The Spanish bishops, “conscious of the importance of education and the difficulties that is going through at the present time”, have published, in recent days, a document with the title “The Catholic School. The Church’s offer in Spain for education in the 21st century”. According to the bishops, “at the start of this new century Catholic schools are called to question themselves and to respond to the new challenges posed by Christian educational work”. The bishops therefore intend to “foster a healthy renewal of education in Catholic schools that may offer quality Christian educational responses and horizons”. The document, which was approved during the spring plenary assembly of the bishops (23-27 April), points out some challenges that Catholic schools must tackle and that derive from the fact of having to adjust to a society in continuous and pluralist change. In addition, there are the problems that derive from the family, whose conduct is not always consistent with the education given at school. To this is added the grave phenomenon of family breakdown and the deterioration of the very concept of the family. Other challenges are posed by the disillusion of the educational community and the progressive diminution of priests and religious in schools. According to the bishops, “the most important challenge of Catholic schools is to educate and form its pupils according to the Christian educational project”. Catholic schools – they urge – “must resist the forms of conditioning that hamper the genuine development of integral formation in the way this is conceived by Christian humanism”. “Educating in the faith – says the document – is far more than developing the skills and capacities of the human being: it means helping pupils to give a free and conscious assent, according to their individual capacities, to the Word of God, which implies a change of life in conformity with the project for the person they are offered”. The document concludes with 13 recommendations, including: motivating and forming the members of the educational community in the principles and values implied by the human person and the message of Jesus Christ; promoting greater participation in the celebration of the sacraments and other liturgical celebrations; promoting activities to help parents assume their own responsibilities in the education of their children; devoting greater care to the choice of lay teachers and increasing the intake of persons of other cultures.
