Eastern Spirituality and Democratic Citizenship: Teaching of Religion in Aldo Capitini’s Lessons (1949-1950)

Abstract

The aim of the present research is to retread the didactic and pedagogical proposal of Aldo Capitini regarding the teaching of religion. He is the founder of Non-violent Italian Movement and proposes a new religion inspired by the vision of the India Master Mahatma Gandhi. By using a phenomenological and hermeneutic method I examined various sources: literary (books, articles, critical literature), ar-chive files (epistolary, memos, lecture notes) legislatives, visual, audio-visual, in-ternet. Capitini elaborates an “open religion” to be taught in the “school of the future”, a laical religion that establishes a dialogue with all the different religious traditions and goes beyond the separation between East and West. A precious and useful doc-ument for my research have been few lecture notes found in the Aldo Capitini’s Foundation Study Center in Perugia, a written work that summarizes the academic Lectures of Theory of Education given in the University course of 1949-1950 spe-cifically dedicated to the teaching of eastern religions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Tao-ism, Shintoism, Islamism, Sufism. These different traditions are introduced to the students of the University courses as religions that have something in commune, not only among themselves but also in relation with western religions. Capitini points at the “religiousness” as the common element of all the religions as a matter to be taught at school, anticipating the longing for the sacred that is spreading today, in the post-secular age. The capitinian education for a holistic religion, open and laic, which has been elab-orated starting from the contest between eastern and western religions, can be pro-posed as an education for peace and for supporting the western democracies of our times, and it is searching a commune foundation beyond the religious differences, it respects the pluralism and encourages the education for a planetary citizenship in response to the present processes of globalization.