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Education and religion

In Italy, the majority of pupils (90% in 2014) are educated at public schools, and about 65% of non-State schools are Catholic. Since 1984, the year in which the 1929 Lateran Pacts was renewed, every student at any level of public education can choose to attend (1 hour per week) the teaching of Catholic religion. In the past years, about 88% of the Italian students have chosen to attend this teaching. At the same time, Article 10.3 of the 1984 agreement affirms that, in order to secure that nothing shall be wanting from the moral and religious point of view, the nomination of the professors of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart is subject to the gradimento (approval) of the Congregation for Catholic Education, an institution of the Holy See. It is worth noting that in the 2009 Lombardi Vallauri v. Italy decision, the European Court of Human Rights held that the university’s interest in dispensing teaching based on Catholic doctrine could not extend to impairing the very substance of the procedural guarantees afforded by the European Convention.

See also Alessandro Ferrari, « La religion dans l’éducation publique - le cas italien » (p. 257-272, in French) published in the conference proceedings of the European Consortium for Church and State Research of 2010 dedicated to the topic "Religion in Public Education".

D 16 February 2021    AFrancesco Alicino ASimona Attollino

CNRS Unistra Dres Gsrl

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