God is constantly manifesting his love of humankind. The testimony to God’s love, which culminates in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is the ongoing task of the Church. Desiring to remain faithful to God’s love, with profound gratitude we note the 14 centuries of our community of faith with God in his Church. In this way, we send to you, dear parents, children and young people, our fraternal and pastoral words of encouragement on the twentieth anniversary of Catholic religious instruction in public schools.

We particularly want to emphasize our desire for the coming Year of Faith, which begins on October 11, to inspire all of you to confess the faith in its fullness and with renewed conviction, confidence and hope. Faith grows when it is lived as love received and when it is transmitted as an experience of grace and joy. We are also called to communicate such an experience of faith as a Church through religious instruction in schools. Actually, religious education in public discourse is often presented as unnecessary. We are exasperated by the fact that it is constantly brought into question as a regular subject in elementary and secondary education, in addition to the fact of the various forms of discrimination against religious instruction as a subject. This represents direct disregard for your rights as parents to have your children educated according to your beliefs and attend classes in religious education in schools, as well as their right to the free manifestation of Christian faith by choosing and attending religious instruction in schools. Unfortunately, this often leads to the withdrawal of parents into the “anonymity of the silent majority,” while the rare individual instances of withdrawal from religious instruction are represented as regular occurrences and interpreted as indications that this subject is unattractive.

Dear parents, children and young people! In love we remind you that the path of faith for each of us started with the Sacrament of Baptism. On this path of maturation, we realize that to believe means to decide to be and live with the Lord. It is he, Jesus Christ, who gathers us with his love in his Church, entrusting the proclamation of the gospel to us all, with a command that does not expire. For you, dear parents, to fulfill this command means, first of all, to be engaged heralds of the Joyful News in your families. At the same time, this means that you are called to make it possible for your children to explore the mysteries of Christian faith, including religious instruction in schools. Therefore, in anticipation of the Year of Faith, we call upon you to continue to enroll your children in religious instruction in schools without fear and to demand full respect of your parental rights.

To you, dear children and young people, from our hearts we ask you to discover the daily joy of faith from which you can draw lasting love and strength for your lives. By attending religious instruction classes at school, you are already testifying that you are illuminated in your minds and hearts by the Word of the Lord and that you have chosen a life that has no end.

Dear parents, with new joy in your hearts, delight in the Word of God! Dear children and young people, make religious instruction class in school a place of your true and lasting conversion to the Lord, the only Savior of the world!

Zagreb, June 27, 2012

Your Bishops