ONE of the Vatican's most senior clerics has used a visit to Scotland to reinforce the message that the provision of faith schools by the state is a fundamental right of Catholic families.
Archbishop Gerhard Müller, the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, will make the statement at the prestigious Cardinal Winning Lecture at Glasgow University today.
He will also draw attention to the "voices raised against" Catholic education.
The visit is seen as an indication of the Vatican's interest of the health of the Catholic Church in Scotland, which has been through one of the biggest crises in its history. It also comes just a week after the organisation Secular Scotland lodged a petition with the Scottish parliament asking for the law to be changed so that RE and religious observance in state schools are opt-in rather than opt-out.
Archbishop Müller will tell the audience: "For many decades, there have been voices raised against the idea of Catholic education, against the fact of distinct faith schools and increasingly, in today's society, there are great challenges to the very idea of a religious education."
Archbishop Müller accepted there were voices within the Church itself which questioned the need for separate Catholic education. But he added: "The State has the duty and responsibility to facilitate the wishes of Catholic parents to educate their children according to their desire to pass on their faith to their children."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article