Growing with the young

“The documents of the magisterium of the Church consider that religious education is a clear service to man and, as such, a specific contribution to the educational project of schools”, having as its reference “the family, the Christian community, society and the world of culture”. This is one of the conclusions of the meeting of delegates of the Churches of Europe inaugurating a research project on the teaching of religion in schools, held in Rome in recent days. Promoted by the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (Ccee) at the proposal of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (Cei) with the aim of drawing up a report on the situation of religious education (Re) in schools in Europe, the seminar was attended by delegates of the 34 European Bishops’ Conferences that form part of the Ccee. The basis of their discussion was formed by a provisional survey compiled by the staff conducting the research. The delegates included Archbishop Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz (Moscow), Tomas Pedro Barbosa da Silva Nunes (auxiliary bishop of Lisbon), the abbot of Einsiedeln (Switzerland) Martin Werlen and the auxiliary of Budapest György Udvardy. The meeting undertook to complete the report and send it to the project staff by November 2006. THE PROJECT . Against the background of the seminar, the project approved by the plenary assembly of the Ccee in October 2005 aims to involve the Catholic Churches of Europe in promoting dialogue on RE in schools, reinforcing the exchange of experiences between the various ecclesial communities and heightening awareness of responsibility in the field of schooling and education. “The project is also aimed at fostering – says a press release – an ever more conscious common conviction in European society of the contribution offered by religion/religions and by ecclesial communities to the promotion of man and of the new Europe by contributing to a continuous reflection accompanying the changes now taking place in the current European context”. In the months ahead, the research will collect and pool national reports, to point out themes and models that can be developed in various ways. The project will conclude in 2007 with a symposium, to present its results and offer them to the European Churches and communities. SOCIAL ROLE. Reviewing the educational policies of the international organizations and of the European Union, and reflecting on the Church’s contribution to the formation of European man, Monsignor VINCENZO ZANI , under-secretary of the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education, pointed out: “In a pluralist and multi-religious context like that at present, schools are rediscovering an irreplaceable social role. And religious education forms an integral part of this: it is “a means of learning and understanding the contents of Christian religion, open to everyone and given a cultural connotation”. It is a form of education that helps children to “understand the cultural tradition of the West”, profoundly influenced “by Christianity in its two millennia of history” and enables them “to grapple with the great problems of man”. It helps “to open up schools to the more global social context” and to make children alert to such themes as global development, peace and solidarity: themes, said Zani, that are “eminently pedagogical”. UNITY AND MULTIPLICITY. At the centre of the attention of delegates was the complexity of the situation of Europe, which has always been a crucible of people and cultures. Yet, “albeit amid difficulties and regressive tendencies”, MAURO CERUTI , head of the Faculty of Letters and Philosophy at the University of Bergamo, sees in this situation a “horizon of reconciliation” which “means recognizing in the other person the motor of one’s own development, perennial source of interrogation, stimulus and creativity”. In this horizon, according to Ceruti, “the recognition of the roots that connect all the European peoples to a common history and civilization, unitary and yet plural, has been and continues to be a dynamic and inescapable factor”. And these roots, he stressed, “are Christian roots, throughout our continent, in space and in time”. The image of the “four pillars of Europe” (the three monotheist religions and classical culture) “so dear to the humanists of the Renaissance”, and the “great expressions of lay thought” are not, in Ceruti’s view, in opposition to the Christian tradition: on the contrary they were only made possible by virtue of it”. “In Europe, unitas multiplex ( unity in multiplicity) is not the exception but the rule”. And today, he concludes, “educational courses for the new generations of European citizens cannot but be based on the recognition of this condition, understood as one of the best resources for a form of co-existence that is not merely tolerance, but a close-knit fabric of common heritages”.