As I was walking on campus yesterday, two petitioners intercepted me and began talking to me in Slovene. After I explained that I only spoke English I received the full story: Apparently, a political science professor at FDV is being either harassed or something worse for conducting research on the church. The complaint comes directly from the church, accusing the researcher for "snooping."
Unfortunately, that's all I know at the moment. Anyone with more information is welcome to contribute their insights.
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4 comments:
Well, the thing is, vice president of social democrats and prof of politology on FDV Igor Luksic gave a task to his students, to observe if priests in churches urge people to vote and if, if they urge them to vote for a specific candidate. Students should also observe the behaviour of church goers and if they themselve would urge others to vote for a specific candidate. This happened before presidential ellections.
This caused quite an uproar from SSK( Slovenian bishop conference). Their representative Andrej Saje compared this to spying by the communist regime and few days later one student of theology faculty in Maribor started a petition which called for Igor Luksic to resign from his post as vice president of social democratic party and his post as a profesor. Also,people in SDS used this to attack Luksic.
Igor Luksic defended himself by saying, he gave similar tasks to his students each year and that this was not spying, but 'sensibilisation' (I hope I translated this one correctly :)), or getting practical experience, and that in previous years nobody noticed and attacked him for it.
I guess you got the petition from students of FDV, who are suporting Luksic and therefore have a petition of their own.
Where does FDV and the University stand on this?
Whatever the reasoning behind the assignment, the bishops should take note of the fact that students were looking at public discussions held in a public place, for any one (attending a service) to hear.
I don't know where FDV stands on this: I guess they think there is nothing really wrong with this, othervise they would have complained to Luksic last year or year before. If it is true, he gave similar tasks in previous years.
Jin: Thank you for relaying that info! The petitioners did in fact support Luksic.
Lisa: You are correct; discussions held in public spaces are open to observation and analysis.
However, considering the Communists were secular and they leaned rather hard on the Catholic Church, perhaps this reaction is a result of a collective memory shielding itself from a particularly traumatic event?
Of course, all this could be a smokescreen. If the church is indeed influencing voters, which could be viewed as unethical (or perhaps not - is it permissible for non-political institutions to organize their members?) then it would make sense that they want to "cover up" their activities.
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