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INTENTION : |
We pray that educators may be credibe witnesses, teaching fraternity rather than competition and helping the youngest and most vulnerable above all.
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A true educator accompanies, listens and dialogues
To educate is not "to fill one's head with ideas" because "automatons" are formed, but to walk together with people in a "tension between risk and security."
The right to make mistakes
Pope Francis asked primary, secondary, and university teachers to support students in their educational journey. "You cannot educate, without walking together with the people you are educating. It is beautiful when you find educators who walk together with boys and girls. To educate is not to say purely rhetorical things; to educate is to make what is said meet reality," Pope Francis said.
Girls and boys have the right to make mistakes. Still, the educator accompanies them on the path to direct these mistakes so that they are not dangerous. "The true educator" continued Pope Francis, "is never frightened by mistakes, no: he or she accompanies, takes them by the hand, listens, and dialogues. He or she does not get frightened but waits. This is human education: 'to educate is this bringing forward and promoting growth, helping to grow'."
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Pope Francis met with a delegation from the "Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education Project," reiterating the importance of dynamic education.
Vatican City, April 22, 2022
Catholic schools should not be Christian in name only
"The Christian educator, in the school of Christ, is first of all a witness, and he is a teacher to the extent that he is a witness," Pope Francis said on May 21,2022.
"And above all, I pray that you may be brothers not only in name but in fact. And for your schools to be Christian not in name, but in fact," he said.
"We know that the 'way', the truly new path, is Jesus Christ.
"By following Him, walking with Him, our lives are transformed, and we, in turn, become leaven, salt, and light", he said.
The De La Salle Christian Brothers, formally known as the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, were founded by St. John Baptist de La Salle to provide Christian education to the young, especially the poor.
The Pope met with the Christian Brothers as the religious institute is participating in its 46th General Chapter in Rome on the theme: "Building new paths to tranform lives."
Pope Francis, then, read the brothers part of a quote from St. Paul's letter to the Galatians in which Paul said he was in labour until "Christ is formed in you."
"To educate in this way is your apostolate, your specific contribution to evangelisation: to make humanity grow according to Christ," he said.
"In this sense, your schools are 'Christian': not because of an external label, but because they take this path."
Pope Francis also said that Christian teachers are "on the front line" in "educating to move from a closed world to an open world; from a throwaway culture to a culture of care; from a culture of rejection to a culture of integration; from the pursuit of vested interests to the pursuit of the common good."
"As educators, you know very well that this transformation must start from the conscience, or it will only be a facade," he added.
At the end of his speech to the Christian Brothers, Pope Francis thanked them for their service as teachers.
By Courtney Mares - CNA
The purpose of Catholic education
Young men and women graduating from Catholic schools and universities should have a keen understanding of being called as Christians to work for the common good and to do so through a life that is deeply rooted in Christ, combined with a vigorous desire to pursue the truth of things, to live through and with reality rather than merely being guided by constantly changing feelings and preferences.
At this point, the primary importance of what we would call "virtue-oriented" formation becomes visible. Catholic schools should let the educational endeavour be guided by constantly promoting the virtues, especially the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. No matter how strong a person's faith might be, without a certain degree of practice in the virtues, it will be hard not to be led exclusively by the emotions and impressions that constantly enter our minds.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI fittingly calls it the duty of the educator to be led by 'intellectual charity', which is inspired by the recognition that leading the young to truth is an act of love. The relativistic mindset that reigns at most schools and universities, including many of those calling themselves Catholic, proclaiming that all truths are equal and the secular truth more equal than others, tells us that religion and education need to be separated because they have nothing to do with each other. What is really being proposed by secularist movements is that the pupil should replace whatever god he believes in with the secular god. Catholic educators, however, should be able to identify this ruse and know that the only proper way to educate is by providing a formation that centres on Christ alone. It is the only way to enable the student to beat out a coherent path of life by being guided by the one and only God who created heaven and earth.
Christian Alting von Geusau and Philip Booth.
Acknowledgement
"The Purpose of Catholic Education and the Role of the State." excerpted from Catholic Education in the West: Roots, Reality and Revival (September 25, 2013).
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