A text I
wrote to several persons with power in the Roman Catholic Educational System in
Flanders in 2017. My plea received no response,
because the persons responsible for Catholic Education were wedded to a model
of Catholic Education that they discovered in Australia called the ‘Catholic
Dialogue School’. They had invested too much political and intellectual clout in their abstract academic research to
be willing to listen to other perspectives - perspectives of persons who had actual practical experience teaching religion in Flanders - and adapt. By now, it’s apparent to all that the Australian and so-called
‘Catholic Dialogue School model’ doesn’t work, because it’s not really a
dialogical model.
Personally, I hope that multicultural Flanders find their own model (which already existed and worked successfully) : Inter-religious Dialogue and Action Model.
Cologne 2 July 2022
Leuven, February 2017
CATHOLIC DIALOGUE SCHOOL SEEN FROM A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE
It is with hesitation that I write this, because the discussions about the meaning and the concept of the so-called ‘Catholic Dialogue School’ at the University Colleges Leuven Limburg (UCLL)[1] has caused me considerable frustration and anxiety. I would like to offer this reflection – and criticism – as a contribution to the development of an authentic Catholic Dialogue School Model, which I think is being hindered due to too much attachment to models as such, but also what one calls in Political Science: ‘Group Think’. I have found that Flemish Catholic theologians too often lament the phenomenon of ‘secularity’ and ‘the failure of parents’ instead of looking at how their own attitudes, behaviours and educational models have contributed to the demise of Christianity in their own country. During the course of this letter, I will try to discuss what I see these to be. I would also contend that the ‘models’ being proposed now (e.g. Flemish understanding of Catholic dialogue schools and RZL) might exacerbate the situation – the reasons on which I will later elaborate.
I say this as a Catholic and a Christian, who has both an STL and STD from KU Leuven, who has either lived, studied and worked in Belgium for over 25 years (in Antwerpen, Leuven, Gent, Aalst), but also as someone who is a convert from American, Baptist Christianity (my grandfather and uncle were Baptist ministers) – but also from agnosticism - to Roman Catholicism. I went through a conversion process and I think that this process is useful for thinking about the state of Christianity in Flanders and ultimately Belgium.
I was received into the Church on 1 April 2000 – the Feast Day of St. Mary of Egypt the ultimate convert - at St. Jan de Doper Kerk in Leuven. I received my PhD and STD from the faculty of theology in 2008. In my Master’s thesis, I analysed the Eucharistic Controversies of the Reformation from the perspective of a misunderstanding of ‘ordinary language’ (cf. Wittgenstein), while in my PhD dissertation, I analysed the ethical problems of contemporary esoteric spirituality (so-called New Age spirituality) through the method of the history of philosophical/religious ideas.
Thanks to many wonderful Flemish Professors, most of whom are now emeriti or have passed away, I was able to accept and understand many things about Catholic doctrine that I had either failed to comprehend or had rejected as a Protestant Christian as well as an agnostic. In Leuven, I discovered the beauty and freedom of Catholicism, which I attempt to share with my non-Catholic family, friends and later with my former students. My experience has not been, however, the experience of many of my Flemish Catholic colleagues, who seem to see their ‘Flemish Catholicism’ as something to ‘defend’ from inside of a tottering fortress - that has almost been breached – rather than as a gift to share. There isn’t much talk of freedom, which is certainly one of the cornerstones of dialogue.
As a former non-Flemish lecturer of Rooms- Katholieke Godsdienst (RKG) in the Teachers’ Training Programme of GroepT, we had a very successful programme of transmitting both the values and basic doctrine of Catholic Christianity, despite its secular exterior. Sadly, Flemish institutional Church dismissed GroepT and thought, to paraphrase the Gospel of John: “Can anything good come out of GroepT?”
Catholic Religious Education was successful and fully Catholic at GroepT, because Groep T was an authentic ‘dialogue school within a Catholic cultural context’. It was a dialogue school, because we were free to be ourselves and, thanks to this freedom, we were able to show mutual respect and openness towards each other without fear of reprisal or having to minimize/reduce our Christian identity. Catholic of course means ‘universal’ or ‘pertaining to the whole’. Hence, by necessity, an authentically ‘Catholic Dialogue School’ must include the other – even sometimes the antagonistic other -- as an integral part of a truly Catholic identity. We were able to become an authentic dialogue school, because we as Catholic lecturers showed respect towards our colleagues of different faiths, but also because our non-Catholic colleagues showed respect towards us. We were able to respect each other, because we trusted each other, allowing us to discuss and debate contentious issues, which in the present UCLL ‘dialogue model’ has and will prove difficult.
