VATICAN CITY, 23 JAN 2008 (VIS) - Made public today was a Letter from the Pope to the diocese and the city of Rome on the vital importance of education.
During last Sunday's Angelus, for the occasion of the Day of Catholic Schools which the diocese of Rome was celebrating that day, the Holy Father had encouraged administrators, teachers, parents and pupils of Catholic schools, despite the difficulties they face, to continue their work "which has the Gospel as its focus, following an educational syllabus that aims at the integral formation of the human person".
In his Letter, which is dated 21 January, Benedict XVI notes that education today "seems to be becoming ever more difficult. ... Hence there is talk of an 'educational emergency', confirmed by the failures which too often crown our efforts to form well-rounded individuals, capable of collaborating with others and of giving meaning to their lives". There is also talk of a 'break between the generations', which certainly exists and is a burden, but is the effect rather than the cause of the failure to transmit certainties and values".
The Holy Father notes that parents and teachers may feel the "temptation to give up" on education, and even run the risk "of not understanding what their role is", and he identifies "a mentality and a form of culture that lead people to doubt the value of the human person, the meaning of truth and of good and, in the final analysis, the goodness of life itself".
Faced with such difficulties, "which are not insurmountable", the Pope says: "Do not be afraid! ... Event the greatest values of the past cannot simply be inherited, we must make them our own and renew them through often-difficult personal choices.
"However", he adds, "when the foundations are shaken and essential certainties disappear, the need for those values returns to make itself imposingly felt. Thus we see today an increasing demand for real education". It is demanded by parents, by teachers, "by society as a whole, ... and by the young people themselves who do not want to be left to face the challenges of life alone".
The Holy Father writes of the need "to identify certain common requirements for authentic education", noting that "it requires, above all, the nearness and trust that are born of love".
"It would, then, be a poor education that limited itself to imparting notions and information while ignoring the great question of truth, above all of that truth which can be a guide to life".
The Pope identifies "the most delicate aspect of education" as that of "finding the right balance between freedom and discipline". However, he affirms, "the educational relationship is above all an encounter between two freedoms, and successful education is formation in the correct use of freedom. ...We must, then, accept the risk of freedom, remaining ever attentive to helping it and to correcting mistaken ideas and choices".
"Education cannot forgo that authoritative prestige which makes the exercise of authority credible" writes the Holy Father, adding that this is "acquired above all by the coherence of one's own life". He also highlights the decisive importance of a sense of responsibility. "Responsibility is first of all personal but there also exists a responsibility we share together", he says.
In this context, Benedict XVI observes that "the overall trends of the society in which we live, and the image it gives of itself through the communications media, exercise a great influence on the formation of new generations, for good but also often for evil. Society", he adds, "is not an abstract concept, in the final analysis it is we ourselves".
In closing, the Holy Father refers to hope, the subject of his last Encyclical, as the "soul of education", indicating that "our hope today is threatened from many sides and we too, like the ancient pagans, risk becoming men without 'hope and without God in the world'".
"At the root of the crisis of education lies a crisis of trust in life," he concludes. "Hope directed towards God is never hope for me alone, it is always also hope for others. it does not isolate us but unites us in goodness, stimulating us to educate one another in truth and in love".
BXVI-LETTER/EDUCATION/... VIS 20080123 (720)
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