The position paper shows that Church leaders are angry at being "sidelined" by the state in recent years in the planning of new second-level schools.

The paper, seen by the Irish Independent, was prepared by the Bishops' Commission on Education, the Association of Trustees of Catholic Schools, the Conference of the Religious of Ireland and the Association of Management of Catholic Secondary Schools, and sent to Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe.

The Catholic Church does not want to run all new second-level schools - just enough to meet the needs of families that want a Catholic education for their children. The position paper insists that parents must have the right to send their children to a Catholic secondary school, if they so wish.

Far from pulling out of education, the Church says that new all-lay trusts, which are taking over religious-run schools, such as the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, the Loreto Educational Trust and CEIST, are eager to proactively engage in the trusteeship of new Catholic secondary schools, and are ready to play a vibrant role in the provision of new educational facilities for the estimated 100,000 new pupils expected in primary and post-primary schools by 2013.

Out of the 31 new second-level schools established between 1992 and 2007, only one was a Catholic secondary school and that has since closed. All the rest were community schools or VEC-run community colleges. The number of voluntary secondary schools has dropped from 461 in 1993/94, to just 393 this year, mainly because of amalgamations. However, the amalgamations resulted in only four voluntary secondary schools, the rest were all community schools or colleges.

"From the perspective of Catholic trustees, these outcomes give a very clear, but far from reassuring, insight into trends in educational development," the position paper states.

"Even today, when choice of school is available to many, over 55pc of the cohort of pupils at second level attend schools under the patronage of Catholic trustees. Surely, this legacy cannot be overlooked, or written out of our educational system."

"Catholic schools are communities with a characteristic spirit that permeates all aspects of school life, and the notion that this could be confined to religious instruction classes is a grave misconception.

"For these reasons, it is imperative that the Catholic school retains the right to articulate its own values, without apology or reserve, and to expect all who manage and work therein to respect and uphold the stated values of the school."

Economic and cost considerations appear to be the only factors influencing the provision of new schools in the eyes of the department, it says. (Source: Irish Independent)