On 19 November, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski presented the new
instruction on "Consecrated Persons and
their Mission in Schools", focusing on the indispensable
mission of Catholic schools today in the work of the new evangelization.
"Catholic schools, through the educational project based on the
person of Jesus Christ and on the values of the Gospel, want to
contribute to refocusing on the human person as the centre of the
educational experience…" The Cardinal also spoke of how the text
fits into the set of documents that the Congregation has published
following up on the Second Vatican Council and the Synod on Consecrated
Life. "This document, conceived as complementary to that on
Catholic laity, comes in continuity with the Post-Synodal Apostolic
Exhortation Vita consecrata, the result of the Synod on the
consecrated life, as a deepening of the reasons for the indispensable
presence of consecrated persons in the context of the school today…
". Here is a translation of the Cardinal's presentation.
Introduction
I am pleased to present the document of the Congregation for Catholic
Education: "Consecrated persons and their Mission in Schools:
Reflections and guidelines", which the Holy Father has
approved and whose publication he has authorized.
The title clearly describes the objectives of the document and the
persons to whom it is addressed. With this contribution, the
Congregation wishes to help consecrated persons to reflect on their
educational presence in schools and to offer guidelines that should
serve to motivate them and sustain them today in their educational
mission. The document also wants to be an expression of gratitude to the
consecrated persons who dedicate their life to the service of the
education of the young generations. Indeed, as the Holy Father recently
said, "The Church is indebted to consecrated persons for the
marvellous pages of holiness and dedication to the cause of education
and evangelization they have written, especially, during the last two
centuries" (Address to the Plenary Assembly of the Congregation
for Catholic Education, 4 February 2002, n. 5; ORE, 13
February 2002, p. 2). The fruitful meeting of consecrated persons and
the world of education has produced a wise and effective pedagogical
tradition which, in the light of the Gospel, serves the overall growth
of the human person. The educational wisdom of Don Bosco, the attraction
to the poor of Joseph Calasanz, the educational work of John Baptist de
LaSalle, the concern for the education of girls and young women of
Domenica Mazzarello and Lucia Filippini, to quote just a few of the best
known names, are present in the treasure that consecrated persons bring
with them to schools at the beginning of the third millennium.
In my presentation I aim to place the document in its proper context:
schools and their needs; I will leave it to Archbishop Pittau to
illustrate the educational commitment of consecrated persons in the
Church and to Sr Antonia Colombo, Superior General of the Daughters of
Mary Help of Christians, a congregation with an educational charism
which is present in many places, to go into the text in detail.
Schools and education at the beginning of the new millennium
The document opens on to a panorama of the situation of the school in
the third millennium. In fact, it deals with educational concerns and
hopes that come from every part of the world. The field of education and
the school is truly immense: there are more than a billion school-age
children with their families, 58 million teachers, let alone
non-teaching school personnel (UNESCO, Rapport sur 1'éducation 2000,
Paris 2000, pp. 119-121). In these references are included Church
scholastic institutes, over 250,000 schools with 42 million students
(data supplied in 1994 by the Office international de
l'enseignement catholique [OIEC]). We must also mention the
thousands of Catholic teachers, including a great many consecrated
persons, who carry out their mission in State schools.
Besides the immensity of the "specific sector" of schools,
I want to point out the growing interest in educational topics on the
part of public opinion and the international community. In the last
decades of the 20th century, people have become more convinced of the
importance of education, In many world conferences, for example, at
Jomptien (1991), Dakar (1998), etc., the international community placed
an emphasis on the role of education for the future of humanity, for
peace, for sustainable development, for the dignity of peoples. Here I
would like to mention a single result of the interest in education: the
report edited by Jacques Delors, (L'education, un trésor est caché
dedans, Report to l'UNESCO, Paris, 1996), in which the
essential pillars of education of the 21st century are identified: "Apprendre
á connaître" (learning to know); "Apprendre á
faire" (learning to do); "Apprendre á vivre
ensemble" (learning to live together) and "Apprendre á
être" (learning to be). This is a global vision of education
which, unfortunately, outside the context of official statements, is not
concretely accepted. Indeed, the daily reality which school and
education must confront is complex and difficult.
