CHAS CONFERENCE - 7 MAY 2009
CATHOLIC EDUCATION AND CATHOLIC SOCIAL TEACHING
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen
I had been keen to explore the links between Catholic Social Teaching and Catholic Education for some time, and so I was delighted that your choice of theme for this year’s conference – The Inclusive Catholic School - allowed me that possibility.
“Inclusion” is in one sense a shibbeloth of recent socio-political thinking – one of the commandments in the decalogue of political correctness. And while it can have a very positive and beneficial meaning, it can, if used without sufficient discretion, lead to a mis-shapen notion of society.
Somewhere in the libretto in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta I seem to recall the following: “When everybody is somebody, nobody is anybody at all.” Or to put it in another way, if everyone is special, no-one is special.
But, you may ask, is there any harm in that? Well there is harm if it leads to a society where in order to ensure that every opinion is included, relations are redefined and pretences are sanctified and no-one is permitted to voice opinions that may be regarded as contradicting the orthodoxy of inclusivity .
And so we have marriage as a term no longer exclusively used for the reality which is marriage – according to its original and traditional meaning, a covenanted union between a man and woman, open to the begetting of new life; where parents no longer mean the biological progenitors of children; where registers can be altered in order to disguise a change of sex and where reproductive rights mean the legally sanctioned killing of unborn children.
Equally worrying, if not more subversive, is the pretence that all opinions are equally worthy of acceptance and, more recently, if held by a group, accorded the title of a “belief”, a belief to be treated as equal to traditional faith systems. Holding in the latter case to a transcendental reality distinguishes and must distinguish such systems from those based upon secularist philosophies or, more worryingly, passing fashionable ideologies.
The most dangerous consequence of an undiscerning application of the principle of inclusion is the loss of the sense that not everything is true - truth being ultimately the object of all intelligent searching, not beholding to opinion, but to proof, depending on the nature of the field of thought, and, in matters of spirituality, to that insight and revelation which over many years, and by proofs which concern the heart as well as the mind, demonstrate their principality.
Now having said all that, and, as it were, from the beginning, sounded the trumpet blast to marshall the troops against the onslaught of the “inclusive society” let me hasten to add that there are of course uses of the word which are entirely right and beneficial – I mean of course the right of all to respect, irrespective of the views they may hold; the right of all to contribute to society and enjoy its fruits; the right of all to a just judgement and freedom from oppression and the right of all to know the truth and to be led to it by those who demonstrate it in their own lives as well as persuading to it by thoughtful argument.
The key of course is discernment, or as expressed by one of the four cardinal virtues – prudence.
When so qualified inclusion is a concept which should not only be very comfortable for us to consider and apply, but is indeed an integral part of what we mean by the provision of a Catholic education. Even the word “Catholic” has in its origins the sense of inclusiveness – the whole wide world.
The concept of inclusion is found, of course, in the pages of the Gospel. One only has to think of Christ’s admonition to the disciples to allow children to come to Him; or to consider the conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well; or to re-read those accounts of the Pharisees being scandalized by Our Lord’s frequenting of those considered by the authorities of the time to be untouchable … tax collectors, adulterers, collaborators, lepers and all the rest.
But in more recent times the concept of inclusion has also been found running through the great, for many, untapped resource of Catholic Social Teaching, a teaching which I believe should feature prominently in the curriculum offered to every child in our Catholic schools.
Earlier this year I found that conviction bolstered by words I heard in Rome from the Director General of the International Labour Office of the United Nations, Juan Somavia, who spoke movingly of the contribution the Church has made over the centuries to the development of human society and the promotion of the inalienable rights of each individual. His intervention was part of a celebration which took place in the Aula Paolo VI in the Vatican and concluded with a concert given by a German orchestra in the presence of the Holy Father and of the President of the Italian Republic and his wife. The reason for the event was the 60th anniversary of the UN Declaration of Human Rights.
Mr Somavia analysed the present global situation and the impact it is having on all sections of society but most particularly the poor. He countered the notion that the Church was in any sense a force opposed to human rights – or an agency of exclusion. He stated boldly:
“To celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the Vatican, the seat of the Catholic Church, has a very special meaning. There is a kinship between the Declaration, the Social Doctrine of the Church and the ILO's own Constitution. They are all founded on the promotion and protection of human dignity.
