“After years of great sensitivity to social and political problems, a period began in the late 1980s in which church communities, and the laity in particular, encountered growing difficulty in wedding faith with political passion, to the point of avoiding any kind of political reference or commitment at all, so as not to give rise to any dissension within the community itself”. This is the basic observation on which the aid “Educating in politics”, drawn up by the Italian Episcopal Conference’s Office for social and employment problems (in collaboration with the Lanza Foundation), is based. Aimed at the “renewed sensitization” of the Christian community in this area, the publication is aimed at two categories in particular: young people and the family, also the privileged recipients of the pastoral guidelines of the Italian bishops for this decade. References to biblical texts, to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, to the Catechism of the CEI, and to the documents of the Church’s social teaching “illustrate” the four sections of the handbook, in which some suggestions are also given on ways of heightening awareness in church communities on social and political issues.
