Some comments on the Review of the Religious Education Curriculum for Melbourne Archdiocesan Catholic Schools

With a note on wider implications for Australian Catholic school Religious Education


This material looks at the Review (
known ad the Haldane Report) in the light of, and from the perspective of, a longer history of criticism of Religious Education by some vocal Catholic groups and clergy

These comments interpret the driving force of the Review as being part of a reaction to secularisation/de-traditionalisation, that considers ‘deficient' Religious Education as a significant, partial cause of decline in mass attendance and church engagement. I consider it important to locate the issues raised by the Report within the wider discussion of secularisation/de-traditionalisation. This material adds some historical perspective to debates arising from the Report. And, also relevant to these debates, are discussions of current issues for Catholic school Religious Education as explained elsewhere (Rossiter, 2018, 2020, 2022A; https://asmre.org/). It is also pertinent to signal here the viewpoint from which these comments arise: That Catholic school Religious Education should be a credible and academically challenging spiritual/moral subject in the curriculum; its primary role is to educate young people spiritually and morally for life in a complex culture, including giving them good access to their own religious traditions.

Secularisation and criticism of Religious Education: The response to secularisation on the part of some conservative Catholic groups, some bishops and clergy has a long history in Australia. In the mid-1970s, the association, called ‘Catholics Concerned for the Faith' claimed that Catholic schools, and their Religious Education in particular, were responsible for the decline in church membership in young people (Rossiter, 1977). They also claimed that a failure to teach ‘orthodox Catholic doctrine' was the root cause of the problem. Practically all Catholic school educators then, and since, rejected this criticism as unfounded, because they considered that the decline in the numbers of churchgoing Catholics had nothing to do with Catholic schools because it was fundamentally a Catholic Church problem and not a school one; no matter how good their Religious Education was, and no matter how much it may have emphasised Catholic doctrine, this was not sufficient to successfully convince young people (and many adults) that they should become church-going Catholics. They also felt that as long as church authorities and other Catholics continued to blame Catholic schools for the problem (and to expect the schools to reverse the secularisation), they would avoid looking into what were the real issues and problems within the church and within culture that have caused secularisation ( McCarty & Vitek, 2017) .

The modus operandi of groups like the above-mentioned, and also Opus Dei groups in the 1980s and 1990s, was to gather evidence on religion teachers thought to be unorthodox and report them to the local bishop for disciplinary action. Keane (2002) labelled so-called offenders as betraying the Catholic Church through intellectual, religious and moral deception by spreading false doctrine not in accord with the Catechism of the Catholic Church – he regarded them as traitors.

A more recent example of this same sort of problematic criticism appeared in 2015, when the Australian Catholic journal AD 2000 published the following letter from concerned Catholics.

We firmly believe that the Church has a major problem with its delivery of religious education in her school system and think that urgent action is required to improve her performance.

A mere 20% of students in the Catholic school system attend Mass on Sunday during their schooling, but 72% of them stop practising their faith by the time they are 29 years of age.

. . . .there is something drastically wrong with the curriculum and the way it is being taught.

. . . While the school factor appears to be the major factor causing students and ex-students to stop practising their faith, other factors also contribute such as the family situation, mass media especially TV and social media.

. . . The crisis in Catholic education suggests that the curriculum is lacking. Children need to be made familiar with the Catholic Catechism, the Bible references and the importance of going to Mass every Sunday at the very least. (Kennedy et al . 2015).

In 2007, bishops published a document about Catholic schools: Catholic schools at a crossroads: Pastoral letter of the bishops of NSW and the ACT. Even the title seemed to imply that there was a ‘crisis' of some sort. A feature of the document, which contrasted noticeably with the focus on education in the Vatican II document ( The Declaration on Christian Education , 1965), was the way that Religious Education was treated primarily as a church process rather than an educational one. Coupled with this assumption was a concern that, despite the high level of resources invested in Catholic schools, they were not successful in inclining young Catholics to become regular church goers. Because of low church participation rates amongst Australian Catholic youth, it was considered that there must be a crisis of Catholic identity in the schools. New evangelisation and strengthening Catholic identity were proposed as principal strategies for ‘reigniting' young people's spirituality and improving their engagement with the Church. Increased Sunday mass attendance was listed as a key performance indicator for Catholic schools. This author contests these views, considering that there was then, and there is now, no crisis of identity in Australian Catholic schools, and that there are no clear causal links between Catholic schooling/religious education and the ultimate mass attendance rates of Catholic school graduates. Religious Education is about educating young people religiously in their own tradition as well as helping them find a more meaningful view of life in a complex and confusing culture. This is primarily an educational task and not an ecclesiastical one; and Catholic schools are capable of doing this well. But no matter what the quality of school religious education, this cannot make the church more meaningful and attractive to young people – only the church itself can do this. While there is evidence of a widespread crisis in the Catholic Church, this cannot be said of Catholic schools in Australia, which are thriving. Making the church more relevant is of great concern for Catholics, but it has a different and extensive agenda to be addressed, and school religious education has little if anything to do with that.