CATHOLIC EDUCATION WITH THE ‘HEATHENS’…
Not only as a former Protestant, but also as a former agnostic, I understand the problems that many people, who have left the Catholic Church, have with the Flemish ‘version’ of the Catholic Church and maybe even the Flemish understanding and practice of dialogue on a national level.[2] Many young peoples’ criticisms of the hypocrisy of the Church, or what I would call ‘culture-Catholicism’, are neither totally unfounded nor something one should fear or criticize. Most youth in Flanders have lost their faith (or better: never had the faith transmitted to them); yet, Rooms Katholieke Godsdienst at GroepT was paradoxically a space where they could explore what it might mean to be firstly a Christian and secondly a Catholic.[3] This was possible, because I constructed my course, Katholieke Godsdienst, on the conversion process through which I had gone myself.
How did I did I approach RKG at GroepT: As suggested, I based the development of my 3-year plan for RKG-students on my own experience of the process I went through before and during the time I re-discovered the beauty of my Christian faith as a Catholic Christian. I did have an advantage; unlike most Flemish young people, but also old people, I had been biblically trained as a child.[4] I found that the structure I developed for my lectures – which mirrored the structure of my re-discovery of my faith in a Catholic context - struck a positive cord with many young people. This can be shown by the hundreds of essays written by my students over the three-year period, which they were required to write as students of RKG at GroepT.[5]
In the 1st semester of the 1st
Year, I deconstructed their ‘popular positivism’ and attempted to explain to
them the relationship between the knowledge of religious faith and the
knowledge of Science. I frequently cited
the example of Georges Lemaitre, the Leuven Professor, Catholic priest, former
president of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and discoverer of the Big Bang
Theory, to show that there is nothing contradictory between having a scientific
worldview and a Catholic worldview. I
also tried to instil in them a sense of pride in being a part of the Belgian
scientific and Catholic tradition, which was seated in Leuven.[6]
In the 2nd semester of the 1st Year, I tackled
an understanding of the development of the biblical canon and taught them a
simplified version of the historical critical approach, while answering
questions about the historical reliability of the Gospels. I explained to them that the Bible itself was
a result of DIALOGUE and debate amongst peoples, cultures, generations, etc… I
interpreted this on both symbolic and existential levels to mean that God, as
Logos, desires and attempts to speak to various peoples from various places, in
various cultures and in various ages – and also to them.[7]
In the 2nd Year, I taught a Catholic confessional education, which
attempted to specifically explain the broader Judeo-Christian worldview to alienated
and even anti-Catholic Catholics through a re-discovery of the biblical
Narrative of Genesis. I chose Genesis,
because most young people think that Genesis
is a naïve fairy-tale that that keeps Christians in ‘ignorance’ from ‘science’.
I
developed with them a theology of DIALOGUE, the brotherhood of humanity, and the
history of family of God and showed them that Genesis was not so much chronological history, but existential history, i.e. their history
as a human being. As children of Abraham
and future teachers they, together with Abraham, have the responsibility for
their students to bring about peace and justice on earth.
In the 3rd Year, I introduced the concepts of the Trinity (i.e. an understanding
the God of Christians as a God of DIALOGUE AND RELATIONSHIP in se), Jesus’ two-natures (fully human
and fully divine) and His role as ‘mediator’ between heaven and earth as well
as the role of the Holy Spirit for Christian life and the Eucharist as a
confirmation of that life. They learned
that as Christians, they have already received friendship with God through
their brother, Jesus, and the gift of His Holy Spirit to carry out God’s
mission of dialogue and reconciliation. They did this by working with young
unaccompanied minors in a Red Cross refugee transit center.
Aware of the difficulties for most young people in Flanders to find a welcoming Catholic community, my goal was at least to bring about a positive understanding of the meaning of the Concept of God and Creation in the Judeo-Christian tradition (theodicy) as a whole. I often used statements and sermons from Popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, but also from certain Vatican II documents like Dei Verbum, to show them that this goal is intimately Catholic, but also the fundamental openness of the Church.[8] Ironically, I was unabashedly teaching a confessional Catholic course in the secular institution of GroepT, while in the ‘Flemish Catholic’ bastion of the KHS, a vague Religie, Zingeving en Levensbeschouwing (RZL) was being taught and continues to be taught, but now under the title ‘Katholieke Godsdienst’.
