General Religious Education of the Catholic University of Korea

ABSTRACT

The education, especially the general education at a univer sity, is very closed to the understanding about the human being of the institution's founder . According to the catholic church, the human being is the image of God(imago Dei). That is the founder of the catholic university of Korea. Therefore human being is insisted to be dignified. The base of the human dignity is clarified in various official documents of the catholic church. We can find out such official view of the church from the following documents : "Declaration on Christian Education"(Gravissimum Educationis , 1965) of the Vatican Council II, "Guidelines of theCatholic Schools "(1977), "Lay Catholics in Schools : Witnes ses to F aith"(1982) and "Presenza della Chiesa nell'Univers ita e nella Cultura Univers itaria "(1994) of the 'Congregatione per L'educaz ione Cattolica'. General religious education at catholic universities world-wide is being realized at this guiding principles .The curriculum of the General Religious Education at the Catholic Univer sity of Korea (Songsim Campus ), which is chosen as case- study of this article, is also based on the same guidelines . As a concrete realizing process of the catholic educational idea the General Religious Education of the Catholic Univer sity of Korea is composed as following: 'Anthropology' for freshmen, 'Introduction to the Christianity' for the sophomore and 'Religion in General' for the junior and for the senior clas ses . In addition to such theoretical courses there are practically oriented 'Social Service ' programs . These programs are optional subjects.At a glance on the General Religious Education of the Catholic University of Korea, the academic way of general religious education in multi- religious society like Korea is considered as follows : fir stly, constructing a humanitarian society through the realization of individual humanity, and secondly, in this sense 'General Religious Education ' is not an indoctrination of a certain religious institution, but the realization of inter-religious peace through inter-religious dialogue. This is the just shortcut of the world peace.