Madrid, Spain, Sep 7, 2006 / 22:00 pm
As the new school year gets underway in Spain, under the shadow of the educational reforms enacted by the country’s Socialist government, the Catholic Confederation of Parents warned of the beginning of a “great educational catastrophe” and reiterated the “exclusive and preferential” right of parents over the moral formation of their children.
In a statement, the Confederation warned that if necessary, parents should appeal to “conscientious objection and any other means necessary” to avoid allowing their children to be subjected to “any kind of political or moral indoctrination,” in this case, as a result of the new curriculum “Education for Citizenship and Human Rights” instituted by the government.
Likewise, the organization denounced the government for being more interested in “denigrating” religion classes by imposing its “Education for Citizenship” and creating “confusion about gender and families” than in resolving educational problems like “the growing violence in classrooms, the restriction of the rights and freedoms of constitutionally protected instruction, the absence of common and homologous instruction for the entire country and the imposing of unnecessary courses.”
Confederation leaders said they were considering organizing another mass protest, like the one that took place in November 2005, to demand freedom of education.