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Religious Education and Family The Role of Parents |
On Thursday, March 10, 2005, Rev. Fr. Dr. Louis Khawand, Professor of Christian Ethics at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology at USEK, was the main speaker at the Institute. He made a presentation on Religious Education and Family. This lecture is part of a series of public lectures on Family and Pastoral Care organized by the MTh Program of St. John of Damascus Institute of Theology for the Academic Year 2004-2005 (see full program here).
Among the audience was the Dean of the Institute, Bishop John Yazigi, the Director of the Balamand High School, Mr. Atta Moussa, a delegation of monks from Our Lady of Tamish Monastery in Aukar, the Institutes faculty and students as well as a large audience from the region.
During the conference Fr. Khawand analyzed a series of Catholic documents, such as the encyclicals
Centesimus Annus and Pacem in Terris and the Second Vatican Council constitutions Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. He referred to the role of the family in education as these documents conceive it and emphasized that the parents have the major responsibility for deciding the kind of education their children are to follow.
Fr. Louis Khawand concluded his conference with some practical recommendations for the strengthening of bonds between parish and family in the pastoral work.
