SPAIN
Religious education in schools, yes, but not compulsory for everyone”: that’s the position re-stated in recent days by the spokesman of the Spanish bishops José Antonio Martínez Camino following the meeting of the mixed Church-State Commission on education, held in Madrid to discuss the LOE (Organic Law on Education) and aspects regarding the provision of religious education in schools and the teachers of this subject. The spokesman and secretary of the Spanish Bishops’ Conference explained that “the bishops are not calling for an obligatory subject on the curriculum, but demand that schools be obliged – in conformity with existing Church-State accords – to offer it, thus guaranteeing religious freedom”. The aim of the negotiations with the State, he explained, is to ensure that “the parents who wish and request religious education for their children are enabled to do so”. According to Monsignor Martínez Camino, “religious education must be taught in conditions equivalent to other subjects”. “Parents ask for a regular subject and not a way to fill the time. RE must have academic rigour, proper examinations and suitably trained teachers, and the LOE, as it stands now, does not guarantee this”. Martínez Camino said that during the meeting at the Ministry of Education, in which Cardinal Cañizares, vice-president of the Spanish episcopate, participated, “no alternative to religious education in schools was discussed” and explained that “there are difficult objective problems. We now have ten days to see whether we can find solutions, not easy but possible”.
