Pope to Catholic teachers: Focus less on professional outcomes, more on spiritual lives

ROME, November 2 ------ Pope Leo XIV urged Catholic teachers to focus less on pre-professional outcomes and more on educating students to have rich spiritual lives and use technology in ways that keep human dignity front and center. Leo issued a set of marching orders to Catholic educators during a special Holy Year celebration that has brought thousands of teachers, students, and administrators to Rome.

The brief text, which Leo signed at a Mass for Jubilee pilgrims on Monday, is an update to a 1965 Vatican document laying out the priorities for Catholic educators that was adopted during the Second Vatican Council, the 1960s meetings that modernized the Church.

The Catholic Church is one of the world’s leading players in education, operating more than 225,000 primary and secondary schools and enrolling some 2.5 million students at Catholic universities around the globe, according to Vatican statistics. Leo was educated by the Augustinians and later became a member of their religious order, which places a special emphasis on St. Augustine’s search for truth and the command “Tolle, lege” (“Take up and read”).

In the text, Leo repeated that parents are the primary educators for their children and that Catholic schools must cooperate with them, not take their place. And he said Catholic teachers must themselves be models for their students. “Educators are called to a responsibility that goes beyond their work contract: their witness is worth as much as their lessons,” he wrote, calling for ongoing training for Catholic teachers in both academic and spiritual fields. He didn’t mention issues such as teachers’ private lives or sexual orientation, avoiding the polemics over cases where gay teachers have been fired by Catholic schools in the United States.

Leo said Catholic education wasn’t measured in efficiencies or output but rather “in dignity, justice and the capacity to serve the common good.” Such a vision, he added, “goes against a purely mercantilist approach that often forces education today to be measured in terms of functionality and practical utility.”

He cited priorities that his predecessor Francis, had listed for Catholic educators, which emphasized inclusion, ecology, and the common good: He said Catholic educators should also emphasize the interior spiritual life of students, use a “disarmed and disarming” language that eschews violence, and promote a responsible use of technology, including artificial intelligence, that keeps human dignity foremost. “The Catholic school is a place where faith, culture, and life cross paths,” he wrote. “It’s not just an institution, but a living environment in which the Christian vision permeates every discipline and every interaction.”

Source: manilatimes.net