Jul 6, 2007 / 10:00 am
Archbishop Agustin Garcia-Gasco of Valencia, Spain, said this week it is unacceptable to use a class to indoctrinate students with the government’s agenda, as is the case with the administration of President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and the “Education for Citizenship” class, thus aiming “to turn the State into a feudal lord that dictates how its subjects will live, according to its own whims.”
The archbishop said there were serious questions about the true purpose of the Education for Citizenship class. “The intention of promoting a class in order to attain a citizenry in line with the ideological premises of the government cannot be sustained in a state governed by the rule of law, and thus it should be rejected outright,” he said in his weekly pastoral letter.
Archbishop Garcia-Gasco noted that collaboration between the school and parents is very important for the formation of children and that therefore no education reform will be successful if it is not in keeping with this principle.
Education truly advances when the convictions that bring meaning to peoples’ lives are strengthened, and thus a “false neutrality” has no place in education, he said, since “discovering the true values of life, cultivating authentic virtues, is a task much too important to leave God out.”