“Educating to fraternal humanism” – guidelines for Catholic educational institutions from the Holy See

By Source: Vatican Radio
Sep 29th, 2017

Catholic Education
Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education – Radio Vaticana

Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, presented the document “Educating to fraternal humanism. Building a ‘civilization of love’ 50 years after Populorum progressio” at a press conference on September 22nd (Vatican Radio). 

The press conference was held in the Holy See Press Office to present the work of the Pontifical Foundation Gravissimum educationis and the document “Educating to fraternal humanism. Building a ‘civilization of love’ 50 years after Populorum progressio”.

Cardinal Versaldi said it contains the guidelines for education in fraternal humanism (see Spanish version here, see French version here) and that it will be distributed to all 216,000 Catholic schools and universities around the world “with a student population that exceeds 60 million pupils from every faith and ethnic group”. This includes the 845 Jesuit Primary and Secondary schools worldwide. 

The document says, “Our efforts at education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society and our relationship with nature”.

“Solidarity and brotherhood,” Cardinal Versaldi said, can be promoted by Catholic schools and universities “through a formative experience capable of integrating science and conscience.”

Pontifical Foundation Gravissimum educationis

The press conference also gave voice to the two-year old Pontifical Foundation Gravissimum educationis, instituted by Pope Francis in 2015.

Msgr. Guy-Réal Thivierge, the Foundations’ secretary general, said its work is to incarnate the educative vision promoted by the Congregation for Catholic Education.

He said the Foundation is inspired primarily by Church teaching and by the charism of Pope Francis.

Key words behind its work, Msgr. Thivierge said, are “inclusion, dialogue, cooperation, and transcendence.”

Source: Vatican Radio (Devin Sean Watkins)