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The
muddied waters of Religious Education in Europe
Madrid, January 26th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
The ongoing debate in
Spain over Religious Education does not have a parallel in the
rest of Europe, where the situation has been resolved for years
in most countries. Further afield, a UNESCO study shows that
73 out of 142 nations examined include R.E. as part of their
basic curriculum.
Although the complexity of European educational systems makes
analysis difficult, most countries include R.E., with the notable
exception of France. There R.E. is either offered in state schools
after school hours, or Primary Schools allow time to different
religious confessions to teach pupils who request their classes.
Private schools with a state contract include R.E. in their
normal timetables. In the Upper and Lower Rhine and Moselle
regions, R.E. is included in state school curricula due to special
agreements with the Catholic Church.
Most of the rest of Europe include R.E. as part of their constitutional
understanding of religious liberty, though they offer alternatives
to pupils who do not want to take R.E. This is usually something
like moral values, philosophy or study time. The Catholic Church
has a virtual monopoly on R.E. in countries like Luxembourg,
Poland and Croatia. Similarly, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland
and the Greek Orthodox Church in Greece have special arrangements.
Other countries have special agreements with different religious
groups. In Spain, the Catholic Church signed an Accord with
the government in 1979, and another agreement was signed with
Evangelicals, Jews and Muslims in 1992, though little of it
has actually been put into practice.
In Spanish schools, R.E. is offered but is not compulsory. The
government cannot impose R.E. on a confessional school which
is different from the ethos of the school. In state schools,
R.E. is offered and examined but the marks do not count towards
final year results, grants or university entrance. Alternatives
to R.E. vary considerably, from computing to sitting by the
photocopier while the teacher does her copies! The current Socialist
government wants to remove exams from R.E. and is considering
whether parents can call for the removal of evaluation from
the alternative subject.
In the UK, Germany and Holland, R.E. forms part of the compulsory
syllabus, both for schools and pupils, though there are exceptions.
In the UK, religious schools organise activities and services,
while lay schools offer some kind of ‘religious’ input through
assemblies and classes. Scandinavia is similar, and most East
European nations also include R.E. in their school programmes.
In many countries, including Spain, Italy and Germany, R.E.
teachers must be authorised by their confessions to teach R.E.
before the state gives them a contract.
Source: ABC. Editing: ACPress.net.net
Family Christmas remains sacred
Madrid, January 26th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
Two out of three Spaniards
consider Christmas to be a family time, 14.5% think it is religious,
19.3% see it as commercial and 5.2% look on it as a holiday.
According to a survey by the Sociological Investigation Centre
(CIS), a quarter still believe Christmas has a highly religious
element to it, but this comes after seeing it as a family time.
96.3% spent Christmas Eve with their families, only 1.3% at
a friend’s house, 1.7% on their own and 0.4% at an organised
event. Even New Year’s Eve, where family obligations are somewhat
more relaxed, saw a whopping 83% with their families. A few
of us, of course, were at church, but nobody asked us.
Source: LA VOZ DE GALICIA. Editing: ACPress.net
Calls for Council to be neutral in religious matters
Valladolid, January 26th,
2005 (ACPress.net).
The United Left Party
(IU) group on Valladolid Council has called for the Corporation
to be religiously neutral at official events. It says Spain
is a non-confessional state, that no religion should prevail
over the rest and that the Constitution obliges Councils to
be neutral in religious matters.
IU complains that the Roman Catholic Church is present, in one
way or another, in much of Council business. This is not helped,
they say, by the fact that the Mayor, or other councillors,
attend Catholic functions. IU says they should not join in activities
commemorating the city’s patron saint, nor the Catholic processions
through the city streets. Historically, the Mayor leads the
Easter processions, alongside the Catholic Archbishop. There
is still a crucifix on the wall in the Council’s debating chamber,
at the same level as the symbols which represent the legal standing
and responsibility of the Council.
Source: El Norte. Editing:
ACPress.net
Opening up the Protestant mind
Madrid, January 26th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
A recent questionnaire
held on the ProtestanteDigital website covered such perennial
bees-in-the-bonnet for politically-correct evangelicals as the
role of women in church, the death penalty, and whether Spaniards
are really Catholic after all.
In general, the answers were ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘not much’. Let
women do what they like, never send anyone for the chop however
many people they may have killed, and Spain is only superficially
Catholic. It is not a scientific nor exhaustive study, clearly,
but it is the first time Protestant thought has been tested
in this way by the Spanish media. It is at least a tentative
step towards understanding the theological and sociological
composition of the evangelical fraternity (though some people
who responded to the survey might not be evangelicals). Whether
or not the results reflect the broader evangelical picture is
hard to tell; Spanish Christians are probably split down the
middle on the women issue, though ‘giving her more responsibility’
is not the same as accepting women pastors. Most are almost
certainly against the death penalty, a sign of the times, allowing
them to castigate Texans for their alleged bloodthirsty attachment
to the electric chair et al.
Only 10% of those who responded think Spain is clearly Catholic,
though 31% believe Catholicism is deeply rooted in the culture.
Yet 57% think Spain is not really Catholic; 44% that it is only
superficially so, and 13% not at all. Most of this final bloc
consider that it is anti-religious. The death penalty vote was
not perhaps as one-sided as one might have suspected, though
65% said ‘never’, and 27% said ‘in some cases.’
Source & Editing: ACPress.net
Evangelical Council asks government to re-think on gay
policy
Madrid, January 26th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
The Evangelical Council
of Extremadura (ECE) has complained in very strong terms about
proposed legislation which will permit same-sex marriage. In
a letter to the Prime Minister, the Council calls on the government
to reconsider their plans in this regard, “for the good of families
and Spanish society in general.”