Even though the general view varies from place to place all over the
world, there is agreement on some common elements. The most important of
them is without a doubt globalization. In economics, globalization is
spreading at an incredible pace and alongside undeniable benefits, it is
giving rise to new problems with regard to employment, work and the
distribution of wealth. Globalization is also a cultural, political and
educational phenomenon. It encourages meetings and exchanges between
individual peoples, but can produce a dangerous cultural homogenization.
The application of new technologies, widespread computerization and the
rapidity of communications make the adaptation of the scholastic and
educational task so necessary that there is talk of a radical
transformation of the traditional processes of teaching and learning. In
addition, on the horizon there are threatening problems that profoundly
affect human life: ecological and bioethical issues.
Role of education, the school in an ever more complex world
In so complex a world, it is natural that education and the school
should assume a crucial role. Education is required to bring the new
generations to a dynamic way of knowing that can prepare them to manage
complex systems and enable the person to acquire new aptitudes for work.
In this same world in which the processes I have mentioned have
increased the possibility for each individual to have access to
information, there are still many places where access to primary
education is denied. The data provided by UNESCO (op. cit., pp.
26-53) says that 135 million children between the ages of six and eleven
years do not go to school and that more than 280 million children and
young people are illiterate or have had no more than minimal schooling.
The vast majority of illiterate adults, more than 800 million, and of
young people who have not been to school is to be found in the
developing countries, which widens the gap between the north and the
south of the world.
Problems with education, the school today, loss of sense of mission
In addition to this kind of problem, the context of school today is
marked by great trouble. In the school world, especially in the West, a
widespread weariness can be perceived on the part of teachers, who feel
unmotivated and frustrated in their educational task. Another very
disturbing sign is the increase in violence at school and among
adolescents; and in addition, the families, that we accept as primarily
responsible for the education of the children, find it difficult to take
an active part in the educational scholastic community. I believe I can
say that the core of the problems of the school today is the obscuring,
I hope not the loss, of the meaning of education. Such a loss of meaning
is closely linked to the loss of values, especially those that support
the decisions of life: the family, work, morals in general. Thus
education is also suffering from the evils afflicting our societies:
widespread subjectivism, moral relativism and nihilism. Schools are
often asked to be merely instructive, that is, capable of providing
cognitive instruments and of making "human resources"
"function" in the complex economic system of our world. The
Catholic pedagogical tradition, instead, forcefully reaffirms the
centrality of the human person in the educational process. A correct
educational approach must aim at the integral formation of the
individual, bringing him into direct contact with culture and reality.
The deepest demands of a society marked by scientific and technological
development, which can result in depersonalization and standardization,
require adequate responses and have underlined the need for an education
which can form strong and responsible personalities that are capable of
making free and responsible moral choices. Education must be able to
make young people gradually more open to reality and help them to
develop a strong healthy concept of life to which the spiritual,
religious and human values are not foreign. An education that is purely
technical and functional can lead to enabling the young generations, to
use an image from the Sorcerer's Apprentice in the famous
orchestral piece by Paul Dukas (a French composer [1865-1935]; L'apprenti
sorcier [1897] was his most celebrated work), to conjure up spirits
but not to control them. A formation that excludes wisdom and ignores
the human being, and consequently his necessary moral conduct, would
jeopardize the future of humanity.
The contribution of Catholic schools to the educational project
Catholic schools, through the educational project based on the person
of Jesus Christ and on the values of the Gospel, want to contribute to
refocusing on the human person as the centre of the educational
experience. This means that the educational project must consider all
the dimensions of the human person. Today people are experiencing in
their lives a flood of contradictions, they are fragmented persons who
find it difficult to accept and bring values into a synthesis. It is
undeniable that along with progress in so many areas, people are finding
it difficult to respond to the questions life places before them.
