This summer the 70th annual meeting of the European Federation of Christian Teachers (SIESC) took place in Győr, Hungary, entitled The Role of Emotional and Intellectual Intelligence in the Shadow of Artificial Intelligence. From 20th to 25th July around 40 teachers from ten European countries discussed and reflected on the theme, while enjoying a rich cultural and spiritual programme organized by Hungarian hosting team led by Judit Hallgatóné Hajnal. Participants discovered that Györ was not only a beautiful Baroque city with numerous Christian schools and kindergartens – but also a unique example of ecumenical and interreligious coexistence – with five places of worship of five different denominations in a single street. The event created an opportunity to have a conversation with Alin Tat, the current president of SIESC. As a university Philosophy and a devout Greek Catholic, he shared his thoughts on dynamics of Christianity in the contemporary Europe, as well as on the role of Christian teachers today.
I started my high school education in the period of communism, in the eighties. Then communism collapsed. It was not a bad education. There was no real TV – we had only one official TV channel for two hours in the evening. What could one do? We read lots of books, a a lot of of classics, that was what our formation consisted of. I was fourteen when the revolution broke out – that is, the fall of communism. It was a change of paradigm. In practical terms, it was a shock. Those who replaced Ceauşescu were not dissidents from abroad, but members of the very communist elite, the second wave of the communist party. Few people wanted lustration, but in practical terms it would have meant dicplacing those who were in power, which was not possible. However, lustration was carried out fifteen years later. Communism was officially condemned. I was at school and for a period we didn’t have any school textbooks – teaching was experimental. Then there was massive emmigration of the younger generation towards the West. I enrolled at the university in order to study philosophy. I worked on my PhD in Paris, and as soon as I returned, I started to teach. Two years in Paris were important for me; I met famous philosophers and thinkers of the time, including Habermas. I was taught by Jean Luc Marion, a very good Catholic intellectual, as well as Paul Ricoeur. My grandparents belonged to the Greek Catholic Church, which in 1948 ceased to exist. My parents were not practising their faith. In my childhood I learned elementary prayers and Old Testament stories from my grandparents. After the fall of communism there was a religious revival. In 1990 the Greek Catholic Church re-emerged and got legally recognized. This is an interesting phenomenon; after the Second World War Greek Catholics made UP 10 % of the Romanian population, that is 1,5 million people, mainly in Transilvania. These were the ex Orthodox Christians that reunited with Rome. The Orthodox Church of Romania wanted to launch a synode for reunion. The communists supported this idea – Stalin had the same plan for Ukraine and in 1946 he managed to realize it and dismantle Greek Catholic Church in Ukraine. In Romania the same indirectly happened. It meant that all the bishops got imprisoned, as well as many people who were opposing communism. After the fall of communism, only a part of former Greek Catholics returned to the Greek Catholic Church, but still, about 800 thousands declared themselves as Greek Catholics at the first referendum. The communistS had taken all the property from Greek Catholic Church and gave it to the Orthodox Church which created a tension between the two churches. IN course of time things got better and now, 35 years later, with the change of generations, most of these problems are much closer to being resolved. When the Greek Catholic Church was re-established, I was 16 and took a course in catechism and sacraments. I experienced a conversion and accepted the Christian faith. My life was shaped by two principal orientations; religion – which was an important choice of mine – and philosophy. I did not see any conflict between those two, faith and reason. I felt my calling was to go both ways. When I came back to my homeland, I had an opportunity to teach immediately, at a private theological institute, which in two years would become part of a state university. The University of Cluj comprises comprehends 21 faculties today, including four theological faculties. That is typical to Transylvania which is home to different ethnical groups and denominations, mainLy in peaceful coexistence.
