Catholic magazine calls for educational reform in Cuba

Havana, Cuba, Dec 14, 2006 / 22:00 pm

The magazine “Vitral,” which is published by the Center for Civic and Religious Formation (CCRF) of the Diocese of Pinar del Rio, distributed an important document entitled, “Ethical Proposal for a Christian-inspired Educational Project for Cuba.”

The 90-page document is the culmination of a year and a half of reflection carried out by a group of educators from the CCRF and says the country needs “an educational system that helps us all to grow as free, responsible just and fraternal persons who seek out the truth, and build up justice and peace.”   

Such a task falls to parents, teachers, religious and civil leaders and all people of good will, the document stresses, and it says the proposal is “only the beginning” of a process that will need to be “enriched, modified, corrected, amplified and reviewed by all those who feel called to do so, without any kind of difference or distinction.”

The purpose of education, the document says, is to provide comprehensive formation in order to make men and women into “the principal protagonists of their own history.”  All those involved in education must ask themselves before, during and after their work: “What kind of man or woman, what quality of person am I helping to form?”

The Church, as “expert in humanity,” has a role to play in education, the document emphasizes.  While the Church does not seek out privilege or the imposition of a sectarian model for education in Cuba, she brings “two thousand years of experience to bear on the task of educating in values and virtues” and has as her only intention that of serving the people to which she is indissolubly united.