Should he become Spain's next prime minister, Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) head Pedro Sánchez intends to remove religion courses from both public and private schools.
While preparing for the Spanish general election this December, Sánchez proposed to pull religion courses from schools in Spain because they need "necessary reforms in the current legal framework, as well as international agreements" in order to "promote a secular public school where religious instruction is not included either in the curriculum or the school schedule."
According to the Catholic News Agency, not even private schools would be allowed to offer religion courses for students during school hours under a Sánchez administration. They would be allowed to do so only as an extracurricular activity.
At the same time, the PSOE platform dictates that religion courses should no longer be used in calculating the average grade of a student before obtaining a scholarship or being admitted to a university.
Father José María Gil Tamayo, who is the spokesperson for the Spanish Conference of Catholic Bishops, believes that Sánchez is just "stirring up problem" with his proposal in order to get more votes. He said Sánchez's party "needs to keep in mind that the moderate people of this country, the voters of the PSOE, proportionate to the major religious denomination in Spain, are Catholics."
Tamayo added that no Spanish student is obliged to take religious instruction classes, although it is a must for schools to offer it to them. He said religion courses are merely part of "a curriculum that is on a par with the rest of the subjects."
"This is a matter of parents exercising their right within the educational system, laid down in the constitution, for their children to be educated in accordance with their religious and moral convictions," he stressed.