Criticisms of Religious Education based on a presumed linkage with religious practice appears not to have abated since the 1970s. In 2021, a newspaper article reported the views of a Catholic archbishop as follows (Baker, 2021).

[The] Archbishop … said he was concerned about the erosion of Catholic DNA within Catholic schools, saying many religious education teachers no longer practised the religion and were unfamiliar with the doctrine and morals they were supposed to teach.
“An increasing proportion of those enrolled in our schools are not even nominally Catholic or Christian … the disconnection from church is glaringly obvious when children or families find themselves in unfamiliar territory at mass, unsure of how to comport themselves, respond, even recite the most treasured Catholic prayers,” he said.
Schools should respond by more deliberately teaching the Catholic faith, to counteract outside forces. “We have to keep preparing our teachers to be counter-cultural,” he said. “They've got to think of themselves like missionaries in the classroom.”

The Catholic identity of schools: Even more recently, in 2023, the commissioned review of the Catholic school religion curriculum in the archdiocese of Melbourne echoed these same criticisms (Haldane et al ., 2023). The ‘Haldane Report', 55 thousand words in all, mounted a substantial critique of the ‘recontextualist theology' of Lieven Boeve (2005, 2007; Pollefeyt and Bouwens, 2012) that underpinned the Enhancing Catholic School Identity (ECSI or Leuven) project (pp. 15-27). It noted that the ECSI approach had been:

a feature of the Flemish Church for decades and has done nothing to halt its decline. . .

Roman Catholicism was Belgium's and particularly Flanders's majority religion, but as of a decade ago church attendance in that region was at 5% and falling – now it is 2.5% across the country. . .

Given the domestic failure of Flemish efforts to enhance Catholic identity and commitment, it is perhaps surprising that the Leuven approach should have been adopted in Victoria, and its theological and normative implications may not even have been appreciated by those who funded its adoption. (Haldane et al . p. 22)

The Report dismissed the recontextualist theology of ECSI. But it retained a central place for the theme of ‘Catholic identity and mission'. It spelt out a different version proposed as ‘authentic'.

Pollefeyt (2023) published a reply defending ECSI's recontextualist agenda.

My own professional view of Boeve's theology of recontextualisation saw it as a 21 st century follow up to Pope John XIII's (circa 1965) call to “Read the signs of the times” – proposing a critical challenge to, and engagement with, contemporary culture (Rossiter, 2018). As such, this theme has informed the work of many religion teachers since the 1960s. But, I thought that linking recontextualisation (primarily a theological action) with the term Catholic identity was unfortunate because of the natural ambiguity of the latter term; it could equally be embraced by those who felt it important to ‘challenge contemporary culture' as well as by those who appeared to want something very different and whose connotation for Catholic identity was about reconstructing traditional Catholicism with increasing engagement with the church, and not about ‘accommodating to contemporary social values' – the opposite to what they thought the ‘liberal' interpretation of Catholic identity was about. What is claimed to be an ‘authentic Catholic identity' can have very different and polarising descriptions.

The Haldane Report identified the following as if it were the initial, normative Catholic religious baseline in the light of which secularisation was to be measured. And it showed the need for caution about the polarisation that emerged in relation to how the secularised situation was to be interpreted and addressed.

The highpoint of Catholicism in Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, as measured in terms of church attendance, baptisms, marriages, vocations, church and school building, membership of societies, and pious practices, etc., was in the 1950s, when Catholic education tended to involve formal catechesis and pious practices in combination with a focus on Church-based community identity. Today, numbers in each category have declined at an accelerating rate, and within Catholic education there has been a trend to replace the idea and practice of instruction in articles of faith and morals with that of cultivating an ‘ethos' and a shift in focus from Church to society

‘Conservatives' [traditionalists] argue that this has amounted to a capitulation to secular values encouraged by faithless and worldly Catholics, while ‘liberals' [progressives] continue a critique of the previous condition as coercive, repressive clerical and infantalising. Both of these outlooks tend to rather restricted considerations of context and of the nature of Catholic tradition.

