"Standardising all the Institutes for advanced religious studies (Issr) within the universal Church, guaranteeing they have appropriate academic-scientific standards, respectful of the magisterium, and responding to the requests made by the particular Churches to create such institutes ‘ex novo’". These are the main goals of the new "Instruction on the Institutes for advanced religious studies", by the Congregation for Catholic Education. "With the opening of the Bologna Process commented card. Zenon Grocholewski, prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, as he presented the document today , many countries have revised their laws on the achievement of professional qualifications for teaching in schools of different levels, affecting teachers of religion too", who "from now on will be able to teach only if they have an academic qualification after at least a five years’ course". Hence the decision taken by some Bishops Conferences, such as the Spanish and the Italian ones, to "submit to the Congregation, for approval, their plans for the rearrangement of the Issr, considering the new regulatory requirements under different national legal systems", while the bishops of other countries "ask to build" such institutes which they do not have yet. (continued)
