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Spain’s Education for Citizenship Excludes Spanish Christianity

By Peter J. Smith

MADRID, January 24, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Spain’s Zapatero government has unveiled a new compulsory school subject replacing ethics classes, which pro-family advocates in Spain warn is another assault on the traditional family and the rights of parents to educate their children.

In a recent Official National Bulletin, the government unveiled the new Education for Citizenship and Human Rights - a compulsory school subject required in all Spanish schools beginning in the upcoming academic year - which will replace philosophy classes which have traditionally taught ethics and were required in Spanish schools.

Fides News Agency reports that The Professionals for Ethics Association are warning that the subject Education for Citizenship and Human Rights interferes with the moral formation of children, which is a right belonging to parents; not the Ministry of Education.

"We are in favor of formation in values necessary for life and social harmony but we firmly oppose this new subject which is simply an ideological tool at the service of whatever government is in power," said Jaime Urcelay, the director of Professionals for Ethics.

The Association has published a leaflet urging Spaniards to reject the government’s new subject. It lists 10 reasons, saying the new school subject constitutes state interference in the moral education of school children, denies the objective existence of truth and goodness, and also intends to educate children in ethics ignoring religious traditions, the existence of God and the transcendent dimension of the human person. The new subject also indoctrinates schoolchildren to accept the government’s homosexual ideology and normalization of various sexual behaviors above the objection of parents.

The new education reforms also dictate that Religious Education must now be optional in all Spanish schools – including the nation’s private/religious schools. Schools will be obliged to undertake "organizational measures" to accommodate those students who choose not to study Religious Education with an alternative subject.

(With files from Fides News agency)

Links:
See leaflet in Spanish
http://www.fides.org/spa/documents/10motivos_contra_epc_220107.pdf

Spain Fast Becoming Europe's Worst Place for Families
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07011708.html

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