Seminar in Strasbourg

Council of Europe: citizenship and democracy, the experience of Catholic schools. Mgr. Rudelli, “integral development of the person”

(Strasbourg) The issue of education in a multicultural environment has “new dimensions” for Europe, said Mgr. Paolo Rudelli, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the Council of Europe, as he opened the Seminar that is taking place at the Council of Europe on citizenship education and the experience of Catholic schools: “The Christian knowledge of many students attending Catholic schools, even baptized, and of their families, has become vague and sometimes almost absent”. Furthermore, “the phenomenon of migration has led to an increasing number of students from non-Christian religions” arriving in Europe and attending Catholic schools and universities, either because of the “quality of education provided”, or because the “teaching provided ensures respect for the religious dimension of the person, which is not always valued in public schools”. According to Mgr. Rudelli, Catholic teaching, with its three characteristic traits, contributes to education in multiculturalism: it is “an education focused on the integral development of the person, in every dimension of life, including the spiritual dimension”. It is an education centred on the “notion of educating community as an actor of education”, a community formed “by students, parents, teachers, directors and all the staff”, one that is, by nature, “a place of harmony between different cultures”, “incarnated in real people”, a place where there is “dialogue between the different actors”. Finally, according to Mgr. Rudelli, Catholic schools offer “the integration of the religious dimension in the construction of democratic citizenship and intercultural dialogue”.