What the head of the Catholic Church, Benedict XVI, says on specific occasions and to different personalities, representatives or countries does also throw light in a wider context. In an address to the new Ambassador of Ecuador to the Holy See (L’Osservatore Romano, November 24), the Pope said among others:

“...the deepest identity of school and university does not consist in the mere transmission of useful data and information but responds to the desire to instil in students a love for the truth so that it may lead them toward that personal maturity with which they must exercise their role as protagonists of the country’s social, economic and cultural development.

“In accepting this challenge, the public authorities must guarantee the right of parents to raise their children in accordance with their religious convictions and ethical criteria...” Experts, including those on sexual education, should be heard, as should other stakeholders. But the final decision must respect parents’ rights who overwhelmingly are Catholic and not lapsed, non-believers or values neutral as in much of the rest of Western Europe, especially Great Britain, on which so many “new” initiatives seem to be modelled even when these have been implemented with such grave consequences under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.