The Catholic school that cancelled an invitation for me to speak to its final year students is now reviewing the situation and is considering re-issuing the invitation. The principal has said that the school will contact Atheist Ireland regarding the matter in due course.
I was scheduled to speak yesterday to the final year students at a Dublin-based Dominican girl’s secondary school. It would have been the first time that a representative of an atheist advocacy group had spoken at a Catholic school in Ireland.
However, the school then canceled the formal invitation, in order to uphold and reflect the Catholic ethos of the school, despite the fact that the school has had a Muslim guest speaker who presumably would not have reflected a Catholic ethos.
The cancelation was highlighted on Twitter yesterday by scientists Richard Dawkins and Jerry Coyne, philosophers Russell Blackford and Peter Boghossian, human rights activist Maryam Namazie and science and skeptic writer Michael Shermer.
You can read details here of the original invite and the cancelation.