LACE MAGAZINE

Issue 17, Spring 2002

TEACHING RE IN A MULTICULTURAL WORLD

Jesus' injunction to "Go and make disciples of all nations" is receiving a whole new twist in Catholic Schools in Britain today. We do not need to "go" anywhere, because "all nations" are now coming to us, and their presence among us is a challenge that we are only beginning to address with the thoroughness that it deserves. It is a very complex question involving a lot of problematic words such as immigration, inner city deprivation, racial prejudice and so on.

There are, of course, difference between the situations in the big cities like London or Birmingham and the smaller towns and cities of the "provinces". There are also regional differences between the southern counties, where catholic schools rely on a certain percentage of non-Catholics for viability, and the Catholic north, where Catholic schools have to turn away Catholics pupils, Nevertheless the question affects all of us.

Our multicultural Britain challenges us on our admissions policies and obliges us to join in the nation-wide debate which is calling into question the rightness of faith-based schools. It challenges us on the way we treat the underprivileged, which is supposed to be the hallmark of a Lasallian school. Do we welcome them among us? Do we try to understand them? Or do we set out to change them? It challenges us on our basic assumptions and prejudices about other cultures. Do we see them as a problem or as a richness and a blessing? It challenges us on the nature of religious education in Catholic schools. Is "conversion" the real goal of it all?

The items in this issue of Lasallian Christian Educators are all concerned with these challenges in their various ways. However, it is important to read them in the light of the previous issue (November 2002) which focused on Lasallian Spirituality and on Personal and Social Education. The question of faith-based schools in a multicultural society is also very relevant to the topic of Citizenship, which will be the theme of the LACE Conference in October. Get your booking in now!