A newly published report on religious education in Roman Catholic secondaries speaks of “manifold” difficulties and problems, The TES Scotland of May 3, 1974, reports.
According to the report of the national religious committee appointed by the Scottish conference of bishops: “Many teachers feel ill-prepared and inadequate to fulfil the role demanded of them in religious education. They do not want to be given the responsibility of religious education classes since they feel uncertain and sometimes bewildered.
“Others experience the difficulty that their careers span the last 10 years of tremendous changes in the church and feel at a loss when faced with the developments inspired by the second Vatican Council . . .
“There is evidence to suggest that today’s adolescents have acquired an in-built resistance to traditional forms of religion . . .
“Permissiveness has led to the open society . . . Today’s adolescent, like his predecessors, looks for an ideal upon which to base his life and he seeks authoritative guidelines to give direction to it. He might chafe at discipline but would be lost without it.
“Nevertheless he is not so willing as his predecessors to obey without question . . . Hence it is not sufficient to lay down the law and expect the adolescent to obey.”
