editorial" "
The discussion concerning the recognition of the Christian roots of Europe in the preamble to the future constitutional Charter also gives us cause to reflect on school education and its capacity to transmit, on the one hand, the contents of a particular cultural tradition and, on the other, the “ability” to place such a tradition in a pluralist context, capturing its vitality and its capacity to “fertilise” the world that surrounds us. This question arises particularly in the teaching of religion which, at a European level, is the subject of very different methods and legislation in the various States (Sir 27/2003). There is, however, one common element: a growing awareness that contemporary culture cannot be called to account without facing up to the questions raised by religious thought and traditions, especially those of Christianity. One eloquent example of this is to be seen in France where there has long been a certain aversion to the teaching of religion and, in a certain sense, a marked tendency to relegate the question to the private sphere. This represents, at heart, a denial of the capacity of religious thought and attitudes first among them those of the Christian tradition to influence the world of culture. France, however, is undergoing a period of profound rethinking. A realisation arose that children in French schools had difficulty in fully appreciating the richness and abundance of the cultural references around them, precisely because they lacked adequate religious knowledge. In 2001, the minister of education even commissioned the philosopher Régis Debray to look into the matter, and thought was also given to reviewing the educational syllabus, perhaps laying greater emphasis on the history of religion. The situation in Italy has some bearing on this matter. Here, the teaching of the Catholic religion, as defined in the concordatory revision of 1984, is justified at two levels: on the one hand because, in a general way, religious culture is a “value” in the sense mentioned above (that knowledge of the general and particular elements of “religious thought”, its specific current and historical aspects, is an aid to understanding overall cultural heritage); on the other hand it identifies “the principles of Catholicism” as a specific object of study because they are part of “the historical heritage of the Italian people”. Those who know the history of the long process that culminated in the concordatory revision of 1984 in Italy, understand that this represented a significant moment of achievement after lengthy and profound discussions that “agitated” particularly, though not exclusively, the Catholic world. To a large extent, reflections were focused on the legitimisation of the teaching of the Catholic religion in State schools, a teaching that had previously been upheld for partisan and ideological motives. In the European perspective, the teaching of Italian Catholic religion opens an important road, one that goes well beyond the difficulties that have historically accompanied the concordatory solution. The road is that of an entirely scholastic form of teaching (participation is open to all irrespective of their personal faith, its aims are those of State schools and concern the acquisition of precise knowledge and expertise in keeping with methods typical of school education) in which confessionality (it is a teaching of the Catholic religion, partly directed by the Church in matters concerning the syllabus and the teachers) appears rather as a resource than a limitation and is justified by obvious historical and cultural motives.
