Secularization: Challenges for Catholic Schools in Uruguay

Abstract

This chapter will analyze the characteristics and the impact that secularization has made on a young Catholic schooling system. It proposes that secularization has represented a huge challenge for the Catholic Church worldwide since it began during the Enlightenment, but at the same time, it offers a major opportunity if school systems become aware of it and work hard for the spread of the Gospel with renewed energy and realistic goals. It presents the case of a young country that became independent less than 200 years ago, whose society was built due to the input of thousands of European immigrants, and which has become an exception in Latin America, because it has no native population since the last Indians were killed in the 19th century. It certainly is a peculiar society in the context of a highly religious continent, due to an early institutional separation between the Church and the State that took place a century ago, an event that has strongly shaped its society, culture, and specially, its education. The chapter is organized in three sections. In the fi rst one, some contemporary challenges Catholic schools face today in the country are presented and analyzed, with a special focus on the impact and consequences of secularization; in the second one, some responses to these challenges are reviewed, in the context of the limitations Catholic schooling faces in this particular society; and in the third one, some research studies of Catholic schools are discussed.