RZL: A PROBLEM NOT A SOLUTION :
What do I mean by this? I do not see RZL as a ‘silver bullet’, but more as a vague and varied discussion of wide-ranging political, philosophical and social issues without any concrete goal for understanding of or possible re-integration into the Christian Narrative.
For many years, and although it is often taught as ‘Katholieke Godsdienst’, RZL has been the corner-stone of Roman Catholic Education in Flanders – obviously, with no or little success to check the continual decline of Catholic identity. Neither KULeuven nor the Katholieke Hogeschool (KHS) were successful to halt the decline or propose a truly better model for Catholic education. RZL does little to improve the credibility of the Church or to help young people re-engage with the Church and/or the Christian Narrative. It also does little to help students develop an authentically Catholic Christian spirituality amongst those who positively choose to remain or become Catholic.[9]
AUTHENTIC DIALOGUE: A PLEA FOR (FORMAL) EQUALITY and FREEDOM
How was I able to teach such an openly Catholic message to secularized, indifferent and oftentimes hostile students and turn some of the most hostile students into friends, who came to at least respect the greater Christian as well as Catholic Tradition?
This was primarily due to the vision and support of our former dean, Stijn Dhert. Dhert believed that students should be free to choose their own spiritual/religious path and be freely taught how to live that path by experts within those traditions. Because other religious and spiritual traditions – including secular humanism (zedenleer) - were accepted as equally viable spiritual/religious paths that students could freely choose to follow; lecturers were subsequently able to teach their tradition to their students. It was an experiment that worked. This also meant that the Roman Catholic lecturers were free to teach a more robust form of positive Catholic education. This formal equality precisely gave Catholic lecturers the freedom to be Catholic Christians, but it also gave my Muslim, Buddhist and secular Humanist brothers and sisters the freedom to be themselves as well!
Authentic DIALOGUE assumes a certain formal equality between the participants of dialogue. The basis of our model of inter-religious dialogue at GroepT created the conditions where former antagonists (e.g. Catholicism and Zedenleer) could recognize each other as brothers and sisters as friends. As lecturers of our various traditions (Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist, Muslim and Secular Humanist), we developed a trust and mutual respect for each other, because we realized that - before we had assented to any kind of spiritual or religious tradition - we were first bound together by our shared humanity.
Our shared humanity allowed us to engage in various team-teaching projects, where we were able to compare and discuss the meaning of prayer/meditation in our spiritual various traditions (e.g. we invited a Benedictine Monk from Chevetogne came to discuss with Buddhist, Muslim and marginal Christian students the practice of the Jesus Prayer); the meaning of end of life and death; as well as the meaning of hospitality and compassion in our respective traditions. Our friendship served to create the conditions of peace both in our school, but also in our students, who were then asked to share this peace with their future students and with society at large. Based on our commitment to the UNESCO Pillar of Education ‘Learning to Live Together’, we were able to find common ground for common human concerns like: hospitality and compassion towards refugees and migrants, meaninglessness and alienation, environmental degradation, youth violence, etc… It was a miracle and it was dismissed as a result of, in perhaps my not so humble opinion, Group Think.
When one or more partners feel as if they have been side-lined or disrespected, antagonism grows and dialogue breaks down. And this is what is now happening in the UCLL – all in the name of ‘dialogue’. The model as it has been conceived by KU Leuven and UCLL seems to alienate and hurt more members of other traditions than it reconciles and it foments divisiveness. It also keeps Catholic Education fettered to the constraints of secular relativism within the particular Flemish Catholic context. The irony of this situation should not be lost on the theologians amongst you.
The GroepT model (Inter-levensbeschouwelijke dialoog or Inter-worldview dialogue) or just the plain ‘Dialogue School Model’ in a Catholic Context, was paradoxically a model for an authentically Catholic Dialogue School in today’s complex multi-cultural world and in the problematic Flemish historical context. This model worked because GroepT was a DIALOGUE SCHOOL within a Catholic context (i.e. the majority of students were still Baptized Catholics – sic). As shown, when other traditions feel respected and trusted, they come to respect and trust their Catholic partners and their Catholic partners are free to be Catholic.