This question can be addressed at two levels. To be Christian today means, in the first place, to take Christianity seriously. One is not a Christian automatically, one has to study and belong to a community. Christianity is not philosophy, but a way of life. It means being part of the community, which is universal Church, but also a local community. It you are a part of a community, you are not a lonely thinker with your own creative original ideas. Instead, you are following Chirst, who is the wisdom of God. Naturally, the ideal of philosophy is wisdom, human wisdom. However, if you are a Christian, you know where you can find wisdom; it is a gift, not one’s achievement, and it needs to be accepted as a gift. Christianity is manily about the gift of God. One accepts that he/she is created, that God loves you and God has a plan for you, for your nation, and for the whole world. At the same time, one is aware of being a sinner, marked by our fallen nature, still egoistic. Thus, becoming A Christian is a work for your whole life. At the community level, in Romania Christians are A majority, although some take it more and some less seriously. Nowadays especially in the Western Europe, Christianity is becoming a minority religion, and that changes a lot. During the communist regime religion was very restricted and exactly for this reason there was a resistence to communism; religion – in a paradoxical way – grew stronger. In the post-communist period religion became free to practise. Nowadays in ex-communist countries there is still a strong religious background, more robust compared to the Western Europe. Obviously, the process of secularization is on track everywhere, but we still have religious cultural references, at least. It would not be correct to say that people form ex-communist countries are more religious, but they have more Christian references, at least from a cultural point of view. For Romanians, family is based on a relationship of one man and one woman and children who are born out of that relationship. It’s not a matter of faith, at the societal level, but of culture. New models of family that come from the West, promoted by certain lobbies and groups, have to do with ideology that can be regarded as forms of neo-Marxism. The communist system was based on Marxism so for Romanians in the 90s it was clear that they didn’t want any more Marxism, so they were quite disappointed seeing that people in the West would embrace Marxist ideas reshaped in a new form, for instance that of the Frankfurt School.
As I have experience of communism, I don’t like militant models. I don’t want to convince others that Christianity is true. It is true for me, and it has changed my life. If I am really authentic in my faith, others will see that. It is like a question that I pose to them. They will ask themselves, „What’s going on with this person? There is something in his way of life that is puzzling me“. It is always God who converts people, not other people. Maybe God can use people as an instrument or a sign, but it it very dangerous to consider yourself an actor of converting others.
SIESC is a federation of associations of Christian teachers in Europe, and I came to it via the Romanian association. I belong to the Association of Greek Catholic Lay People. During Chirstian formation, at some point one realizes a need to build something with others. Our association is a Catholic Action type one, which was very popular in the Catholic Church between the two wars. After the fall of communism in Romania, as a part of the civic revival, religious associations rose as a part of civil society, and they had duty to bear wittness in the society, not only in the Church. When I finished my studies, having started working, I founded a family, and having entered an adult phase of life, I asked myself what I was going to do. With a group of colleagues, we decided we should set up an association and we saw that such an organization had already existed, namely AGRU. That association was founded in 1929, it ceased to exist during the communist period, but got re-established in 1990 by the older generation. We understood that our task was to continue what they had started. Some of us become leaders. In AGRU there were lots of teachers as well. AGRU was part of the European Lay Forum and began collaborating with SIESC. I first participated in SIESC annual meeting in Salzburg, in 2005. Then I had a break some years, and I attended it in 2015 again. From then on I was constantly present and in 2018 I was elected the president of SIESC. It is important to be with others in a local church, but we also have a European dimension. We all have not only a national identity but also a European identity, and a Christian identity. These three are not in conflict. I would definitely regard Christianity as a foundation for the other two, since we are first brothers and sisters in Christ. The idea of Europe is initially a Christian idea – Christianitas – as we understand it, Europe is the result of Christianity. IT was the idea of nations united by Christ.
The renewal of SIESC is an issue. Firstly, I would like to remark that you can see many people here who have been attending the meetings for so many years now, due to friendships that they have made has been created. In a way, it is moving that people keep coming come to SIESC meetings and are growing old together, but, we also need to have more younger people coming. The majority of attendees from the Western countries are retired whereas attendees from ex-communist countries are much younger, which is a sign of hope. If God has a plan with SIESC, He will show us a way. When I see people from Croatia, I feel very confident. We do not dispair and we reflect. Every year, we develop more ideas on how to improve.
