Educational institutions

29. «Education can play an outstanding role in promoting the inculturation of the Gospel» (Ecclesia in America, 71). Education brings the child through adolescence to maturity. It begins within the family, which is always the best context for education. Any pastoral approach to culture and any deep evangelization relies heavily on education, and has the family as its starting-point; Athe place where the education of the person primarily takes place» (Ibid.).

But when families are beset by so many different problems, they cannot be expected to cope alone. Hence the greater importance of educational institutions. In many countries, the Church carries out her mission as an educator and teacher by running nurseries or kindergartens, schools, colleges, high schools, universities and research centres. These Catholic institutions have the specific vocation of bringing Gospel values to the heart of culture. In order to do this, those who are pastorally responsible for these institutions must draw the substance of their educational projects from Christ's message and from the teaching of the Church. However, to implement their mission, such institutions depend largely on means that are often scarce. One must accept the facts of the matter in order to grasp the challenge: the Church is obliged to dedicate a considerable part of its human and financial resources to education so as to respond to the mission it received from Christ, to proclaim the Gospel. In all cases, one need remains: that of associating a concern for deep human and Christian formation with that of providing serious academic formation.(²³) For the multitude of young people who attend educational institutions throughout the world can frequently, despite the efforts and the competence of teachers, be fully educated but partially deculturated.

In the broader picture of a pastoral approach to culture and with a view to providing students with the specific formation which they have a right to expect, Catholic universities, colleges and research centres should take care to ensure a fruitful encounter between the Gospel and the different cultural expressions. These institutions can contribute in an original and irreplaceable way to a genuine formation in cultural values, which is an ideal basis for the symbiosis between faith and the intellectual life. In this respect, it is recommended that special attention be given to the teaching of philosophy, history and literature as they are essential elements for the encounter between the faith and the different cultures.

The presence of the Church in the university and in university culture,(²⁴) together with those practical initiatives which make this presence effective, demand rigorous discernment and unstinting efforts to promote a new Christian culture, one which is enriched by the best achievements in every field of university activity.

Priests, men and women religious, and well-prepared lay people are urgently needed in this task of human and Christian formation. Their joint efforts will allow Catholic educational institutions to bring their influence to bear on the production of educational material, as well as on teachers themselves (professionals of culture). They can also help spread a Christian model of relationships between teachers and pupils, at the heart of a genuine educational community. Forming minds and consciences is one of the principal goals of a pastoral approach to culture.

30. Schools are, by definition, places of cultural initiation and in certain countries, for many centuries, places where a culture forged by Christianity is transmitted. While Areligious instruction» is allowed in schools in many countries, this is not the case everywhere. But, in both situations, we are faced with the same basic question: the relationship between religious education and catechesis. There is reasonable concern that those whose job it is to teach obligatory Areligion» classes will, in reality, have to restrict them to basic religious education. It seems inevitable that, with ever fewer young people having access to catechesis worthy of the name, and without support from elsewhere, religious culture among the younger generations will soon collapse. Hence the urgent need to re-think the relationship between religious education and catechesis, and the need to find a new way of relating the need for exact and impartial information C which is in danger of vanishing C to the overriding importance of witness. Schools and parishes need to complement each other in this area. Choosing teachers who can link these two areas more clearly is indispensable if this demanding but promising pastoral challenge is to be met successfully.