“And they are all, at heart, about how to transform values into policies, and policies into action, so that we can organize societies in a way that respects the dignity of people. As the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church says, “the essence of human rights can be found in the dignity of each human being.”
He went on to illustrate how the dignity of the human person is particularly challenged at this time through the economic slowdown and the credit crunch with its severe impact on employment. It was one thing to proclaim the rights of men and women to work, giving or withholding their labour in a compact with industry and civil government. It was another for the governments to ensure the creation of opportunities for work; its proper remuneration and its dignity as a human activity.
The Church’s social doctrine starts from that point – the dignity of the individual human person, man woman or child - rather then from the rights of the free market, albeit that the market’s competitive nature has the ability to reduce costs and so open up to more people access to the goods that can enhance human existence. However we have seen in recent developments greed on the part of those steering the global economy which has resulted in its implosion on a global scale.
Unbridled capitalism is as dangerous as unrestrained socialism; this is something which the Church has understood for a very long time, and Mr Somavia saw a corrective in the social teaching of the Church to which the present crisis offered an opportunity.
Indeed the Holy Father has not shirked the challenge, and urged us earlier this year not “to be discouraged” in the face of difficulties and failures resulting from the global slowdown, but instead to renew our efforts.
His words can have a particular impact on your lives as educators, standing as you do at the interface between deprivation and learning, the latter being the ladder out of the former.
The Pope said: “In the second half of 2008 an economic crisis of vast proportions emerged. That crisis must be studied in depth, like a grave symptom whose cause requires investigation.
“It is not enough as Jesus would say to sew new patches onto an old garment (cf. Mk 2: 21). To put the poor in first place means to decisively implement that kind of … solidarity that John Paul II had already indicated as necessary, uniting market potential with that of civil society in constant respect for the law and always in view of the common good. Jesus Christ did not organize campaigns against poverty, but he proclaimed the Gospel to the poor, providing an integral redemption from moral and material misery.”
In saying this, the Holy Father is carrying on and expressing a tradition that goes back to apostolic times. In our own day we would call it, perhaps, a “preferential option for the poor”.
That phrase should permeate the ethos of “Inclusive” Catholic schools. No child should feel disadvantaged in the classroom due to economic, social, familial or cultural poverty.
The examples of the early Church are illuminating:
We can recall St Paul remarking that when he went to Jerusalem to meet Peter and the other leaders of the Church there, they shook hands on the agreement that whereas Peter should aim his mission at the circumcised, namely the Jews, St Paul should devote his to the uncircumcised, the gentiles, but that he should remember always the needs of the poor which St Paul stated he had already intended to do. Indeed from his letters we know that he was faithful to his promise.
It would be possible to illustrate a continuity, at least in the practice of the Church throughout all the centuries of that commitment to charity.
Time does not allow me that luxury, but I would like to recall the exemplary figure of inclusivity, St John Bosco. He is the patron, given by the Church to Catholic teachers. Who better than him, then, the great educator of youth and pioneer of social reform, to turn to, as we begin our examination of the nature of the “Inclusive Catholic School.”
Don Bosco as he was universally known, died in Turin – Glasgow’s twin city - in northern Italy on 31 January, in 1888. The almost 73 years of his life were accompanied by deep and complex political, social and cultural changes. They were not unique conditions as we will find when we come to consider the corresponding situation in our own country and particularly our own city.
In Turin it was the time of the troubled aftermath of the Risorgimento. The Church was refusing to acknowledge the existence of the new anti-clerical Italian state, Catholics were forbidden to participate in political activities, poverty was grinding the country down and somehow the Church had to maintain its educational and social services to the dependent populace.
It was also a time of migration both within countries and between them as people moved from the land to the cities, as the industrial revolution got underway. People, escaping poverty, and in the case of Ireland, recurring famine, sought new opportunities to work in the hope of a better life.
However as generally happens it was the young who were most vulnerable to the upheavals of displacement and the concomitant social ills.
And it was to the young that the great heart of Don Bosco was turned. The "Work of the Oratories" began in 1841 with a simple catechism lesson and subsequently spread in response to pressing needs and situations. By the end of his days Don Bosco had set up hostels for the reception of those with nowhere to go, workshops and schools of arts and trades to enable them to find work and make an honest living; schools for humanities and recreational initiatives typical of his time such as drama groups, bands, choirs and youth clubs who organized away-days. He may not have preached the word “inclusion” but he certainly practised it!
