HOLY LAND: US/CDN-EU BISHOPS, CATHOLIC SCHOOLS SOURCES OF DIALOGUE AND TOLERANCE

(Jerusalem) - Before so many “commonplaces and errors” about Christianity and its history, which one can find everywhere in Muslim and Hebrew school texts, the “best answer is to intensify the educational efforts of Catholic schools, the production of texts including the right and rigorous information, and the action of a committee supervising the texts currently used”. That was pointed out today, during the last working day but one of the Committee of US and EU Bishop Conferences supporting the Church in the Holy Land, and of the Assembly of Catholic Bishops of the Holy Land (HLC 2011), in progress in Jerusalem. Father Abdel-Masih Fahim, secretary general for Catholic Schools in Israel and Sister Hortance Nakhleh, secretary general for Christian school institutions in Palestine spoke about that.
“In Israel – said Father Fahim to SIR, – we have about 40 schools attended by 22 thousand students including Muslims, Druze and Christians. Our students are educated to respect, tolerance, mutual knowledge, and respective faiths. Those who attend our schools know well what Christianity is. This is the best way to confute commonplaces about Christianity and Christians, which are often found, as is well-known, in Muslim or Hebrew books. What is written in those texts is wrong and shows a poor knowledge of the subject, of Christianity. It is the reflection of the Muslim or Hebrew vision, a distorted vision, of facts linked to our history”. This opinion is also shared by Sister Nakhleh: “We have 25 thousand students in the schools of the Secretariat, 15 thousand of whom are Muslims. In our teaching, we follow the instructions of the Palestinian Ministry of Education. Unfortunately, the texts proposed do not include a description of Christianity, and are written by taking into account the point of view of the majority”.
The religious has made several examples: “There are books whose titles already show a violation of the rights of the Christians, such as ‘History of Islamic Arab Civilisations’, from which it is clear that non-Muslims had no weight in the civilisation of the area. The very cultural activities linked to that provide for students to study just Islamic sites. A chapter of the history book used by the students of the seventh degree of education describes the Islamic Jihad against Europeans”. “Although in our schools we teach religion - Islamic religion for Muslims and Christian religion for Christians - in public schools, Christian religion is not taught with clear discrimination against the Christian students attending them”. In this case, too, concluded Sister Nakhleh, the answer is the same: “drawing attention to dialogue, to the importance of culture to create conditions for peace, respect, and life in common”.

© SIR - 12 jenuary 2011