The Apostolic Letter «Drawing New Maps of Hope» of Pope Leo XIV, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Conciliar Declaration Gravissimum educationis, reaffirms the proposals of Catholic education. The Holy Father proposes an integral model that opposes commercialism, emphasizing the centrality of the person and the learning of virtues.
Among its main proposals are: ensuring quality and access to the poorest, linking social and environmental justice, promoting the collaboration of the entire «educational constellation», and forming with mind, heart and hands to be «choreographers of hope». This document exhorts institutions to be laboratories of discernment and prophetic witness, always putting the person before the program. To achieve all this, it emphasizes the need for teacher training.
We quote some of the Pope's proposals contained in the document:
1. Educational charisms are not rigid formulas.
2. Christian education is a choral work: no one educates alone. The educational community is a «we» in which the teacher, the student, the family, the administrative and service personnel, the pastors and the civil society converge to generate life.
3. The question of the relationship between faith and reason is not an optional chapterReligious truth is not only a part but a condition of general knowledge“. These words of St. John Henry Newman - whom, in the context of this Jubilee of the Educational World, I have the great joy of declaring co-patron of the educational mission of the Church along with St. Thomas Aquinas - are the words of St. John Henry Newman.
4. The university and the Catholic school are places where questions are not silenced, and doubt is not forbidden, but accompanied. There, the heart dialogues with the heart, and the method is that of listening that recognizes the other as an asset, not as a threat.
5. The educational action is that work, as mysterious as it is real, of “.“to make the being blossom... is to take care of the soul”, as we read in Plato's Apology of Socrates (30a-b).
6. Christian formation does not oppose the manual and the theoretical, science and humanism, technique and conscience; instead, it demands that professionalism be imbued with ethics, and that ethics not be an abstract word, but a daily practice. Education does not measure its value only in terms of efficiency: measures it in terms of dignity, justice and the ability to serve the common good.
7. Educators are called to a responsibility that goes from beyond the employment contractTheir witness is as valuable as their teaching. For this reason, the formation of teachers - scientific, pedagogical, cultural and spiritual - is decisive.
8. The family continues to be the first place of education. Catholic schools collaborate with parents, not replace them., because “the duty of education, especially religious education, is incumbent upon them before any other person”.”
9. Forgetting our common humanity has generated fractures and violence; and when the earth suffers, the poor suffer more. Catholic education cannot remain silent: it must unite the social justice and environmental justice, promote sobriety and sustainable lifestyles, forming consciences capable of choosing not only what is convenient, but also what is just. Every small gesture - avoiding waste, choosing responsibly, defending the common good - is cultural and moral literacy.
10. History teaches, moreover, that our institutions welcome students and families who are non-believers or of other religions,but desirous of a truly human education. For this reason, as is already the case, we must continue to promote participatory educational communities, in which lay people, religious, families and students share responsibility for the educational mission together with public and private institutions.
11. But it requires discernment in instructional design, assessment, platforms, data protection and equitable access. In any case, no algorithm can replace what makes education human: poetry, irony, love, art, imagination, the joy of discovery, and even education in error. as a growth opportunity.
12. Among the stars that guide the way is the Global Education Pact. We gratefully accept this prophetic inheritance entrusted to us by Pope Francis. It is an invitation to form an alliance and a network to educate in universal fraternity. His seven paths remain our foundation: putting the person at the center; listening to children and young people; promoting the dignity and full participation of women; recognizing the family as the primary educator; being open to welcome and inclusion; renewing the economy and politics at the service of mankind; guarding the common home.
13. To the seven ways I add three priorities. The first refers to the inner lifeThe first is that young people are looking for depth; they need spaces for silence, discernment, dialogue with their conscience and with God. The second refers to the digital humanWe train in the wise use of technologies and AI, putting the person before the algorithm and harmonizing technical, emotional, social, spiritual and ecological intelligence. The third concerns the unarmed peace and disarming: we educate in non-violent languages, reconciliation, bridges and not walls; «Blessed are the peacemakers» (Mt 5:9) becomes the method and content of learning.
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