A bishop accused the Polish government of breaking the law by halving weekly religion classes in schools.
Bishop Wojciech Osial of Łowicz, who chairs the Catholic Education Commission of the Polish bishops’ conference, made the claim on Thursday at the presentation of a new core curriculum for Catholic education in schools.
He said the coalition government had acted unlawfully because the change was not agreed beforehand with the Church.
At the start of this academic year, the education ministry mandated that pupils should have only one hour of the municipally-funded and voluntary “religia” classes each week, instead of two. The classes essentially teach the Catholic catechism and rarely include information on other religions.
Education minister Barbara Nowacka justified the decision saying two hours per week was excessive and pupils should spend more time on other academic subjects.
Attendance at the voluntary classes has fallen in recent years and schools now have to offer an ethics class as an alternative.
The new core curriculum is divided into five thematic sections. The first is entitled: “The Search and Dilemmas of a Young Person”, the second, “Faith and Life of the Church”, the third, “Youth in a Pluralistic World”, the fourth, “Christian Cultural Heritage” and finally, “Catholic Holidays and Traditions”.
“This core curriculum includes many issues concerning the origin of man, the world, the relationship between faith, Christian anthropology and the existence of evil in the world,” said Fr Paweł Mąkosa, assistant professor of Catechetics the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin and consultant to the commission.
“We want to convey the truths of faith, the liturgy with the sacraments and moral norms from a Christian and Catholic perspective,” he continued.
“We want to convey what Christianity and Catholicism have contributed to European and Polish civilisation. We want to show that Christianity is alive and that it shapes culture today.”
Bishop Osial said the core curriculum is the basis for a standard textbook that is being prepared and will be consulted at the turn of January and February next year.