Carmel Borg and Michael Grech. Lorenzo Milani’s culture of peace : essays on religion, education, and democratic life [Book review]

Abstract

The biography and thoughts of Don Milani, and his school, are enriched in this edited work by approaches from different perspectives. The two editors, Carmel Borg and Michael Grech, have utilised their strengths in education and philosophy to organise a set of readings especially focusing on peace with a thrust that becomes a pedagogy and a stance that is critical not passive. Part I, entitled 'Peace and religion: Then and now' is arguably the most directly related to themes raised by the Letter to the military chaplains of Don Milani. In the first reading, with a number of brushstrokes, Borg & Grech depict the Letter's catholic, Italian, and Tuscan ecclesiastical contexts. Amongst others, a context they describe is the one when the Catholic Church was ready for a marriage of convenience with Nazism and Fascism, along with their war rhetoric. [excerpt]