of pregnancy for underage girls. O'Shea made a decision to blame the girl for her own predicament, regardless of how the pregnancy happened (or maybe he knew it was rape and didn't want her in the school talking about it?). The law tries to protect teenagers, even against their own foolishness. They are, after all, still CHILDREN under the law. Their role in society is NOT to serve as moral paragons for their peers or for you, Andrew007 (though you could benefit from some examples of morality). This girl needs schooling, and she has received discrimination of a kind the principal reserves for females. It was a shameful decision, no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

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JimmieM | Jul 30, 2012, 09:39 AM EDT

Well if you want your little girls getting pregnant as soon as possible, then by all means make it comfortable and easy for them to do so...if not enough are getting with child, offer them some money...of course it is kind of mean to do as most of them will have to live sad and depressing lives because of it

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Andrew007 | Jul 29, 2012, 11:27 PM EDT

Oops, forgot to say: Given that (according to some stats) that up to 1/2 of all children in Ireland are now born (or at least conceived) out of wedlock, and that (as an example) the towns of Wicklow and Arklow have public housing estates which are dominated by single-mother families, I have little doubt that O'Shea wanted to prevent from appearing to endorse to the children under his care a "sinful" lifestyle that contradicted everything his school taught (which may have unavoidably been the case had he enrolled the girl in question). Broken and fatherless families are a tragic cursed blight upon any society, with often disastrous consequences (esp with young males), and if this was O'Shea's reasoning then I cannot condemn his decision (altho providing male role models could've been within the ambit of the school), however uneasy and unhappy I am with it ...

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Andrew007 | Jul 29, 2012, 11:13 PM EDT

This is an incredibly complex situation to make a conclusion about, which hasn't been helped by the lack of information in this news article. Was the girl raped or not? If the act was consensual was she repentant of it (important to Catholics & undoubtedly O'Shea)? Was the male enrolled when she wasn't? Was she a trouble-maker & had a history of being one (suggested by her being in 2-3 schools previously)? Were there other options open to the girl in question? While I'm not at all happy with the apparent lack of Christian compassion displayed by O'Shea, as the principal of a PRIVATE school (with undoubtedly restricted intake) he was responsible for the school's admin, discipline and direction, and accountable to the parents who effectively pay his wage (who seem to have publicly supported his decision), and as such his job was on the line. Also, O'Shea's primary responsibility wasn't to the pregnant girl but the children already under his care, and given his obvious suspicion that she was a 'bad apple', made a judgement call to safeguard his students - as the saying goes, "one bad apple spoils the bunch". Therefore, his decision may have been one of containment as opposed to callousness. So, do I like O'Shea's apparent smugness with his decision or lack of compassion? No I don't, but I think that there's more to this story than what has been reported here, & there are other factors that also need to be taken into account.

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Andrew007 | Jul 29, 2012, 10:42 PM EDT

@Eiramach: while I understand your concern, an under-age girl who has sex isn't raped when #1 the male is around her same age & #2 it's consensual. This has been established as a legal principle in many jurisdictions throughout the West for many years. This of course contrasts to when the girl is under-age and the male with whom she's had sex with is NOT around her same age, whereupon it becomes "Statutory Rape" - an act legally deemed to be rape even if the girl voluntarily consented to the act.

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seamus60 | Jul 29, 2012, 03:06 PM EDT

Let he without sin cast the first stone. Big fat twat.

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sparticusnorth | Jul 28, 2012, 11:19 AM EDT

catholicabusesurvivorsni----------------typical old boys church school hypocrite---compassion and help ??/

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