“You are in line with the Pope. Ahead!”. The president of the Spanish Episcopal Conference, Juan Jose Omela, yesterday encouraged the Christian educators present at the National Day convened by Catholic Schools, a platform to which some 2,000 centers in our country that train 1.2 million students belong.
With the Global Educational Pact as the axis of the meetingThe General Secretary of the International Office for Catholic Education, Phillipe Richard, participated in the meeting; the president of Catholic Schools, Ana María Sánchez; the general secretary of Catholic Schools, Pedro Huerta. Together with them, as speakers, the person in charge of pastoral care of Catholic Schools, Dolors García, and Montserrat del Pozo, superior general of the Missionary Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth, took the floor.
desire to work
Omella applauded how religious centers have responded to this proposal by Francis. “You have welcomed him with sensitivity and with a desire to work”, pointed out the Cardinal Archbishop of Barcelona, that encouraged them to continue working on values such as dignity, human rights, peace, care for the environment, brotherhood and dialogue between religions.
In this sense, urged them to implement the “anthropology of reciprocity”, from a collaboration with public school students, in the manner of the papal foundation Scholas Occurrentes, “generating bonds of dialogue between children and young people.”
Mystique of coexistence
With the echo of the recent ‘ad limina’ visit under his arm, the cardinal urged them to delve especially into “the mystique of coexistence, the education of silence and the revolution of tenderness” to further develop its commitment to comprehensive education. Omella framed all these initiatives within the reflection on synodality and fraternity proposed by Francis.
In passing, the president of the bishops also shared that in his meeting yesterday with the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, valued the work that the Church has been doing in educational matters and suggested the creation of new channels of dialogue with the Catholic school at the time of landing the new educational reform.
embrace the differences
“The Global Education Compact is not just a pious word,” said Phillipe Richard, Secretary General of the International Office for Catholic Education (OIEC), an entity that brings together 210,000 schools with more than 62 million students in more than one hundred countries.
Richard underscored how the Global Compact on Education links directly with the encyclical Fratelli Tutti in his call to “Develop concern for others in young people, creating meeting processes, capable of accepting differences”.
hope vector
At the same time, he argued that it is “a radical call, like the calls of Christ Jesus, when he addresses his apostles to leave their nets and follow him”. Among these cries are poverty, inequality, migratory flows, ecological catastrophe, political conflicts.
Faced with this panorama, Catholic schools must become, from their point of view, “vector of hope to our world to change our mentalities and open our eyes” through innovative pedagogical models. Thus, he encouraged educators to move to the physical and existential peripheries as the Pope invites.
change life
For the president of Catholic Schools, Ana Maria Sanchez, the Global Educational Pact promoted by Pope Francis “It’s not just another project or just another idea.” “If we let each other, our lives will change”, exposed the religious of the Congregation of the Slaves of the Sacred Heart of Jesus during an online awareness day for the educational community held this afternoon in online format.
For the head of the Christian centers in our country, Francis’ proposal is presented as “a space for the Spirit, for it to move us, for us to connect, feeling linked to the same source of life that is our God, and to the same educational mission”. Along the same lines, he stressed that the Global Educational Pact is also a way to materialize that “walking together” that synodality proposes.
For his part, the Secretary General of Catholic Schools, Pedro Huerta, stressed that “we are committed to this proposal of the Pope, with this culture of encounter that brings us to others and to those who share creation with us”.