No less importantly for the continuation of his work he founded male and female religious orders – the Salesians (calling them after the great St Francis de Sales) – their charism continues to be greatly valued throughout today’s Church.
Perhaps you will allow me a little personal note at this stage, since I recall that that year of Don Bosco’s death -1888 - was also the date marked by tessere in the terrazzo floor of the entrance to my father’s shop in Elgin - the year in which my grandfather founded the business. He and his wife, my grandmother, were young immigrants to this country, and in my parents’ description of them, they slaved from morning to night to better their lives and the lives of their children, and they did so without forgetting their indebtedness to the Church to which they remained faithful all their lives.
Indeed my maternal grandfather received his education from the parish priest of a little Tuscan village overlooking the valley of the River Serchio along the banks of which the Via Francigena traditionally carried pilgrims to and from Rome, as Hilaire Belloc, who traveled down that valley described in his book “The Path to Rome.”
The year 1888 takes us towards the end of a century which, whether in Turin, or a thousand miles to the north, in the city which was a century later to become Turin’s twin, the poor experienced great hardship.
Of course 1888, is famous for another reason in my own adopted city of Glasgow; it was the year that another educator and social reformer, a member of the Marist Brothers, Walfrid by name, founded Celtic football club to help ameliorate the social conditions of Glasgow’s poverty-stricken east end – an early example of the unity of vision and understanding of inclusivity which has characterized the Church’s understanding of these apparently separate areas of life, education and social care.
Glasgow, one of the earliest cities of the industrial revolution, was still in 1888 in the throes of its development. There had been mass migration into the city – both Irish and highland labourers had arrived by the thousand, forced by poverty to flee their land in search of better times in the city, drawn by the hope engendered by the industrial revolution. Close-packed in unhygienic slums, cholera was rife, while education and health provision were almost non-existent to those without means.
Traditional structures of education had become ineffective in this new social landscape and efforts were made by various philanthropists, educators and churchmen to meet the new needs. The Catholic Church, despite its extreme poverty and paucity of resources was already in the vanguard. Priests sent to care for the people recognized education as a key weapon in the struggle against dehumanizing poverty.
In the mid-19th century a school for boys – St Mungo’s - already existed in the city, built by Fr Archibald Chisholm. Three years after its foundation in College Street it had moved to a weaver’s shop in Weaver Street, and by 1857 120 pupils crowded into it to be taught by one teacher.
I can almost hear you wince as you compare that to the current debate over class sizes!
A journalist’s description of the school at the time is stark: “The dingy apartment is swarming with children from five to 10 years of age, with here and there a boy of 12 or 13, all pale-faced, many very poorly-clad, and all clustered so thickly on the benches and the floor that there is scarcely room for us to move. A class is standing before a large map, and is being drilled by a pupil-teacher in his fourth year. The master calls up a few of the older boys and we have the pleasure of hearing a few questions put to them in arithmetic and geography. The performance is tolerable, but knowledge amid such noise, crowd and suffocation is pursued under great difficulties.”
However Fr Chisholm had already been thinking of how to better the circumstances and in 1855 he took the opportunity of a visit to Glasgow by two Marist Brothers to press upon them the great need for Catholic education in the city. So it was that in 1858, three Marists arrived from London and on August 23 1858 a school bearing the name of St Mungo’s was opened on Garngad Hill.
However we had better give credit where credit is due. Already 11 years earlier three women arrived unexpectedly at the door of St Mary’s in Calton to the satisfaction of the Parish Priest Fr Peter Forbes. They were the founding members of the Franciscans of the Immaculate Conception, the founding date of whose congregation is 1847.
Two years later the Sisters of Mercy came and that two pronged approach was theirs also, of education and the practical service of the poor.
Later still the Society of Jesus established St Aloysius College which has also played a very significant part in the history of Catholic education in the city.
At the same historical period, Frederic Ozanam died in France, the founder of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, another initiative born out of the heart of the Church which aimed to tackle the grinding poverty of the day in innovative ways.