A PLEA FOR A COPERNICAN REVOLUTION IN THINKING ABOUT CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION IN FLANDERS
From the hundreds of essays that I have read from baptized Flemish students, who have been their entire lives in Flemish Catholic education, there is a tremendous problem in what is taught as ‘Katholieke Godsdienst’ in secondary education. Although there are problems in primary education, the problems in secondary education are systemic and complex. For the most part, ‘Godsdienst’ is taught as a lighter form of RZL by teachers, who are not always competent to fully discuss the meaning and function of Christian doctrine, but also to respond to difficult questions involving faith and societal matters. This isn’t their fault, but the fault of teacher training programmes at the tertiary levels, namely, KU Leuven and the former KH Leuven and Limburg. Until this is recognized and responsibility taken, the ‘Working Group’ of the Erkende Instantie will just be patching over a gaping wound with a band-aide, and nothing will fundamentally change or improve.
Flanders needs Copernican Revolution in Catholic Education. Instead of taking random socio-cultural, ethical, environmental, economic, political issues and trying to loosely link these issues to Christian tradition with arbitrary Bible verses (e.g. as text bubbles in religious education textbooks), THERE SHOULD BE INSTEAD an attempt to teach students basic literary-critical skills on HOW TO READ the Bible as a basis for their Christian spiritual life. From there, they might hopefully develop an interest and understanding of what it means to be a Christian. First, students should be taught to relate biblical stories to various socio-cultural, ethical, environmental and political issues by reading the stories – together with a trained teacher. In other words, both the Biblical Narrative as well as important contemporary Documents of the Church (e.g. Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, but also Laudato Si) should be used as the basis to discuss various socio-cultural, ethical, environmental, economic, and political issues instead of the other way around, e.g. the RZL method.
Furthermore, there should be a well-planned, conscious and conscientious effort to help all students in secondary education read through the Bible – at least the main OT and NT narratives – so that they have a general and basic knowledge of the construction, development and themes of those narratives and learn how to speak about them with their peers. I found that students actually enjoy this and, when they become familiar with the basic biblical narrative, they become engaged in lively discussions about the Bible and the importance of Christianity for Western Democracy – even after class! Moreover, better training of baptized Catholics in their own tradition helps to mitigate a growing problem amongst Muslim youth, who see Christian culture in Flanders as ‘degenerate’. Many Muslim youth feel this way because so-called Christians have no knowledge of their own tradition and are, therefore, unable to engage in informed and rational discourse about their traditions with non-Christian peers. I would also say that better Catholic education ultimately helps to prevent both radicalization as well as fundamentalism on both sides, because ignorance from both sides is met head on and hopefully overcome.
Catholic Teachers’ Training must also go through something of a Copernican Revolution. Teachers at the tertiary level should be trained to teach basic biblical science and be able to explain the function of basic Christian doctrine as well as to respond to difficult questions instead of avoiding them.
Finally, I am greatly concerned about how the ‘Catholic Dialogue School’ model is currently being imposed at the UCLL will in fact harm rather than help the Church in both Flanders and Belgium. Not that there is a Catholic Dialogue School, but how such a school is conceived. I sincerely hope that this letter raises your interest in bringing about a Copernican Revolution in Catholic Education in Flanders. Although I lost my position as a lecturer of Rooms Katholieke Godsdienst in the merger with KHL, if you are interested in further discussion of the image of the Church in Flanders/Belgium, the implementation of the ‘Catholic Dialogue School’ in UCLL or re-evangelization in the Flemish context, I would be most happy to do this in service of the Universal Church, because in the end, a Flemish Church is not a Catholic Church.
Kind regards,
Dr. Melanie J. van Oort – Hall, STL, STD, PhD
[1] These acronyms are used repeatedly: UCLL (University Colleges Leuven Limburg); RZL (Religie, Zingeving and Levensbeschouwing); IRL (Interreligieus Leren) and ILB (inter-levensbeschouwing or Inter-worldview perspectives or dialogue).
[2] Although it is highly contentious, I believe that Catholic theology in Flanders has paid far too little attention to the theology of forgiveness and reconciliation in its own country Belgium and has, therefore, lost credibility as a representative of the Catholicism, i.e. the universal whole.
[3] Based on my own analysis of the hundreds of essays of students over a 5-year period, most young people in Flanders – even when they have been baptized and attended a Catholic school for their entire primary and secondary school careers – have little or no understanding of what it means to a Christian, let alone Catholic. They have reduced Catholicism to a transmission of ‘normen en waarden’ (norms and values), although they have a very difficult time to explain what these would be. In fact, over the course of 5 years, I realized that the situation is far worse than I had imagined. In an anonymous survey that I held each year at the beginning of the year, I found: Although about 70% had been baptized, only about 10% had received Confirmation. Most of all of my students’ parents no longer believed, but still had or had the memory of believing grandparents. Only 20% had every attempted to read the Bible on their own or had a Bible at home. From over 1000 essays, based on my lectures and discussion in class, I found that less than 10% knew who Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Joseph are. Fewer than 5% had ever heard the story of Sodom and Gomorrah and wouldn’t know how to apply the sentence: ‘Woah, that’s a real Sodom and Gomorrah!” in a proper metaphorical context. At least half believed that Jesus of Nazareth was a fictional character (like Adam) and more than 90% did not believe that he was the Son of God (which is of course not surprising). Less than 2% could name the Archbishop of Brussels Mechelen at that time (i.e. either Leonard or De Kesel even fewer) and less than 50% could name the Pope (Francis) – although his name recognition was far better than that of their own Archbishop.
