Thursday, September 10, 2009

Vatican: Religion should be a 'school subject'

The Vatican is demanding that religion have the status of a school subject.

The Vatican's Congregation for Catholic Education expressed the view in a letter sent to the Italian Bishops' Conference (CEI).

"It must show the Christian event with the same seriousness and depth by which other subjects present their knowledge," read the letter.

"The specificity of this teaching, does not take away its nature of a school subject.

"It is necessary, therefore, that religious teaching at school appears as a school subject with the same demands of orderliness and rigour of other subjects."

The Vatican said that the teaching of different religions could generate religious relativism and discouraged it because it could cause "confusion" or "damage".

"The marginalisation of the teaching of religion in schools is equivalent, at least in practice, to assuming an ideological position that could lead to error, or cause severe damage to pupils," it said.

"Furthermore, it could create confusion or generate religious indifference and relativism if the teaching of religion is limited to a neutral or comparative exposure of the various other religions."

Italy's public schools offer an optional "religion hour" in which students may study the Catholic religion or other faiths.

However, under a 2007 ruling only students taking Catholicism were able to receive academic credit.

In mid-August, an Italian court ruling said that high school students may no longer receive academic credit for studying Catholicism, sparking criticism from conservative centre-right politicians, including the education minister, Mariastella Gelmini.

In the letter, the Vatican also asked for parents to be allowed to choose a Catholic school as an alternative to a public school, thus ending what it called "any form of scholastic monopoly."
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SIC: AKI