San Marino. Teaching the Catholic religion: UDS’s doubts
“The Union of San Marino Women intervenes on the teaching of the Catholic religion in kindergartens. The first perplexity is the urgency of including this subject for boys and girls in kindergarten already in the year, without even having informed the parents of this who, therefore, have not had the opportunity to request the teaching of ethics as an alternative, as is the case for other school levels”.
It can be read in a press release. “It is a surprise even for the teachers, who are also not involved in the decision-making process and who find themselves called, in spite of themselves, to impart a previously mentioned teaching of a confessional nature whose referent is Don Mangiarotti.
Above all, the early divarication of educational paths in public schools on a religious basis is regrettable. It is a regression of the secular state at the expense of the very small. The agreement with the Holy See was signed in 2018 by the previous government, when the teaching of the Catholic religion in schools had already been “customary” for years with programs written by the Curia and with teachers who required the approval of the bishop. The agreement has institutionalized the hour of religion in public schools and, we now learn, has also extended it to kindergartens.
Promote – because this is what it is all about, just read the competence goals attached to the decree, for example “The child discovers the person and teaching of Jesus in the Gospel stories, from which he learns that God is the Father of all and that the Church is the community of men and women united in its name…” – a vision of the world and of humanity of the creationist type should never be a goal of public schools, which should rather, as it already does for all other disciplines, promoting a rational thought, critical and free from any dogmatism.
It is even more strident if done with the very young and very young in the space and times of the kindergarten without, we repeat, not even informing the parents and teachers. In a completely secular state, religion must certainly be addressed, as an important cultural and identity phenomenon, but not with guidelines drawn up by the Curia and teachers who need the bishop’s approval.
This forcing towards the very young seems to us to be the umpteenth concession to a religious power which, becoming increasingly weak in a society that is secularizing itself, seeks privileges and the progressive occupation of public spaces which a political class with little attention to secularism does not hesitate to grant even to the detriment of more reasonableness”.