CV NEWS FEED // The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Bolivia is making a last-ditch effort to appeal for the right to reopen a Catholic teachers’ school shut down by the Socialist government 14 years ago.
In a statement delivered to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights last month, the Bolivian bishops denounced their country’s government for continuing to block efforts to reopen the Normal Superior Catholic Institute Sedes Sapientiae.
The Executive Secretary of the Education sector of the Bolivian Episcopal Conference (CEB) Jorge Fernández told Panamericana radio in a February 8 interview that “the closure of the Catholic Higher Normal Institute Sedes Sapientiae is not justified.” He also said that the bishops were “tired” of requesting the reopening of the Catholic Normal to the authorities of the Ministry of Education.
For this reason, Fernández said he hoped that the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights would intervene on their behalf, since the bishops had, as put by an April 10 Bitter Winter article, “exhausted all domestic remedies” through which it could petition for the reopening of Sedes Sapientiae.
The most recent statement comes in wake of a petition made by the bishops last year to reopen the institution, according to a 2023 press release from the bishops’ legal team at Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) International.
“International law specifically recognizes the liberty of bodies, such as the Conference of Bishops, to establish and direct educational institutions without interference,” stated ADF International Director of Advocacy for Latin American Tomás Henríquez in the release. Henríquez is a lead legal advisor in the bishops’ case.
“What the Bolivian state is doing to undermine Catholic education is an overt violation of this fundamental freedom,” he added.
In 2010, the Plurinational Legislative Assembly of Bolivia passed its Education Act, or Avelino Siñani Law, attributing complete monopoly over teacher training programs to the country’s Socialist government, prohibiting the formation of private institutions offering academic degrees in teaching. Sedes Sapientiae, and along with a similar Adventist teacher training institute, closed following the law’s enactment.
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