SYNOD: AUSSIE BISHOPS EXCHANGE VIEWS ON
EDUCATION
Vatican Correspondent
VATICAN CITY: 27th November -- Catholic education has not
ceased to be a major issue of exchange at the Oceanian Synod in Rome. The lead
was given by Cardinal Pio Laghi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic
Education, in his call that Catholic teaching in schools be 'clear and in line
with the Magisterium, imparting not only doctrine but also the principles of
morality'. He worried about the 'substitution of values for faith' in
schools today. Archbishop D'Arcy weighed in with his own concerns that
while 'in theory the prevailing pedagogy declares that a sound religious
education should educate the whole person', in fact 'the cognitive powers are
religiously underdeveloped'. Archbishop D'Arcy bewailed the fact that
'students come away from 13 years of full-time Catholic schooling seriously
ignorant of the Church's doctrines, of good reasons which support
them'.
On the other hand, Bro. Kelvin Canavan, director of Catholic
Education in Sydney, and an 'expert' at the Synod, noted that Catholic
enrolments in Australia were now at their highest level ever, even despite this
being a period of declining Mass attendance by parents and students alike.
He said 'Listening to our students we are hearing an ownership of Catholic
values, a concern for others, and some commitment to Jesus Christ but expressed
in non-traditional religious language'.
Bishops Noel Daly and Ray Benjamin, from opposite ends of the
continent, spoke warmly and encouragingly of the role of the Catholic lay
teacher, and the Catholic school in parish life.
