"Catholic schools operate in all geographic areas, even in places where there is no religious freedom, or with higher social and economical drawbacks, with an amazing capability to answer the training needs and emergencies, even though sometimes there are great difficulties". Today, those words were spoken by Msgr. Angelo Vincenzo Zani, under-secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, while he presented the document "Educating together in Catholic schools". In Lebanon, for example, "the most important goal of the programme of Catholic schools is fostering youth to dialogue and collaboration between Muslims and Christians": 63% of the 210 thousand pupils of Catholic schools, belonging to the eighteen religious confessions which are present in the country, are Catholic; 12.6% of them are Christians of other confessions, and 24.4% are not Christians (most of them are Muslims). In a few areas of the country, the non-Catholics are 99% of the pupils in Catholic schools. In the Holy Land, said Zani, Catholic schools are attended by 55% of Christians and 45% of non-Christians (Muslims, most of all), as well as by some Jews. Furthermore, in Bosnia, during the Balkans War, the archdiocese of Sarajevo established three schools named "Schools for Europe", meant to welcome Serbian, Croatian and Muslim pupils.
