In school with respect

After 70 years of State atheism and a ten-year long debate, Russia decided to introduce religion classes in schools. Pupils or their parents will have the possibility to opt for the teaching of Orthodox Christianity, representing the faith of over 70% of Russian people. The bill envisages also the teaching of Islam, Judaism and Buddhism. As an alternative, pupils can attend classes on comparative religion, regarding major religious traditions. Atheists or Gnostics can opt for civic education classes. Accordingly, the teachers (44thousand are needed) will be secular, also in compliance with Church-State separation, as provided for in the Constitution. This cultural revolution, was announced on July 21 by the head of the Kremlin Dmitri Medvedev, to the presence of the leaders of Russia’s four major religions. Religion teaching is planned to be activated experimentally starting next September across 14 Russian regions (where different religious traditions are represented), in 12 thousands schools for 246 thousand students. It will become “mandatory” starting from fourth grade. Msgr. Paolo Pezzi, archbishop of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow provided an insight on the issue. Msgr. Pezzi, what is your opinion of this bill? “In general terms, we welcomed the possibility of introducing the teaching of religion in schools even in the past. Considering that the Country has an Orthodox-Christian majority, it was expected that this religious tradition would be given priority. We also reckoned that even other religions needed to be included in the teaching program, especially in the Russian Federation, where a large majority practises Islam and Buddhism. The law envisages the possibility to choose between these religions and a course in ethics. By and large my opinion is that the law takes into account the reality and goes in the direction of not excluding the religious dimension of education, which I consider the most important aspect”.Any perplexity?“There are at least two hanging questions. The first is: who will hold the lessons. In other words, do teachers undergo a true religious formation? Namely, what is the role of the Church in this formation process? I believe that the law does not account for this issue. As far as I understand, lay teachers will hold the classes. This means that a guarantee – which in Italy is granted by the dioceses – ought to be granted. Another question relates to content. Who will write the schoolbooks and how will teachers convey the subject matter? It is necessary to prevent politics from interfering with religious education. This question was raised in the West with the teaching of Islam”.What is your concern?“It is feared that the teaching of religion may be aimed at indoctrination. This kind of problem took place in a number of Western countries with the teaching of Islam, where it became clear that its purpose was to uphold specific ideological stands. Another aspect is that the teaching of religion must pay due respect to the message of other religions and other Christian confessions”.To this regard, what is the space devoted to the Catholic Church? “In the many meetings we attended – albeit marginally -, we underlined the positive aspects of the law and our own concerns. We are aware that we are a minority. The law refers to Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, but it doesn’t provide a clear definition of Christianity. In concrete terms, priority was given to the view that Orthodoxy had to be understood when referring to Christianity. This is understandable, since the majority of faithful are Orthodox Christians. On our part, we are concerned that Catholicism ought to be addressed with respect. Indeed, we have made ourselves available to examine and correct the points of the bill that refer to Catholicism. For the future, we intend to ask that Catholicism be taught in schools with a large enough number of pupils opting for this choice”.