Opposition GLAS party leader and whip Anka Mrak Taritas said on Friday that religious instruction should be taught in churches and not in schools as it was not in line with the principle of secularism, and that it was high time the state made it clear.

Addressing reporters in the parliament, Mrak Taritas said that a year and a half ago GLAS had launched an initiative to have the agreements on relations between Croatia and the Holy See amended, with one of the amendments referring to education.

GLAS vice-president Goran Beus Richembergh, recalled last summer’s debate between Bishop Vlado Kosic and Science and Education Minister Blazenka Divjak about the education reform, stressing that after the minister said that the Church should stay away from the school system, the Church nonetheless carried out a campaign infringing on the content of some textbooks.

It was owing to public pressure that publishers subsequently removed certain content from textbooks, Richembergh claimed.

“The clerics will continue to exert pressure and the minister will continue to give concessions to the Catholic Church. The integral curricular reform is not as it was presented to be, it opened the back door to religious content. It is against secular education for any religious community to introduce such content into textbooks as religious propaganda,” said the GLAS MP.