Unholy row in Italy after education ministry offers teachers exorcism courses

There can be few teachers in the world who have not privately cursed the kids in their classroom as little devils. 

Italy has now gone one step further - offering teachers the chance to take exorcism courses.

An intensive, 40-hour course in “exorcisms and prayers of liberation” is now available to teachers through the ministry of education.

The course, which costs 400 euros per participant, will be held at the Pontifical University of Regina Apostolorum, a Vatican-affiliated university in Rome which holds annual exorcism conventions for Catholic priests from around the world.

Teachers, especially those who teach religion, will be lectured about “the peculiar aspects of exorcism and prayers of liberation” and learn how to “correctly practice” the dark art of casting out the devil.

But the initiative was criticised as a return to the Dark Ages by opposition politicians and widely mocked on social media.

MPs said the populist coalition should concentrate on basic issues such as dilapidated schools, some of which lack even lavatory paper, rather than conjuring out demons and talking in tongues.

“Schools are not safe, gyms are not fit to be used and teachers are not properly paid. And what does the education minister do? He promotes exorcism courses. We’re not in the Middle Ages,” said Laura Boldrini, an opposition, centre-Left MP and former parliamentary speaker. “Schools need to prepare young people for the challenges of the future.”

“Schools are collapsing so maybe the only option left is to start praying,” said Nicola Fratoianni, the national secretary of a small opposition party, Liberi e Uguali.

There was no shortage of ironic commentary on social media.

“Sorry, but is it 2019 or 1019?” wrote one user, while others remarked: “School is hell, but let’s not go too far,” and “Any other ideas for returning to the medieval era?”

The government said there was nothing political about the course being offered to teachers.

It is one of around 30,000 courses that the education ministry posts on a professional development portal to help teachers further their careers.

“Universities are permitted to insert the courses they run into the system,” said Mario Pittoni, a senator from The League, the Right-wing party that governs in uneasy alliance with the anti-establishment Five Star Movement.