Polish Bishops on Education Week: Religious Education in school is the right of students and parents

https://episkopat.pl/doc/233590.I-vescovi-polacchi-sulla-Settimana-dellEducazione-Leducazione

https://episkopat.pl/doc/234306.Biskupi-na-Tydzien-Wychowania-Religia-w-szkole-jest-prawem

‘For the first time since 1989, the government is breaking the law and making decisions that, in an unprecedented way, limit the importance of religious education in the upbringing of children and young people,’ Polish bishops noted in a letter marking the start of Education Week on 14 October. They pointed to changes such as limiting Religious Education lessons to one per week, the possibility of combining classes, placing them at the beginning or end of the school day, and not including Religious Education grades in the average. ‘Such actions are an expression of discrimination and intolerance towards believers in our homeland,’ they wrote, recalling that the Constitutional Tribunal had ruled them unconstitutional.

The bishops pointed out that the presence of religion in schools has an ‘educational, therapeutic and preventive dimension,’ especially in view of the growing problems of emotional distress, aggression and addiction among children and young people. Religious Education, they wrote, help shape a hierarchy of values and teach self-discipline and responsibility for one's own decisions. They also appealed for schools to provide valuable ethics classes for students who do not participate in Religious Education. ‘Education that does not include the spiritual dimension of human beings is superficial and incomplete,’ they added.

In summary, the bishops quoted Pope Leo XIV, who pointed out that in many circles today, the Christian faith is ‘considered absurd, intended for the weak and unintelligent,’ and ‘believers are ridiculed, persecuted, despised or, at best, tolerated and treated with pity.’ . ‘One might ask whether Polish schools today are becoming such an environment, where Religious Education is treated with contempt and tolerated at best,’ they wrote.

In their letter, members of the Polish Bishops’ Conference echoed the Pope's words, emphasising that a lack of faith leads to dramatic consequences: ‘a loss of meaning in life, a forgetting of mercy, a violation of human dignity [...], a crisis in the family and many other wounds’. ‘Religious Education classes are the Church's and the school's response to these very dramas. They are not a privilege, but a right of believing students and parents, a right that is confirmed by the Constitution,’ they noted. In conclusion, they expressed their gratitude to the teachers of Religious Education, educators and school principals, and gave everyone their pastoral blessing.

Press Office of the Polish Bishops’ Conference