The effectiveness of the educative mission

We feel the pressing need for better formative levels in the preferred area of our mission: education. We must in fact face up to the complexity and multiplicity of the situations in which young people are immersed and to the problems posed by the environment to human growth and to the faith; and at the same time we must be able to draw fruit from their innumerable possibilities.

For this reason our situation as educators calls for a reflective approach to culture which allows for the updating of contents and methods to meet the demands of the meaning of life for the young.

On the other hand, adequate and recognized qualifications are demanded at the present day also by the diversification and complexity of educative interventions, which call for more complete knowledge and more consolidated practice. Weak professional quality means an impoverishment of the educative project; it diminishes the impact of our work and, as it gets worse, could lead to our exclusion from the field of education altogether. We notice this risk particularly in some settings in which new items appear more evident like social communication, the university world, and areas of "disadvantaged youth".

Then too in the new contexts in which we are becoming inserted with a missionary spirit and criteria, and which could seem simpler from an educative standpoint, there is an urgently felt need to create programs adequate to the situation and inculturate our pedagogical methods, overcoming the simple transposition of contents and methods designed for other areas. Inculturation and quality call for commitment by the local educative communities, provincial organisms, and Centres of study and reflection. Increased qualification seems indispensable on all fronts.

We are well aware that sometimes we have to be realistic in meeting urgent needs, and we are always willing to do so, but it must be clearly stated that our future possibilities in the field of education are closely linked with quality. For this reason, if it is true that "the best can be the enemy of the good" ("better a little than nothing at all"), it is also true that we cannot expose ourselves to a generalized form of pastoral and educative work which risks disqualifying ourselves from attaining the purpose of our service.

This is equally true in the more strictly pastoral sector. This requires greater competence in specific matters, acquired to a sufficient degree and then followed up by revision and continual extension, and a more professional implementation of ministerial tasks. Direction of consciences, the Christian animation of communities, the presentation of the Word of God in its true meaning and application to current human situations, the shedding of light on ethical questions, presentation of the Gospel, formation to prayer and celebration, and orientation to the experience of God – all these are things which require heart and fervour, but also wisdom acquired through reflection and study.

Add to these the new dimensions of pastoral work which have become practically universal: ecumenism, inter-religious dialogue and with non-believers, the use of social communication which becomes a pulpit at everyone’s disposal, and participation in public discussions on many questions.

Pastoral work means more than organization and immediate action; it includes also the options to be made as a Christian community and the orientations to be suggested to individuals in the complex situations of life, and hence an ability for discernment, enlightenment and exposition.

A solid cultural and professional formation therefore seems indispensable as a component of spirituality. On this point the Synod strongly insisted with regard to priestly formation, in addition to what we have already quoted about consecrated life. We will do well to listen again to some expressions from Pastores dabo vobis, which give us the assurance of being on the Church’s wavelength. "‘If we expect every Christian – the Synod Fathers write – to be prepared to make a defence of the faith and to account for the hope that is in us (cf. 1 Pet 3,15), then all the more should candidates for the priesthood and priests have diligent care of the quality of their intellectual formation in their educational and pastoral activity. For the salvation of their brothers and sisters they should seek an ever deeper knowledge of the divine mysteries’. The present situation is heavily marked by religious indifference, by a widespread mistrust regarding the real capacity of reason to reach objective and universal truth, and by fresh problems and questions brought up by scientific and technological discoveries. It strongly demands a high level of intellectual formation, such as will enable priests to proclaim, in a context like this, the changeless Gospel of Christ and to make it credible to the legitimate demands of human reason"