. . . As it is, two self-conscious responses to secular liberalism, adoption and reaction (in the forms of ‘progressive liberal' and ‘traditionalist conservative' Catholicism, respectively), have done nothing to counter lapsation, but only deepened divisions among those continuing to identify as Catholics and thereby threatened the collapse of the house they both claim to be saving (Haldane et al ., p.14).

However, while proposing that the polarisation is to be avoided, in effect, the Report unilaterally dismissed the ECSI theology and in turn this left the conservative definition of Catholic identity as the only desirable option ‘left standing'.

The approach to Religious Education proposed by ECSI: The Report judged that the ‘hermeneutic, communicative, dialogical model' (or ‘pedagogy of encounter') for Religious Education which ECSI advocated (Lombaerts, 2000; Pollefeyt, 2008) was “found [to be] not fit for purpose. [T]he ‘Pedagogy of Encounter' has become the de facto driver of content and needs to be abandoned and replaced by more suitable means.” (Haldane et al . 2023, p. 70). The Report regularly recommended ‘direct instruction' as the prime pedagogy for Religious Education; but this was not described in any detail. It also equated ‘education' with ‘formation' – this author considers this a significant problem as explained in Rossiter, 2018, chapter 9 (and also in Rossiter, 2020).

My own professional view of the ‘hermeneutic, dialogical pedagogy' traces back to its origins in the ‘experiential movement' in Catholic Religious Education in the late 1960s/early 1970s, and in the writings of Herman Lombaerts in the 1980s and 1990s (Rossiter, 2018, 2022B). In brief, I consider that it is a useful pedagogy for counselling, therapy and small voluntary commitment groups – but not one that is readily adaptable and useful for the regular religion classroom with say 25 students.

Audit of content in the Melbourne Religious Education curriculum: It appeared to this writer that the content of the Melbourne Religious Education curriculum was compared with a template from a 1950s Catholic seminary theology program, resulting in 20 pages that were mainly about the theological content that was either ‘missing' or ‘not sufficiently emphasised' – classified as “doctrinal deficiencies”. It also included similar data from reports on US Catholic school Religious Education by their bishops.

Clearly, the current Melbourne Religion curriculum includes no heretical content -- it was approved by the diocesan theological censor. So the Haldane Report is concerned about the pattern of 'emphasis' (or 'insufficient emphasis') on various topics. I wondered if “Original sin: The Fall: origin of the mystery of lawlessness at work in our lives” (mentioned 5 times) and “Christ the priest” warranted such attention. There is not space here to discuss further the debate about school Religious Education needing to be wider than just Catholic theology.

One of the principal authors of the Haldane Report, O'Shea (2014) wrote a similar review of the religion curriculum for the diocese of Parramatta (Western Sydney). The first 15 pages summarised “ Essential Content of Organic Presentation of the Catholic Faith” and most of the remaining 160 odd pages were concerned with identifying where, and where not, the curriculum was in harmony with Catholic doctrine.

Conclusion: The relationship between Catholic school Religious Education and young people's religiosity, together with the question why young people (as well as older ones) are not going to Sunday mass, will long remain ongoing issues for religion teachers – in my opinion, mainly because of persistent, unwarranted and unrealistic criticism.

Of immediate concern is going to be the response (or lack of response) to the Haldane Report. Special attention has been given to it here because, while the archdiocese of Melbourne has been the ‘heartland' of the ECSI movement in Australia, it has been adopted widely across a number of other dioceses and considerable resources have been invested in it since 2005. It has also been one of the factors behind the term ‘Catholic identity' becoming a replacement for Religious Education, a problem investigated by Rossiter (2020, 2022A).

One wonders if it is realistic, or even possible, to implement what the Report is envisioning? If it was to be implemented, would this be ‘more' or even ‘less' inviting and engaging for students in Catholic schools? Will the Haldane Report become a sort of ‘template' for reviewing Religious Education in other dioceses? Will its thinking become a major influence on the narrative of Catholic school Religious Education around the country? How this story pans out over the next few years will have a shaping influence on the future of Catholic school Religious Education in Australia. (It is interesting to note that 4 weeks after the Haldane Report was published - 1 November 2023 - the ECSI website announced that the 3 other Catholic dioceses in Victoria had renewed their contracts with the Catholic Dialogue School Consortium in Victoria signing “a new partnership with the ECSI Research Group at the Catholic University of Leuven”).