The fact that only two countries in the world have passed such
a law to date means there is little reliable information as
to its effect, argues the CEE. They call for more research by
a wider team of experts to be done before rushing through legislation.
It emphasises that it depends people’s rights and freedom, but
says “my rights end where those of others begin”, in a reference
to the rights of the children who will suffer the consequences
of this law. “We are against all discrimination, but we believe
the discrimination in this case is against true married couples
and those poor children. It is not a question of interfering
in the sexual habits of people, but opposing this law which
affects all of us.”
“There is no sense of homophobia among our community...our arguments
are exclusively based on a profound concern for the welfare
of Spanish families, on the scientific reality of the phenomena,
and of the consequences of this law.” The letter closes by saying:
“May Almighty God help you in your complicated task of governing
and we want you to know that we will always be blessing your
life and asking God for you to have wisdom in legislating; “Righteousness
exalts a nation, but sin is a disgrace to any people” (Proverbs
14:34).
Source: CEE, www.ceex.org.
Editing: ACPress.net
Imposing the new religion of laicism
Madrid, January 26th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
A parliamentary group,
made up of representatives of all major parties except the opposition
Popular Party, is studying how to make Spain’s public institutions,
media and education system truly lay and non-confessional.
The group was formed at the insistence of the United Left Party
leader, Gaspar Llamazares, who picked up on an idea put forward
by a radical Italian Euro MP. Another United Left MP, Carme
García, said the group did not intend its initiative to be an
attack on any particular religious confession but to channel
efforts more efficiently into making Spain a genuinely lay state.
Using the usual buzz-words of ‘plurality’ and ‘tolerance’, it
defends the idea that the state should keep out of religion
(and, presumably, vice-versa), using the common, but flawed,
argument that religion should be consigned to the sphere of
the ‘private’.
However, the new religion of ‘laicism’ clearly needs defining,
as the group is calling a series of ‘experts’ to tell them exactly
what a lay state looks like. One wonders who these experts might
be. Constitutional backing for the initiative is found in Article
16, which guarantees the non-confessional nature of Spain. This
Parliamentary Commission also wants to be responsible for the
planned revision of the special agreement with the Vatican,
which effectively places the Catholic Church in a privileged
position in Spanish society.
Whatever the Left-wingers say, the Commission is clearly targeting
Catholic privilege and influence in political life, especially
at a time when the Catholic Church is diametrically opposed
to the immoral legislation currently being pushed through Parliament.
It smacks of a desire to impose its own ethical agenda under
the dubious guise of tolerance, while at the same time refusing
to tolerate influential opinion with which it disagrees. The
group is apparently planning to target education, long recognised
as a tool for manipulating and controlling society, in its first
salvoes against the forces of conservatism and morality.
Meanwhile, a group of Catholic politicians, mostly members of
the Popular Party, heard Mass and then had a meeting with the
Chairman of the Episcopal Conference and Catholic Archbishop
of Madrid, Antonio Maria Rouco, to discuss the current political
scene. It is an annual event but gains particular significance
this year. At the meeting, the Episcopal Secretary, Juan Antonio
Martínez, gave a talk on ‘laicism’, which was followed by a
debate.
Source: E.Press. Editing:
ACPress.net
Muslims hope up to 100,000 pupils will take their R.E.
classes
Madrid, January 27th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
The Islamic Commission
calculates that as many as 100,000 pupils could register for
their R.E. classes, given a “small” publicity campaign and a
suitable arrangements in schools. They have offered the education
authorities about 100 teachers to cover the 20 places which
the Ministry intends to make available for the time being, extending
Islamic classes to the rest of Spain. Currently, it is only
offered in Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s North African enclaves.
The Minister for Education, María Jesús San Segundo, has not
yet explained how or when these classes will be introduced,
though the government said back in November that Islamic R.E.
would be on offer from this term onwards. Local authorities
are supposed to inform the government as to the demand which
exists in their schools, and the Islamic Commission then selects
the teachers. Meanwhile, the higher education authorities will
decide when and where to put them to work.
There are about half a million Muslims in Spain and they want
the classes to start as soon as possible. One of the problems
faced by minority-confession R.E. teachers is finding them enough
hours’ work to make the position viable. The Islamic Commission
also insists that its teachers have a university qualification
gained in Spain, that they have undertaken a course on Spanish
law, and that they speak good Spanish. This would put an end
to the situation in Ceuta and Melilla, where unions have complained
that some of the teachers receive a full salary for very few
hours worked and without the requisite qualifications.
Source: Agencias. Editing:
ACPress.net
Religious liberty watchdog set up in Barcelona
Barcelona, January 27th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
The Catalan Evangelical
Council (CEC) has created a religious liberty watchdog to coordinate
the defence of freedom for Protestants in the north-eastern
region of Catalonia.
They have invited any group facing difficulties due to a lack
of religious freedom to inform them of their troubles, to make
it public and to provide a voice which speaks out against the
discrimination still faced today by Catalan Protestants. They
ask all churches and evangelical organisations to denounce any
injustice of which they are victims.
Source: CEC. Editing: ACPress.net
Catholic TV stations thrash out ideology in Madrid
Madrid, January 27th, 2005
(ACPress.net).
Catholic TV stations
from various countries met in Madrid recently to try and put
together a document expressing the ideology common to all of
them. Among the companies represented were TMT, Popular TV and
Sat2000.
All the main Catholic TV stations in Europe were there, as well
as Renato Boccardo, the papal Secretary for Social Communication,
and the Vatican Press chief, Enrique Planas. As well as developing
a common ideological statement, the meeting also talked about
building up an archive of programmes which can be offered to
smaller channels, and the whole idea cooperation between Catholic
stations. They also hope to take their desire to pool efforts
and work together to a more international meeting at a future
stage.
Source: A.Digital. Editing:
ACPress.net
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