[4] I would say that this shows how important it is to train young people – starting from Primary Education – to read and understand the Bible. It was precisely because of my strong biblical foundations that I could re-discover and assent to the Catholic faith, not despite it.
[5] Next to the anonymous surveys over a five-year period, I accumulated over 1000 personal essays on a variety of subjects: their understanding of ‘God’ in Christianity and their personal idea of God; their opinions of the problems plaguing Catholic Church and Christianity in Belgium (Flanders); their opinions about whether their understanding of the relevance of Christianity changed over the course of three years during my classes (for many of them, it did). It is a wealth of knowledge for the Church in Belgium or at least for a doctoral student of theology, who is interested in understanding how young people think about Church.
[6] Most young Flemish people in my classes thought that Catholics believe in Creationism! And that Genesis supports this understanding over and against, e.g. the Big Bang Theory. When young people learn that Lemaitre was not only Belgian, but also the formulator of the Big Bang Theory, they were confused and had to re-evaluate their understanding of the Catholic faith as naïve and anti-scientific. This shows how poorly the faith is being transmitted, but also how poor a contemporary understanding of Science, at the Secondary Level, is being transmitted.
[7] This kind of construction helped them to understand how reading the Bible is a part of ordinary Christian spirituality as well as provided them with counter-arguments to those who criticize the fact that the Bible was not written by one man – e.g. a prophet – in one place, in one culture, in one language and at one time… This is not to disparage other beliefs, but to help youth better enter dialogue with other faiths. In the essays that my students wrote, it is clear most young people, who still believe, are often insulted and derided by non-believers. Unfortunately, RZL does a very poor job in providing them with 1.) an explanation for why they should retain their faith; 2.) arguments for the reliability of the Scriptures; 3.) meta-arguments about the deeper meaning of the Bible. My course attempted to show them that the Canonical Process itself is POSITIVE in that it is a living symbol of God’s dialogical nature i.e. that God wants to speak to all people, in all cultures, in all ages, in all languages, etc…
[8] Although I had to be alert for plagiarism, and insincerity in First and Second Year students, I used an essay format – combined with carefully constructed knowledge tests which corresponds to the depositum fidei -- to evaluate my students’ progress. Why did I do this? Research shows that writing is linked to the improvement of cognition. People who write well, think well. My technique hopefully helped them on several levels, i.e. to become better writers and thinkers, but also to provide them a free and independent space to quietly reflect on certain questions about their faith. I received many beautiful, but also troubling essays from students, who literally poured their hearts to me in their writings.
The problem with RZL and RZL-like methods is that it emphasizes discussing opinions in group settings. Unless a young person has an extremely independent personality, in secondary and higher education, they might be ridiculed, but also might not feel free to provide their real opinions in the efforts of appearing ‘cool’.
[9] This points to the failure of the Church, but also the failure of Catholic teachers’ training programmes both at the KU Leuven, but also in Catholic Institutions of Higher Learning like the former KHS to properly prepare future teachers for teaching CATHOLIC RELIGIOUS EDUCATION in a post-Christian context. Having studied in the Faculty of Theology for over a decade, working on my STL and eventually PhD/STD, I am aware of the problems of declining faith in Flanders. Most Catholic religious education teachers in Flanders are ill prepared to meet the challenges of a Post-Christian context and, because of this, reduce their teaching to ‘discussing opinions’ about various socio-economic issues (i.e. RZL) instead of relating Biblical Narrative or even Liturgy to personal existential contexts or even contemporary socio-economic, moral, psychological, political contexts. Ideally that is what Catholic Education should be today: an attempt to re-introduce the biblical worldview – as it has been interpreted by the Roman Catholic Church - to baptized Catholic primary and secondary students and any other student who is interested in following it. Furthermore, the text books and training manuals currently used are problematic and need to be completely re-written.
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