SYNOD: AUSSIE BISHOPS EXCHANGE VIEWS ON EDUCATION
Vatican Correspondent
VATICAN CITY: 27th November -- Catholic education has not ceased to be a major issue of exchange at the Oceanian Synod in Rome. The lead was given by Cardinal Pio Laghi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, in his call that Catholic teaching in schools be 'clear and in line with the Magisterium, imparting not only doctrine but also the principles of morality'. He worried about the 'substitution of values for faith' in schools today. Archbishop D'Arcy weighed in with his own concerns that while 'in theory the prevailing pedagogy declares that a sound religious education should educate the whole person', in fact 'the cognitive powers are religiously underdeveloped'. Archbishop D'Arcy bewailed the fact that 'students come away from 13 years of full-time Catholic schooling seriously ignorant of the Church's doctrines, of good reasons which support them'.
On the other hand, Bro. Kelvin Canavan, director of Catholic Education in Sydney, and an 'expert' at the Synod, noted that Catholic enrolments in Australia were now at their highest level ever, even despite this being a period of declining Mass attendance by parents and students alike. He said 'Listening to our students we are hearing an ownership of Catholic values, a concern for others, and some commitment to Jesus Christ but expressed in non-traditional religious language'.
Bishops Noel Daly and Ray Benjamin, from opposite ends of the continent, spoke warmly and encouragingly of the role of the Catholic lay teacher, and the Catholic school in parish life.
