Politics
Thursday December 4, 2008
Vatican Archbishop Defends Rights of Parents to Educational Choice
TODAY'S HEADLINES
E-MAIL
PRINT
By Hilary White
GENEVA, December 4, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – An “inclusive” education means that which respects the rights of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, a Vatican Cardinal told the U.N.’s International Conference on Education last week.
Citing the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See's permanent observer at the U.N. offices in Geneva, said, “Educators should remain aware that they carry out their service in cooperation with parents, who are the first 'educational agency' and have the priority right and duty to educate their children. This convergence of efforts is an evident application of the basic principle of subsidiarity.”
The concept of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching means that the needs of the individual are best served by the stratum of society closest to him, starting with the family. Catholic teaching holds that it is the purpose of the state to safeguard the family and the family’s rights. This doctrine is directly opposed to the high-level statist concepts of social theory that are currently at the fore in the UN and European Union, where governments are creating increasingly tightly regulated social conditions.
Tomasi’s assertion on the rights of parents is directly opposed by some European countries, most notably Germany, which retains a Nazi-era law forbidding homeschooling. In recent years, parents who have chosen to shield their children from the heavily secularised, and sexualised, state education have been hounded in the courts and had their children seized by the state.
Archbishop Tomasi also criticized the emphasis on “efficiency” in education and in society in general, saying that the global financial crisis is a “concrete lesson” in what happens when a society subordinates the needs of the individual to utilitarian ideals.
“‘Inclusion’ works through the promotion of a society that respects the dignity of every human person and goes beyond criteria of efficiency.”
“Only the person that conceives relations with others beyond criteria of productivity and control can value reality in a balanced perspective and assume appropriate responsibility.”
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
German Homeschooling Family Applies for Asylum in US
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2008/nov/08111805.html
Back to TopLatest Headlines
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase out Lab Rats
- Ohio Supreme Court Allows Planned Parenthood to Conceal Abortion Records in Sexual Abuse Case
- LifeSiteNews Canada Day and Independence Day Message. Taking a few days off. LSN returns Monday July 6
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Pro-Life Groups Announce New Colorado Personhood Initiative
- Judge Puts Kibosh on DC Gay "Marriage" Referendum
- Al Franken Win Hands Supermajority to Senate Democrats
- Group Funded by Canadian Bishops' D&P Joins with Others to Denounce the "Natural Family" and "Family Rights"
- Financially Troubled Planned Parenthood of El Paso Closes Doors
- Abortion Linked to Subsequent Pre-Term Births, New Research Again Confirms
- New Orleans Homosexual Couple Ask Fed. Court to Overturn Marriage Amendment
- Slim Hope Of New Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader Promoting Pro-Life, Pro-Family Issues
- Pope Accepts Resignation of Bishop Caught Involved in Homosexual Encounters
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Northern Ireland Politician Cleared of Wrongdoing after Reiterating Christian Teaching on Homosexual Acts
- UK Conservative Leader Speaks at Gay Pride Fundraiser
- More Letters to the Editor on Canadian Catholic Development and Peace Scandal (July 1)
- Letters to the Editor - Readers Respond to Development and Peace Scandal
- Watch This Dramatic New Video on Catholic Bishops Conference Funding of Pro-Abortion Groups
Most Read this Week
- Homosexual Duke U. Director Charged with Offering Adopted 5-Year-Old for Sex
- Famed Fr. Corapi Calls Canadian Bishops' Dissent from Humanae Vitae "Catastrophic"
- Pope: It is a Childish Faith to Oppose the Church Teaching on Life and Family
- LifeSiteNews Detailed Response to Canadian Bishops' Whitewash Report on Development and Peace
- Heroically Pro-Life Brazilian Archbishop's Resignation Accepted Under Cloud of Vatican Newspaper Misrepresentation
- Young Children Removed from UK Schools for "Inappropriate Sexual Behaviour"
- Is Pro-Choice the New Pro-Life?
- General Electric to Use Embryonic Stem Cells for Testing, Phase Out Lab Rats
- Swedish Parents Won't Tell if Child is Boy or Girl as Gender Experiment
- Cardinal Rigali: You Can't Claim to be "Reducing Abortions" but Publicly Funding them in D.C.
MORE NEWS: 
LifeSiteNews.com Home Page Last 10 Days Archives Special Reports
Copyright © LifeSiteNews.com. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives License. You may republish this article or portions of it without request provided the content is not altered and it is clearly attributed to "LifeSiteNews.com". Any website publishing of complete or large portions of original LifeSiteNews articles MUST additionally include a live link to www.LifeSiteNews.com. The link is not required for excerpts. Republishing of articles on LifeSiteNews.com from other sources as noted is subject to the conditions of those sources.