Christian pedagogy and Catholic schools have a rich patrimony to put at
the service of everyone. Therefore the person is not only the sum total
of his horizontal dimensions, but also the harmonious composition of the
ethical, spiritual and religious aspects of human reality. Thus the work
of education has a spectrum of 3600. The proprium (specificity)
of the Catholic educational project is to encourage an integral
humanism, which finds in Christ its model and inspiration and seeks to
develop the inner life, intelligence and will of the students, and to
guide them in their decisions. In this context of all forms of
education, the role of consecrated persons is not only important but
indispensable, as they bring to bear "on the world of education
their radical witness to the values of the Kingdom" (John Paul II,
Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita consecrata, 25 March
1996, n. 96).
The ecclesial context
The "historical" circumstances in which the document
comes into being are important. It is published shortly after the
celebration of the 40th anniversary of the beginning of the Second
Vatican Council; it is significantly dated 28 October, the publication
date of the conciliar Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum
educationis. This is intended to express, even
symbolically, the spirit in which we have published this document. The
Council, ushered in a new season for the world of education, offering
precious guidelines and inaugurating a period of reflection on the
Church's educational mission. This document is another piece in the
mosaic of the process of reflection and study that began with Gravissimum
educationis. Indeed, it is a service proper to the
Congregation of which I am Prefect, to develop fundamental principles
concerning Catholic education (cf. Declaration on Christian Education Gravissimum
educationis, Preface). In fidelity to this institutional
task, in the 70s and 80s the Congregation promoted certain documents for
the renewal of Catholic schools and the examination of relevant
problems. The first was The Catholic School, published 25 years ago (19
March 1977; ORE, 14 July 1977, p. 6 [part I], 21 July
1977, p. 4 [part II]). It can be said that the identikit of a school
that claims to be Catholic was pieced together in this document. Lay
Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith (15 October
1982; ORE, 25 October 1982, p. 6 [Part I], 1 November
1982, p. 6 [Part II], 8 November 1982 [Part III]).
In 1983 Educational Guidance in Human Love was published (1
November 1983; ORE, 5 December 1983, p. 5). The text responded to
the need to offer clear guidelines on the topic of sex education, which
must include the anthropological and moral as well as biological aspects
combined with pedagogical prudence and collaboration with families. In
1988 the document: Dimensione religiosa dell'educazione nella
scuola cattolica. Lineamenti per la riflessione e la revisione
(Rome, 7 April 1988 in Enchiridion Vaticanum, vol. II, pp.
262-313). This document treated a subject of fundamental importance for
Catholic schools, but also for all school education. Indeed, the
religious dimension of knowledge and of the human person is all too
often a missing link in the chain of school education, with resulting
harm for the formation of the young generations. Recently, in 1997, with
the approach of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 a circular letter was
published entitled The Catholic School on the Threshold of the Third
Millennium (ORE, 22 April 1998, p. 4) which reflected on the
identity and mission of Catholic schools in the contemporary educational
context.
Present document
This document, conceived as complementary to that on Catholic laity,
comes in continuity with the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Vita
consecrata, the result of the Synod on the consecrated life, as a
deepening of the reasons for the indispensable presence of consecrated
persons in the context of the school today. In fact, consecrated persons
make an essential contribution to developing the vertical dimension in
educational and school activities, namely, openness to God, along with
the horizontal dimension, an education for living responsibly with
others. Indeed, through the evangelical counsels and the experience of
community life they witness to an all-embracing, definitive commitment,
a response of love to Christ, Teacher and Lord, who opens them to the
gift of self to others. Their presence in the school, is a concrete and
effective help in achieving the integral education of the young
generations which today is so strongly needed and desired.
Conclusion
We hope the document will serve as an incentive to consecrated
persons so that even in the present circumstances, with the decreasing
number of vocations, despite the temptation to leave the service of
education, the complexity of the world of education and school, they may
continue to be aware of the nobility of educational service, "aimed
at giving reasons for life and hope to the new generations, through
critically processed knowledge and culture, on the basis of a concept of
the person and of life inspired by the evangelical values" (Consecrated
Persons and their Mission in Schools. Reflections and Guidelines, 28
October 2002, n. 84).
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