Pope Francis says "...Catholic education is also evangelization: bearing witness to the joy of the Gospel and its power to renew our communities and provide hope.." FULL TEXT

 ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS

TO MEMBERS OF THE
GLOBAL RESEARCHERS ADVANCING CATHOLIC EDUCATION PROJECT

20 April 2022

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 Dear Friends,

I am pleased to greet you, the members of the Global Researchers Advancing Catholic Education Project, during your pilgrimage to Rome.  May the joy of these days of Easter fill your hearts, and may your meeting here in the Eternal City strengthen you in fidelity to the Lord and his Church, and enrich your efforts to highlight the distinctiveness of our Catholic vision of education.

In an age awash in information, often transmitted without wisdom or critical sense, the task of forming present and future generations of Catholic teachers and students remains as important as ever.  As educators, you are called to nurture the desire for truth, goodness and beauty that lies in the heart of each individual, so that all may learn how to love life and be open to the fullness of life.  This involves discerning innovative ways of uniting research with best practices so that teachers can serve the whole person in a process of integral human development.  In short, this means forming the head, hands and heart together: preserving and enhancing the link between learning, doing and feeling in the noblest sense.  In this way, you will be able to offer not only an excellent academic curriculum, but also a coherent vision of life inspired by the teachings of Christ.

In this sense, the Church’s work of education aims not only “at developing the maturity of the human person… but is especially directed towards ensuring that those who have been baptized become daily more appreciative of the gift of faith which they have received” (Second Vatican Council’s Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, 2).  Our faith is a great grace that each of us must daily nurture and help others to nurture as well.  In the light of faith, educators and students alike come to see each other as beloved children of the God who created us to be brothers and sisters in the one human family.  On this basis, Catholic education commits us, among other things, to the building of a better world by teaching mutual coexistence, fraternal solidarity and peace.  It is my hope that your discussions in these days will assist you in developing effective means of fostering these values at all levels of your academic institutions and in the minds and hearts of your students.

At the same time, Catholic education is also evangelization: bearing witness to the joy of the Gospel and its power to renew our communities and provide hope and strength in facing wisely the challenges of the present time.  I trust that this study visit will inspire each of you to rededicate himself or herself with generous zeal to your vocation as educators, to your efforts to solidify the foundations of a more humane and solidary society, and thus the advancement Christ’s kingdom of truth, holiness, justice and peace.

I thank you and encourage you to continue in your important work, and I ask you, please, to pray for me.  Entrusting all of you to the loving intercession of Mary, Mother of the Church, I cordially impart my Blessing as a pledge of joy and peace in Christ the Risen Saviour. And please do not forget to pray for me. Thank you!

Off the cuff Remarks of the Pope:

Thank you very much for visiting. I lived in Ireland, in Dublin, in Milltown Park, to study English. I studied English, but I forgot, excuse me! I will speak in Italian. Thanks for your visit. I'm happy, especially after listening to her [turns to the group leader]. I understood almost everything, but it was going at a hundred an hour and sometimes I didn't understand! But I liked that vision of education - I say it in my own words - in tension between risk and safety. It is a beautiful thing what you do. We have to break that imaginary about education, according to which to educate is to fill the head with ideas. So we educate about automata, about macrocephalics, not about people. To educate is to take risks in the tension between the head, heart and hands: in harmony, to the point of thinking about what I feel and do; to hear what I think and do; to do what I feel and think. It is a harmony.

But we must have Ariadne's thread to get out of the labyrinths… I also think of the labyrinth of life: the boy or girl who is growing up does not understand many things; what is Ariadne's thread to help young people not to get lost in the labyrinth? Walk together. It is not possible to educate without walking together with the people who are educating themselves. It is nice when you find educators who walk together with the boys and girls. And you [in the subtitle of the book you gave me] say a very beautiful thing: “When Rhetoric Meets Reality” [When rhetoric meets reality]. To educate is not to say purely rhetorical things; educating is bringing together what is said with reality. Girls and boys have the right to make mistakes, but the educator accompanies them on the path to guide these mistakes, so that they are not dangerous. The true educator is never afraid of mistakes, no: he accompanies, takes by the hand, listens, talks. He doesn't get scared and waits. This is educationhuman . As you see, there is a gulf between the heritage of macrocephalous education and education itself, which is this carrying on and making it grow, this helping to grow. I thank you for this humane approach to education. And go ahead, courage!

The last thing she [turns again to the group leader] referred to: dialogue between young people and the elderly is important. This is very important. Even bypassing the parents: not as a rebellion, but to seek the source. The roots, the roots. Because the tree, in order to grow, needs close relationships with the roots. Don't stay stuck at the roots, no, but be in relationship with the roots. There is a poet from my land who says a beautiful thing: "Everything that the tree has in bloom comes from what it has underground". Without roots, no progress can be made. Only with the roots do we become people: not museum statues, like some cold, starched, rigid traditionalists, with the thought that providing for life means living attached to the roots. We need this relationship with the roots, but also to move forward. And this is the true tradition: taking from the past to move forward. Tradition is not static: it is dynamic, aimed at moving forward. There was a fifth-century French theologian, a monk, who wondered, speaking about it, how dogma could progress without ruining the inspiration of one's tradition, how it should grow without hiding in the past. And he said in Latin: “Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate”: it progresses consolidating itself over the years, developing over time, sublimating itself with age. Consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate, this is the tradition: it is necessary to educate in tradition, but to grow. There was a fifth-century French theologian, a monk, who wondered, speaking about it, how dogma could progress without ruining the inspiration of one's tradition, how it should grow without hiding in the past. And he said in Latin: “Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate”: it progresses consolidating itself over the years, developing over time, sublimating itself with age. Consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate, this is the tradition: it is necessary to educate in tradition, but to grow. There was a fifth-century French theologian, a monk, who wondered, speaking about it, how dogma could progress without ruining the inspiration of one's tradition, how it should grow without hiding in the past. And he said in Latin: “Ut annis scilicet consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate”: it progresses consolidating itself over the years, developing over time, sublimating itself with age. Consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate, this is the tradition: it is necessary to educate in tradition, but to grow. dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate ”: it progresses consolidating over the years, developing over time, sublimating with age.  Consolidetur, dilatetur tempore, sublimetur aetate, this is the tradition: it is necessary to educate in tradition, but to grow.

Thank you, thank you very much for your working. Thank you, thank you. And now I will give the blessing to you, who are from Green Ireland [Blessing]