Education for Citizenship leads to totalitarianism, says Spanish Cardinal
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Madrid, Spain, Apr 24, 2007 / 11:35 am (CNA).- The Archbishop of Toledo, Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, warned this week the government sponsored educational course “Education for Citizenship” “is leading us to totalitarianism” and is “incompatible with the identity of Catholic schools.”

“The course Education for Citizenship is incompatible with the identity of Catholic schools.  A Catholic school would cease to be such if it offered this course,” in the same way that if a public school, if it did the same, “would lose its obligatory ideological neutrality,” the Cardinal said.

He stressed that the purpose of the course material “is not that we be good, but that we behave well,” since “when there is no freedom of conscience, freedom of education, we head towards totalitarianism.  Education for Citizenship is leading us to totalitarianism.”

Regarding religious freedom, Cardinal Cañizares said this right has been “truly been curtailed,” as “at best faith is tolerated only in the private sphere,” and he underscored that Spain is following the same path as the eastern European countries during the era of the Berlin Wall.

In a reference to Spanish President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero’s initiative called “The Alliance of Civilizations,” which calls for the West to negotiate a truce with Islamic terrorists, Cardinal Cañizares said it was easier to establish “a relationship between Christianity and Islam.”

Both religions, he explained, “acknowledge God as their starting point, while in the Alliance of Civilizations there is complete distrust for religion and God is seen as a source of division and confrontation.”  “The best response to the Alliance of Civilizations is the path laid out by Benedict XVI at Regensburg: the affirmation of the unity between faith and reason.”

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Subscriber comments:
Published by: Brian
Indianapolis, IN, USA 04/25/2007 07:10 AM EST
Did Francoism lead to totalitarianism?
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Published by: G. De Feo
Brooklyn/ NY/USA 04/24/2007 02:35 PM EST
What else could be expected from a Socialist like Zapatero other than these types of initiatives?

It is only that the Church must remain vigilant there and protest programs to be initiated that, by their benign sounding titles, try to seduce the people.
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Published by: George Angel
Canada 04/24/2007 12:07 PM EST
In other words this government sponsored educational course "Education for Citizenship" would be forced on Catholic schools throughout Spain so that the Catholic schools would teach a course that is incompatible and in total contradiction to what Catholic schools are supposed to be teaching, so that the government could literally wash their hands of what they are really attempting to do. Oh what a web we weave? Pray for the Catholic School systems of Spain and the entire world, especially in the Province of Ontario, Canada where the Catholic school system is in great peril of collapsing from the pressures of both external and internal forces. Pray for the children and students of all Catholic schools around the world that they maintain the authenticity of the Catholic faith upon which they were all founded, according to the Magesterium of the Catholic Church. Pray, Pray, Pray!
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