It would be right to note at this stage an even earlier social experiment, if that is the right description, this time not within the Catholic Church but nonetheless clearly motivated by Christian principles, I refer to New Lanark (1800-1825) where Robert Owen the Mill Manager transformed the then common lot of the poor by providing the workers with decent homes and schools; evening classes; a free health service and affordable food. While it may have gained world heritage status in large part for its architectural innovation, it deserves it even more for its prophetic example.
By 1888 however things were improving. The Victorian tenements were being built which would serve Glasgow until the post-war period and in many places still do. Now there were inside toilets, albeit still shared, and a general improvement in hygiene in large part effected in Glasgow through the raising of Loch Katrine by three feet to provide the pressure to carry fresh water into the city.
1888 saw the introduction of compulsory schooling for children in England, Scotland having made the change in 1872. The leaving age was raised to 14 in 1883, and the Scottish Education Department introduced a Leaving Certificate Examination in 1888 to set national standards for secondary education.
On 28th May, that same year, 1888, Celtic Football Club played its first official match, winning 5-2 against Rangers, thereby providing not simply engagement for the young, but also income to provide soup-kitchens for the needy in the city. Incidentally, Mgr Peter Smith tells me that Celtic contributed through his parish and the neighbouring Church of Scotland parish, £20,000 this Christmas for the needy within the community of the East End where poverty is still endemic.
It is sobering to remember – as we survey the historical landscape – the realities of poverty which still confront us: In January 2006, a report revealed that "a child born in Calton... is three times as likely to suffer heart disease, four times as likely to be hospitalised and ten times as likely to grow up in a workless household than a child in the city's prosperous western suburbs". Calton has the lowest male life expectancy in Scotland - lower than in some areas of Iraq or the Gaza Strip. So the challenge is very real for our generation, just as it was for our grandparents.
But back to our timeline …
In 1878, Pope Leo XIII had been elected; and the first formal act of his pontificate was to re-establish the Scottish hierarchy. An Archbishop was appointed to Glasgow, Archbishop Charles Eyre. He did a great deal to advance the pastoral and social work of the Church ensuring mainly through the religious orders that Catholic schooling was available throughout the city, giving opportunity to the poorer sectors of it for their eventual betterment and social integration.
We may remember that Pope Leo’s election was within 10 years of the occupation of Rome by the troops of the King of Savoy, when the Pope became, in the well-known description, the “prisoner of the Vatican”. This did not prevent Leo from speaking from its ramparts and issuing to the world his famous encyclical on social issues, Rerum Novarum.
I think it is impossible to overestimate the significance or the impact of this document or the subsequent series of social encyclicals which over the years have marked the anniversary of that first encyclical, and at each stage of so doing have developed the social doctrine of the Church to address the new social and educational needs of the times.
At the time of Rerum Novarum, the poor were identified mainly as the workers in the new industrial society; in the social Magisterium of Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI and John Paul II, new forms of poverty were gradually explored, as the scope of the social question widened to reach global proportions, finding in the documents of Vatican II the impulses which have led to the formation of justice and peace groups and agencies dedicated to raising funds for projects in the developing world such as SCIAF and CAFOD.
And so it was on May 15 1891, Pope Leo wrote: “The responsibility of the apostolic office urges Us to treat the [social] question … in order that no misapprehension may exist as to the principles which truth and justice dictate for its settlement.”
Of course the Church had, over the centuries, been addressing the issues of poverty in practical ways. What Leo XIII did was to articulate the principles which governed that charitable, social and educational effort, codifying its aims and objectives and addressing the particular circumstances of the time in the light of the Church’s teaching.
These great documents and teachings of the Holy See and of Church agencies have been gathered together at the request of Pope John Paul II , and in 2004 were published as the Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. This, surely, is a book which every school and every Catholic educational advisor should have in their library as a sure reference and guide. We have within it a very clear formulation of what the Church’s social teaching has to say about the essential right and duty of parents to educate their children. The role of teachers is important, but secondary to that of parents. The state must facilitate the handing on of knowledge and experience including religious educational opportunities. And Catholic schools are to be a place of welcome, of nurture and of inclusion.
It is interesting to note that a very similar statement comes to us from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
There, in article 26, we read: “Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory…Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality … . It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups ….
Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”
It is very easy for the social commentators to pitch the notion of inclusion against the continued provision of separate Catholic schools and suggest that the two cannot co-exist.
I want to challenge that, and I want you to challenge it at every turn. Our Catholic schools are inclusive – they do not turn children away on grounds of race or religion, and indeed there will scarcely be a Catholic school in the country which does not have its fair share of Muslim, Hindu or Sikh children or those whose parents have no faith commitment at all.
All of these children are made welcome, are nurtured and are treasured in our Catholic schools every day of the year. Let that message be made very clear to those who would seek to remove Catholic schools from the educational map.
I cannot help recalling at this point the most reassuring words we heard a year ago from Scotland’s First Minister whose ringing endorsement of Catholic schooling was of enormous cheer to us and a concrete manifestation of that duty of public authorities to guarantee those parental and children’s rights to which we have just referred.
The Church throughout the years has supported those rights and anticipated the choice of parents of a Catholic education for their children and has provided, with the support of the Catholic community, Catholic schools.
One has only to consider the remarkable development of the Catholic community in the subsequent 90 years, the entrance of many of its young people into the professions and into civic leadership to appreciate the extent of this achievement.
The story I have been telling should be seen to be an integral part of the story which our children are taught about who they are, from where they have come, to what they belong and what our expectations are for them and from them.
I want to say something about the particular character of today’s culture. It is essentially a rights-based culture. No longer do we need to struggle to achieve recognition of the rights stoutly defended by Leo XIII. They have largely – in our society at least – been recognized. For example, workers’ rights, the role of trades unions, duties of employers and civic authorities, the provision of a living wage, decent housing and so on.
Today there are additional rights to consider. For example equality of opportunity in the workplace and in obtaining commodities and accessing services; fair and equal rights for men and women with respect to wages and work opportunities; and parental leave of absence to care for new born members of their families.
Today’s young people – immersed as they are in the rights culture – need criteria to judge how these rights should be exercised and wisdom to balance these rights with responsibilities.
It is also important for them to be able to distinguish between inalienable rights based upon natural law itself and those accorded as positive law often resulting from ideological pressures on government.
By inalienable human rights we mean the right to life, to citizenship, to education, to freedom of conscience, worship and association and all the rest.
Fundamental to these rights is Vatican II’s declaration on religious freedom since it implies the right of people to follow their conscience in relationship to God and in respect of their duties one to another – responsibilities before rights.
We have to educate the young to counter the prevailing idea that rights are simply guarantees issued by the Government to particular groups at particular times. Such an understanding of “rights” belittles the concept and is far from the Church’s understanding and almost certainly from the understanding of those who drafted and signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948.
Rights must not be seen as a victory prize for competing ideologies. How important it is to train our young people in discernment!
As I noted earlier, the Holy Father has not shirked the challenge arising out of the global financial situation and the credit crunch. In fact in that context he has given us a formula for discernment under four headings – study, investigation, implementation and proclamation.
I would like to suggest today that this list can help each of us in our own content to analyse to what extent we are successfully building truly inclusive Catholic schooling.
We – each of us at our own level and place of responsibility – are asked to:
-
Investigate – to look closely at any means we might be able to identify and tackle for the poverty, be it spiritual, material, social or cultural, which surrounds us.
While this programme is not restricted to the educational field it nevertheless finds its harvest there.
The seed is in the education of young people to understand the causes of poverty, the creation of wealth, the role of government and their own democratic rights and duties. If in the past our parliamentarians, our civic leaders and local councilors have come from the trades unions and from the fora of informed debate which took place in clubs and parish halls, the question is, where in the future will these leaders come from, if not from our schools, university chaplaincies and adult faith programmes?
The last point in the Holy Father’s programme presents us with the necessary caveat when addressing the circumstances of the times. We tend to see wealth creation, efficiency, technological advance and all the other markers of progress as signs of a civilized society. They are however, in themselves, incapable of satisfying man in his deepest needs.
This is a key lesson which Catholic educators must impart – that financial advancement is not in direct proportion to contentedness or genuine happiness. The human spirit can only find true happiness in God, as St Augustine so famously reminds us. Our spirit, in a sense, longs for inclusion, ultimately inclusion in God, but also inclusion in a caring society.
