406. The Cost for Being a Catholic in Italy- Photo Reportage

Posted by Eva Ulian January 31, 2014

406. The Cost for Being a Catholic in Italy- Photo Reportage

The Sacred Heart nursery was founded in 1923 and so we are celebrating the 90th Anniversary of its existence. In the photo we see the 3 nuns who ran the nursery until 1982

In a Catholic country such as Italy one would presume the schools would be Catholic, well, they are not. State schools in Italy are non-denominational, they are not Catholic. The only Catholic schools you will find in Italy are the private ones, the fee-paying ones, the ones which in England, though extremely private, to the glorious confusion of others beyond the isle, are called Public schools.

People beyond the isle of Britain do not realize that in Britain there are state schools, which are non-fee paying schools that are actually Catholic, as there are Church of England schools, Presbyterian, Jewish and so on- and yes, they are all state maintained schools, yet each have their own denomination. And much to the surprise of those outside the British isles, there are also state schools that are just simply that, with no denomination at all, which are precisely what all non-fee paying schools are in Italy.

You may well say education is education whether it takes place in a denominational school or not, it shouldn’t make the least bit of difference which is like saying two and two make four and not six or isn’t a rose if called by another name still a rose? Having taught in Catholic, Protestant and completely non-denominational schools I can understand why people say this and frankly I can say that there are good schools and bad schools irrespective of the category they belong to... so what’s the big deal?

Simply this, that Catholic nursery schools, being equal in all things to state schools, in Italy, they are penalized by the state. For each child in a STATE Nursery School the state contributes with €6,000.00 compared to €1,200.00 in a state Catholic Nursery School. Only in Italy, a Catholic country, can such discrimination occur... it certainly does not happen in Britain where the state contributes in equal manner for each child in all state schools, be it a denominational school or not. As a tax-payer, I forcibly object that my money does not go to all state schools in an equal manner, whether they are Catholic or not as this is the policy I am used to in Britain.

And that’s not the end of the story either. All state schools in Britain, denominational or not are built at the cost of the state... in Italy denominational state schools are built at the expense of the Catholic population.

They say, Italy does not have the resources that Britain has. That’s true because the resources are mis-managed. There are 650 MPs in Britain compared to the almost 1,000 in Italy. I have only taken into account the Houses of Commons because the Lords in the House of Lords do not have a salary but an allowance of £150-£300 per sitting, if they attend. The 650 MPs in Britain earn £65,000 a year (€79.000) compared to the thousand MPs in Italy who earn €180,000 each a year- more than twice as much!!! So that’s why Catholic State Nursery Schools in Italy only get a pittance compared to non-denominational State Nursery Schools... there just aren’t the resources!!!

Of course Italian Parliamentarians are absolutely deaf to what Pope Francis thinks of education- this is what he said as Cardinal in 2008:

“To educate, is in itself an act of hope, not only because you educate to build a future, placing your stakes upon it, but the act of education in itself passes through a perspective of hope.”(Card. Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Mensaje a las Comunidades Educativas, 23 Apil 2008).