The Church that educates

Education, its modalities, the Church’s commitment at various levels and with different pastoral tools: this is the theme on which Italian bishops decided to focus their efforts in the decade 2010-2020 with the “Pastoral Guidelines” titled “Educating to the good life of the Gospel”. It is not a pastoral-theological document in the strict sense of the term. As explained in the title, it consists of “guidelines” for local Churches, for parishes, and to back up reflections and proposals of lay associations and bodies. A sort of vade-mecum for reference in the next ten years, to stir pastoral attention and planning with a joint effort. The 40-page document, loaded with quotations, references to Magisterium documents and statements of the same Italian Bishops’ Conference was presented on October 4, the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, Patron Saint of Italy. The president of Italian bishops, cardinal Angelo Bagnasco , in the presentation writes that the Guidelines “are intended to offer a yardstick for the harmonious development of the Churches in Italy in the delicate and sublime art of education”. In the field of education, he adds, “we acknowledge a cultural challenge and a sign of the times, but before this there is a constitutive and permanent dimension of mission that consists in making the Lord present in this world and ensure that everyone may find Him, thus discovering the transforming power of His love and truth, in a new life marked by all that is beautiful, good and true”. Why educate. The choice of the theme of education on the part of Italian bishops stems from two considerations: the first being the “appeals” of Benedict XVI, who more than once said that the “urgency of education” is a major question for Christian proclamation in contemporary society. In particular, the Guidelines mention “The Letter to the diocese and city of Rome on the urgent question of education”, of January 21 2008, whereby “the Holy Father encourages us in this direction, highlighting the urgent need to dedicate ourselves to the formation of the young generations. He recognizes that educating – if it ever was easy – today takes on harsher features; we are facing a “‘major educational emergency’, confirmed by the numerous unsuccessful attempts to form upright people, capable of cooperating with others and of giving life a meaning”. Another element is linked to the IV Italian Ecclesial Conference celebrated in Verona in October 2006, when it was highlighted that it is ever more urgent to spread “a message of hope based on God’s ‘yes’ to man through his Son, died and resurrected so that we might live through Him”. The items on the agenda. The Guidelines provide a large-ranging perspective for action and reflection for diocesan Churches. In fact, the document addresses themes such as the analysis of educational structures and potentials; contemporary cultural and educational pluralism, the “globalization of proposals and lifestyles, the mobilization of peoples, the scenarios provided by technological development” that change individual and societal frameworks. As relates to the Church and her interior dynamics, it analyzes a number of typical constitutive “dimensions”, typical of her “educational action”. They are summarized in the “missionary dimension” and in the “ecumenical and dialogic dimension”, in the “charitable and social dimension”, and finally in the “eschatological” one. The document delves into the role of the first educational unit, that is the family, called to undertake a special commitment especially before attacks to its natural structure based on the relationship between man and woman. Of the family it is said that “the educational responsibility of both parents” is crucial, and that “it is precisely the difference and the reciprocity between mother and father which creates the fruitful grounds for the full development of their child”. Family weak spots include ever more frequent “de facto couples, divorces, along with a gloomy economic, fiscal and social picture that discourages procreation”. Furthermore, the document denounces “lifestyles that are distant from the establishment of long-lasting family relations” along with “attempts to grant to same-sex common-law marriage the status of the family”. Educational offer. The conclusive part of the document is devoted to an analysis of the traditional pastoral tools and to their congruity in the current situation. Thus there is mention of the parish, of the catechesis, of the liturgy, of commitments and charity proposals, of “popular piety” which even today “can act as a channel of education to the values of Christian tradition”. Ample space is devoted to the school and university, to centres for vocational training, religion professors and to the realm of “digital culture”.