lenare

Lenare is a term used to describe a planned admissions process used by Italian Catholic dioceses in the early 20th century to reduce the number of children enrolled in Catholic elementary schools. The process was implemented in the years following World War I and is thought to have been used until the 1950s.

The name "lenare" is derived from the Latin word "lenare," which means "to temper" or "to make soft." The term was used to describe the process of tempering the large numbers of children seeking admission to Catholic schools during a time of great economic and social change in Italy.

The process of lenare involved reducing the number of admissions to Catholic schools in urban areas by allowing parents to choose between sending their children to public or Catholic schools. The diocese would then funnel the admissions into designated schools, avoiding overcrowding and focusing resources on the remaining students.

Lenare was often used in conjunction with the concept of " dual school" systems, where schools were divided based on student residency, with children from urban areas attending public schools and children from rural areas attending Catholic schools. This system was implemented to address issues of overcrowding in urban Catholic schools and to promote Catholic education for rural communities.

The exact extent and effects of the lenare system are difficult to quantify, and opinions on its success vary among historians. Some view lenare as a necessary measure to ensure the quality of Catholic education in the face of rapid urbanization, while others see it as a form of social engineering that contributed to the decline of Catholic schools in urban Italy.