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Catechesis and religious instruction in
schools
The proper character of religious
instruction in schools
73. Within the ministry of
the word, the character proper to religious instruction in schools and its
relationship with the catechesis of children and of young people merit special
consideration.
The relationship between religious
instruction in schools and catechesis is one of distinction and
complementarity: "there is an absolute necessity to distinguish clearly
between religious instruction and catechesis". (220)
What confers on religious instruction in
schools its proper evangelizing character is the fact that it is called to
penetrate a particular area of culture and to relate with other areas of
knowledge. As an original form of the ministry of the word, it makes present
the Gospel in a personal process of cultural, systematic and critical
assimilation. (221)
In the cultural universe, which is
assimilated by students and which is defined by knowledge and values offered by
other scholastic disciplines, religious instruction in schools sows the dynamic
seed of the Gospel and seeks to "keep in touch with the other elements of
the student's knowledge and education; thus the Gospel will impregnate the
mentality of the students in the field of their learning, and the harmonization
of their culture will be achieved in the light of faith". (222)
It is necessary, therefore, that religious
instruction in schools appear as a scholastic discipline with the same
systematic demands and the same rigour as other disciplines. It must present
the Christian message and the Christian event with the same seriousness and the
same depth with which other disciplines present their knowledge. It should not
be an accessory alongside of these disciplines, but rather it should engage in
a necessary inter-disciplinary dialogue. This dialogue should take place above
all at that level at which every discipline forms the personality of students.
In this way the presentation of the Christian message influences the way in
which the origins of the world, the sense of history, the basis of ethical
values, the function of religion in culture, the destiny of man and his
relationship with nature, are understood. Through inter-disciplinary dialogue
religious instruction in schools underpins, activates, develops and completes
the educational activity of the school. (223)
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