Who's afraid of our traditions?
(Christmas 2004)
During the pastoral visit by our Bishop wanted to underline the increasingly neglected, spiritual and cultural content of the feast of Christmas, was also planned a meeting with elementary school students and the school of Castelnuovo di Porto.
The decision was not appreciated by some teachers, contrary to the visit of the bishop, who raised an issue of the secular state school and state, and the need not to offend the religious sentiment of pupils of other faiths.
The Scientific Committee, asked to examine the problem, it is split in two between those for and against the authorization to be given to the Bishop. Finally, the Council of the Institute has suggested to the school manager, to prohibit access to the school of Bishop, fearing possible disruption to the teaching of complaints from parents of pupils of different religions than Catholic.
Following an intervention by the Head teacher at Monsignor Perla has arrived at a compromise solution, which was to limit the meeting with the Bishop to only two classes, one elementary school, another middle school , both characterized by the fact that, within them, all pupils followed the time religion.
These are the facts. Now let me make some calm consideration.
In elementary and middle school of Castelnuovo, the vast majority (95%) of pupils following the lessons of religion. Having allowed only some of them meeting with his spiritual guide, what 'is the Bishop for the Catholics, was an unjustified and unreasonable discrimination.
As with religion classes where those who are exempted moves temporarily in another room, so in this case would have been sufficient to assemble the ten children of other religions or atheists in a classroom and arrange for them an hour with the 'care of some teacher (would not be difficult, given the environment, find a voluntary non-affected encounter with the bishop!).
Regarding the hypothesis (or threat) to the proposed school manager should he allowed to enter school at Bishop's complaint of a possible disruption to teaching, by a parent of these kids, it seems completely ridiculous because I see many other reasons for the complaint to stop teaching, the parents should do at school. For example we have ever wondered what it is right to make payment or field trips to school, where part of the whole class? And the non-participation is due to the difficulty most often by parents to pay the fee request.
And, if staying on the subject, rightly, are considered important to make certain experiences from the students, such as excursions, camps, participation in theatrical performances, and so I do not see why, in the same way, the intervention of an authoritative person, a member of a religious culture in which our civilization is based, should not be viewed positively, even from a didactic point of view, as a moment of reflection stimulating for pupils.
For myself I would not have anything to say if the occasion of Ramadan (the main Islamic feast) was an Imam to explain to the students (even those Christians!) The meaning of that celebration.
But the truth is that behind all these controversies there are atheists or parents concerned about other religions of the minds of their children ..... no! there are only, perhaps, ideological speculations of some teachers and a good part of the Council of the Institute. At least this is what we seem to perceive from the outside. On the other hand, it must be said, though today the majority of parents do not feel represented by this collective body due to the fact that it was, shamefully, a fugitive at the time of that election.
Now, these people are exploiting the presence of a few pupils from other religions to launch, under the pretext of defending the secular state schools and the need to not offend non-Christians, an unjustified attack on our spiritual and cultural traditions.
Non dobbiamo permetterlo!
Stato laico non vuol dire Stato ateo! La nostra Costituzione dice che non c'è una religione di Stato ma che tutte le religioni devono essere ugualmente riconosciute e rispettate.
Pertanto non si tratta di estromettere dalla scuola di Stato le tradizioni cristiane ma, piuttosto, di accogliere e far conoscere altre tradizioni culturali e religiose.
Solo chi ha grande rispetto per le proprie tradizioni può capire e rispettare quelle altrui.
Quest'anno si è interrotta, nella scuola elementare, la tradizione del Presepio fatto dai bambini, e la recita di Natale sarà incentrata sul racconto di Pinocchio. Anche queste decisioni sono state prese dalle insegnanti con la motivazione di non offendere the feeling of some students of the Islamic faith. Justification rejected by those Muslims, who have on several occasions stated that Mary and Jesus are venerated in the Koran and that if there is a moment of communion between the two religions, this is precisely given by the Nativity, with its universal message of peace .
Muslims have realized that they can not expect them to defend their religious beliefs and their cultural traditions by those who lack respect for their own.
Finally, an episode similar to what happened in Castelnuovo, occurred in Riano. Even there, the Headmaster had no access to the school of Bishop, but a deeply felt and widespread protests by parents forced him to revise the decision allowing the end, the meeting of the prelate with the students.
Castelnuovo, unfortunately, lacked the widespread protests of parents and this is another episode to be ascribed to the increasing apathy with which the citizens of this country, they face problems in the city.
Many justify their rebelliousness to be involved with the desire not to be "labeled" politically.
They still do not understand that those who lack the courage of his ideas, he finds himself having to endure those of others.
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