One can often hear a point of view that education in communist times was much more serious. That is true in a way, but the world was different; when there is a controlled society, it embraces one approach, and when there is a liberal one, there is much more vagueness. Without control, bad things can happen in education as well. The other important factor is technological age. We live in another world now. Our goal as teachers and parents is to develop good arguments in favour of education. Nowadays it is not clear for young people why they need to get formation, to learn. Children spend a lot of time with their gadgets, in front of screens; we have to be aware of this paradigm shift, as pope Francis used to say. In his encyclicals he talked of a tehnocratic paradigm; as Christians we cannot reduce the human person to a merely technocratic being. As is said in the New Testament, we have to be able to give reason for our hope, which means we should have arguments for goals and values that new generations must achieve. How to live a human life – that is the basic philosophical question. There is a risk to think of a human person as a machine. A human is not a machine; their purpose is not to be connected to devices all the time but to know, to live a life of virtues, rooted in the correct anthropology. We know that the goal of human life is not achieving pleasure as such. We are not against pleasure, but pleasure is an ‘extra’ of a good life. These truths are not obvious in this age. As teachers and parents, we have to find responSes to these challenges if we want to be educators.
At the university where I teach there is a document defining legal and moral stanards of AI usage. Apart from that, I believe that some basic education in humanities should be present in education in general – philosophical, ethical or religious. StudentS should understand that human life has more dimensions, that it is not all about technology, in an age-appropriate way. Education should accompany a young person so that he/ she becomes mature, which also means to use AI well. And we should not forget the classical paidea, education based on virtues, which is both A very Catholic and very Aristotelian approach! There are several virtues – moral and intellectual – that apply to the use of AI as well. Specifically, the virtues of moderation and discernement are needed in this regard. Discernement is close to the contemporary idea of critical thinking i. e. judgement. Critical thinking does not mean to criticize, but comes from krinein, which is to judge, to dIscern. The wise use of AI is about what ancient Greeks called sophrosyne and Romans prudentia, concepts closely aligned with Jesuit spirituality.
It is not either or, it is both. One has to know some facts, at least to excercise one’s memory. If one does not collect something in one’s memory, it is empty. It is important to memorize relevant facts. And in order to see what is relevant, one has to discern.
I would like to be able to confirm that. Every person is free and has his or her own limitations and personal history…but it is what we want to teach them. Whether we will succed, that is another question. It is important for us as educators to know what we aim for. Education is not something vague. As teachers, we know what the goal of education is. If we don’t know that, it is dangerous. It is dangerous to say that education is about letting everyone develop according to their own feelings, without taking any effort.
I can speak only from my experience. I teach philosophy. I still think that in philosophy we just sit together and talk about philosophical issues. We use books written by philosophers…Unlike 30 years ago, when a professor would teach ex cathedra, today we have smaller groups and we have books….we read and talk. Why would I need Artificial Intelligence? I ask students to read books. Some of them do it. Of course 10 or 20 years ago students were more capable of reading and speaking. On the other hand, during the communist period students were not allowed to think freely and express their thoughts openely, or have a debate. Nowadays all of their personal data is available online. If anyone needs any information about them, they can get it without getting police involved. I don’t really use AI. Students use it a lot to write papers if I ask them to. Some of them do not work but „outsource “ their homework to AI. I can try to check the author, but more important than checking is the ethical approach, that is giving reasons for not stealing and not cheating.
There are still martyrs. As Christian teachers, we need to stress the importance of freedom of thought and speech. We have historical experience of communist system. It is strange that in democracy, in the liberal world, one may find oneself silenced or restricted. There is also self-censorship; some teachers might not want to express their views too openly because they know it would contradict official narratives. European countries are losing their cultural tradition. It is important that the Church has A voice in public – not only bishops, but Christian laymen and laywomen, especially leading experts in their fields – they should support (simple) teachers, so that Christian voice is heard in the society. They should do advocacy, witnessing faith to others. A Christian point of view is an old one which has worked well for centuries and should not be dismissed as outdated.
For Christians love is not a feeling. According to Thomas Aquinas, based on the Scripture, love is to will good for a person, and that is not a feeling. Redemption is not about feeling good; feeling belongs to the level of senses. I know teachers in Romanian schools who tell me about students as young as ten who are undergoing a gender transition. We must find responses to this. Christian teachers’ communication should be not confrontational or pushy per se, but tehre are times they need to express their views.
We should not use these terms in the Church as they are rather political. Sometimes we use them to signify something – sticking more to tradition and continuity, or to change and progress. If we use these labels, we risk creating even more divisions. If we label someone as “conservative”, that’s value judgement.
Objava PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN FEDERATION OF CHRISTIAN TEACHERS ALIN TAT „A human is not a machine; their purpose is not to be connected to devices all the time“ pojavila se prvi puta na Glas Koncila.
