Luxembourg Church regrets end to religious education in schools

The Catholic Church in Luxembourg has regretted a government decision to scrap religious teaching in schools, as part of plans to separate Church and State. 

 

"This country possesses a long, well functioning tradition of religious classes, alongside the catechesis organised through churches in preparation for First Communion and Confirmation", said Patric de Rond, the Luxembourg archdiocese's head of religious teaching. "Now everything will have to be done by parishes, and an additional burden will fall on parents who can no longer count on school help". 

 

The Catholic educationist was reacting to the enforcement of a July vote by the Grand Duchy's Chambre des Deputes to replace religious teaching with classes in "Life and Society". In a Vatican Radio interview, he said the change had been made harder for the Church by a recent reorganisation, which reduced its parishes from 274 to 33. He added that it was unclear how many parents would be able to take their children to parish classes after school hours, and said the Church would have to rely entirely on voluntary catechists once Luxembourg's 40 remaining paid religion teachers reached retirement. 

 

Catholics traditionally make up two-thirds of the 530,000 inhabitants of Luxembourg, whose Church, currently headed by Archbishop Jean-Claude Hollerich, was made an archdiocese under direct Vatican supervision by Pope St John Paul II in 1988. Under a January 2015 agreement with the centre-left government of Xavier Bettel, Europe's only openly gay premier, full Church-State separation is to be phased in over two decades, with religious associations legally required to observe "equality between men and women". 

 

In a July statement, the Education Ministry said the new "Life and Society" classes would ensure schools became "a place of dialogue, where coexistence is built and one learns respect for others".