Madrid, Spain, Dec 13, 2004 / 22:00 pm
The Archdiocese of Valencia, Spain, said last week more than a million people in the province of Valencia alone have signed a petition to support religion classes in public schools.
The signatures were collected by the Catholic Confederation of Parents of Students and by the “National Platform in Defense of Religion Classes.”
Leaders of both organizations, whose goal was to collect one million signatures, said they were “totally surprised by the success of the initiative” and they underscored that the petition garnered more support than any other in the history of the province.
The Confederation collected more than 600,000 signatures and expects to
receive an additional 200,000 by December 20, when signatures collected in
other provinces will be sent in to the Confederation, which will then send the
entire petition to the government.
“The response has been extraordinary and the campaign has been met with enormous success,” said Alejandro Quintana, national secretary of the National Platform.
The President of the Committee for Education of the Archdiocese of Valencia,
Father Rafael Cerda, told the AVAN news agency that he was extremely satisfied because “the campaign has surpassed all expectations.”