For religious educators who worked in the 1970s, reading the Haldane Report is a déjà vu experience. "We have heard this before". Identifying doctrinal deficiencies and trying more 'direct instruction' (which gives a feeling that greater emphasis on church authority is needed) had no significant impact then. And one wonders if that same proposed agenda will work any better 50 years later. My concern is that an apparent attempt to get back to what the Report called "the highpoint of Catholicism in Australia" in the 1950s by making orthodox Catholic doctrine more overt in the religion curriculum will 'derail' attempts to make it more meaningful and relevant to contemporary youth. It is a major distraction from addressing the real challenge which is to explore what it means to educate young people spiritually and religiously in a secularised, de-traditionalised culture. This in not an alternative to studying Catholicism; but it should be a prominent component of the religion curriculum, especially in the senior classes.

References

Baker, J. (2021). ‘Never had it so good': Archbishop says cashed up Catholic schools must learn from state schools. Sydney Morning Herald . May 27, 2021.

Boeve, L. (2005). Religion after detraditionalization: Christian faith in a post-secular Europe. Irish Theological Quarterly . 70 (2), 99-122.

Boeve, L. (2007). God interrupts history: Theology in a time of upheaval . New York: Continuum.

Catholic Bishops of NSW & ACT. (2007). Catholic schools at a crossroads: Pastoral letter of the bishops of NSW and the ACT . Sydney: Catholic Education Office.

Haldane, J., O'Shea, G. and Giacco, N. (2023). Review of the Religious Education Curriculum for Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne . Melbourne: Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools. https://www.macs.vic.edu.au/MelbourneArchdioceseCatholicSchools/media/Documentation/Documents/RE-Curriculum-Review-Report.pdf

Keane, E. (2002). A Generation Betrayed: Deconstructing Catholic Education in the English-speaking World . Hobart NY: Hatherleigh Press.

Kennedy, J. et al . (2015). Call for urgent action on Religious Education. Open Letter. AD2000 28(9).

Lombaerts, H. (2000). The hermeneutical-communicative concept of teaching religion. Journal of Religious Education. 48 (4) 2-7.

McCarty, R. J. &Vitek, J. M. (2017). Going, going, gone: The dynamics of disaffiliation in young Catholics. Winona, MN: St Mary's Press.

O'Shea, (2014). Review of the Religious Education Curriculum (in the diocese of Parramatta). Sydney: The University of Notre Dame Australia.

Pollefeyt, D. (2008). Difference matters: A hermeneutic-communicative concept of didactics of religion in a European multi-cultural context. Journal of Religious Education . 56 (1), 9-17.

Pollefeyt, D. (2023). ECSI@KULeuven. A response to Review of the Religious Education Curriculum for Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Melbourne. https://ecsi.site/au/response-to-review-religious-education-curriculum-catholic-schools-melbourne/

Pollefeyt, D. & Bouwens, J. (2012). Identity in Dialogue: Assessing and enhancing Catholic school identity. Research methodology and research results in Catholic schools in Victoria, Australia . Melbourne: Catholic Education Commission of Victoria and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Final Draft for Publication). Melbourne: Catholic Education Commission of Victoria and Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Published in 2014 by Lit Verlag GambH & Co, Zurich.

Rossiter, G. (1977), The Place of Knowledge in Religious Education: The Debate over Doctrine in Religious Education. Our Apostolate , 25 (4), 214-223.

Rossiter, G. (2018) Life to the full: The changing landscape of contemporary spirituality. Implications for Catholic school religious education . Sydney: Agora for Spiritual, Moral and Religious Education.

Rossiter, G. (2020). Addressing the Problem of ‘Ecclesiastical Drift' in Catholic Religious Education . International Studies in Catholic Education . 12 (2) 191-205. Doi:10.1080/19422539.2020.1810998.

Rossiter, G. (2022A). An Empirical Study of the Problem of ‘Ecclesiastical Drift' in Catholic School Religious Education. Preprints https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202211.0050.v1

Rossiter, G. (2022B). Clarifying the links between the religion curriculum and young people's personal development (An historical analysis 1960-2022) . Sydney: ASMRE. https://asmre.org/

Second Vatican Council, (1965). Gravissimum Educationis (The Declaration on Christian education). Vatican Website.

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