Prof. Hull was making the point that Europe had a tradition of values that ran deeper than today’s prevalent consumerist standard and stressed that educators should strive to maintain and promote this.

The two day seminar entitled Religion and Education: the possibility of developing tolerance through the teaching of religious facts convened a wide delegation of clerics and experts from all over Europe, representing a wide range of religions and denominations.

The event was an initiative of the Council of Europe and forms part of its efforts to promote pluralism among its members.

Mr Alvaro Gil-Robles, the council’s human rights commissioner, explained that the seminar follows a series of similar fora held in Siracusa (2000), Strasbourg (2001) and Louvain-la-Neuve (2002) prior to the one held in the past days at the Old University Building in Valletta.

Prof. Hull said that religions provided a source of existential critique that was indispensable if our society is not to drift into mere commercial culture.

Prof. Hull said there is a third system which is particularly relevant to those countries that aim at meeting the European Councils pluralistic ideals.

He said that the third option, “teaching through religion”, is better than the more common concepts of “teaching religion” (the traditional teachings of the churches) or “teaching about religion” (a more secular version that gives objective information about religions).

He criticised the traditional type of “teaching religion”, saying that while entirely legitimate, it represented the interests of the particular faith being taught and was at odds with the principle of pluralism.

He said that the second type, “teaching about religion” also had its problems because it did not represent the richness of the subject.

“Teaching through religion”, he said, is a form of education that uses the principles of religions as form of education. He said: “religion is taught in an instrumental way, not so much for its own sake, to secure its own continuity but for the sake of values such as peacefulness, social cohesion, the emergence of a mature self critical personality, the struggle against religious fanaticism and against religious violence, the elimination of all forms of intolerance.”

Prof. Hull said he regarded this third model the ideal system for a state-based programme of education. He said it avoids the limitations of the other types of education while at the same time being in line with the principles of the Council of Europe.

President Eddie Fenech Adami closed the seminar, saying that Article 51 of the Constitution proposed by the European Convention, “recognises that the regulation of church-state relations, and therefore religious education, falls within the competence of the member states and not of the European institutions.”

The President said this significant provision clearly implied that there were several ways in which religious education could be imparted even in state schools, compatible with the freedom of religion proclaimed as a fundamental right in the second part of the Constitution.

Dr Fenech Adami said that unfortunately a very widespread belief nowadays that the only rational foundation for church-state relations in a democratic political system was a kind of social contract. “According to this contract, the adherents of a religious or philosophical creed agree not to use the power of the state in support of their creed in return for the adherents of other creeds also refraining from using it in support of theirs.”

He said this mutual hands-off approach contrasted with that of the founding fathers of liberal democracy, such as John Locke, in their advocacy of religious toleration. Adding that: “Locke defended toleration on the religious ground that faith would only be authentic if free, while he thought that limits on toleration could sometimes be justified for political reason.”