The compendium puts it like this:
“In singling out new needs and new means to meet them, one must be guided by a comprehensive picture of man which respects all the dimensions of his being and which subordinates his material and instinctive dimensions to his interior and spiritual ones ... Of itself, an economic system does not possess criteria for correctly distinguishing new and higher forms of satisfying human needs from artificial new needs which hinder the formation of a mature personality.”
While we are all faced with these challenges educators have a special opportunity and indeed duty to try to ensure that our young people, and indeed our future teachers will make a sober assessment of the society in which they live and work, and are able to make a valid contribution to it.
I am aware that much of your current focus is on trying to implement the Scottish Government’s “Curriculum for Excellence” framework. Without trying to add to your burdens, let me suggest to you that the key challenge you face is to develop a curriculum which is most appropriate to a Catholic school.
Surely such a curriculum should be designed to ensure that young people know how to embrace the values of wisdom, justice, compassion and integrity, values so close in description and content to the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance. I am sure that each of your schools will be striving for excellence as you nurture young people in the theological virtues of faith, hope and love.
I am aware that, in the next presentation, Michael McGrath will be illustrating various aspects of Excellence in the Catholic school and suggesting various sources of support for you and your staff. Anticipating what Michael will highlight, let me say this. The contribution of the Catholic school – and particularly through your role as the school’s chief catechist – in providing young people with a sound and stimulating education in faith is critical to the success of our schools and to the mission of the Church.
In conclusion let me say this. I find it reassuring as a bishop to discover that my concerns are shared by my brother bishops in another part of the world. And so I was delighted to read the document of the United States Bishops Conference offering guidelines to Catholic Educational establishments setting out what is expected of them in their presentation of Catholic Social Teaching. It is quite punchy in its exposition …
Let me give you an example: “Many Catholics do not adequately understand that the social teaching of the Church is an essential part of Catholic faith. This poses a serious challenge for all Catholics, since it weakens our capacity to be a Church that is true to the demands of the Gospel. We need to do more to share the social mission and message of our Church.”
And: “If Catholic education and formation fail to communicate our social tradition, they are not fully Catholic.”
And again: “Our social heritage is unknown by many Catholics. Sadly, our social doctrine is not shared or taught in a consistent and comprehensive way in too many of our schools, seminaries, religious education programs, colleges, and universities. We need to build on the good work already underway to ensure that every Catholic understands how the Gospel and church teaching call us to choose life, to serve the least among us, to hunger and thirst for justice, and to be peacemakers. The sharing of our social tradition is a defining measure of Catholic education and formation.”
[Ladies and gentlemen I could not do better than conclude with these stirring words]
I quote these wise statements as an encouragement to ensure that our Catholic education embraces all that they imply. It is worth noticing that these words were spoken 10 years ago. If they were valid and apt then, they are more so now as we look round our world and draw some obvious conclusions.
Unbridled capitalism has stalled – at best! Perhaps it has broken down definitively. The consequences are fearful. The impact on humanity is incalculable. The world is in a state of flux. Countless persons feel excluded from society … our task is to ensure that our Catholic schools offer a vision capable of responding to these problems
The essential mistake of encouraging unbridled market forces was to fall for the idea that satisfaction could be achieved through individualistic consumption. Such a stance benefits big business, it maximizes profits. But ultimately it fails to satisfy the human heart.
In this cultural context the Catholic educator has a formidable challenge, namely of combating the vice of greed by encouraging the contrary virtues … service, prudence, generosity, simplicity, contentment. To do so we must stay close to the young in our charge.
Reflecting on this in the centenary year of Don Bosco’s death, the late Pope John Paul said: “The true educator shares the life of the young, is interested in their problems, tries to become aware of how they see things, takes part in their sporting and cultural activities and in their conversations.
“As a mature and responsible friend he sketches out for them ways and means of doing good, he is ready to intervene to solve problems, to indicate criteria, to correct with prudent and loving firmness blameworthy judgments and behavior.In this atmosphere of "pedagogical presence" the educator is not looked upon as a superior, but as a father, brother and friend.”
There is your challenge … to walk with your young charges through this difficult and turbulent stage of life, offering them an alternative vision, a vision inspired by the beatitudes. A vision taking flesh in the person who described himself as “the Truth” as well as “the Way” and “the Life.”
Thank you very much. |
