Vatican – Listening to educate: consecrated life at the service of the Church’s educational mission

Synodal listening for the educational mission

Over one hundred people attended the meeting in person and around one hundred and fifty joined online: General Superiors, together with those responsible for education in numerous religious congregations.

The initiative forms part of the journey begun over a decade ago by the UISG and USG Commission for Education, in constant dialogue with the Dicastery for Culture and Education. It was a genuine synodal exercise of listening and discernment, aimed at re-examining the educational mission of consecrated life in the light of current challenges.

The Salesian Congregation was represented by the Sector for Youth Ministry, through the presence of the General Councillor, Fr Rafael Bejarano, and Fr Jerry Matsoumbou, a member of the Sector for Youth Ministry and Representative for Africa.

Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça’s message: a prophetic school

The keynote address of the meeting was delivered by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education. In his address, he emphasised the urgency of listening to the culture of young people and of understanding consecrated life as a service to the Church’s universal educational mission.

The school – he stated – “must be a place of dialogue in a secularised world. The Catholic school is a meeting place for everyone, for cultures, generations and traditions; it is a place of credibility and, above all, of prophecy.”

Hence the call to open a new season of prophetic transformation to rediscover the ethos of Catholic education. The Prefect also urged the Congregations not to betray their fundamental promises: the Gospel of Jesus, love and openness to all, and the acceptance of the person in their diversity. Listening, he reiterated, is a demanding process that requires time and commitment. Only by breaking free from stagnation and routine will it be possible to overcome the educational challenge.

The congregations are called to recognise themselves as a “plural constellation of hope”: diverse in charisms, yet united in mission. He concluded his address with an evocative image: to be “a sky full of stars for the new generations”, choosing the “mysticism of the whole” in the art of education.

Revisiting the Global Educational Pact

The Cardinal invited the congregations engaged in education to make their own the three great syntheses of the Global Educational Pact, recently relaunched by Pope Leo XIV:

1. Cultivating the inner life. The sadness and restlessness of young people cannot be cured solely by technical or pharmacological solutions. Education must help to discover and nurture the inner dimension of the person.
2. Digital technology at the service of humanity. Technology cannot be an end in itself, but must remain a tool at the service of the dignity and integral growth of the person.
3. Educating for peace. Peace is not automatic: it is a culture that must be nurtured. We must ‘disarm’ schools and, above all, hearts, by forming young people into peacemakers.

Challenges and prospects for renewal

During the time devoted to communal discernment, a number of crucial questions emerged: How can we educate for interiority? How can we accompany the most vulnerable young people or those distant from the faith? How can we strengthen the identity of the Catholic school in dialogue with the contemporary world? How can we promote more effective collaboration between congregations?

Among the priorities identified for the renewal of the educational commitment, the following were highlighted:

– strengthening networking between congregations and dioceses;

– investing in the formation of laypeople as educational leaders;

– promoting synodality and inter-congregational collaboration;

– creating stable spaces for listening and shared reflection;

– the active involvement of families and educational communities.

A shared mission

Set against the backdrop of the Jubilee of the World of Education, the meeting strongly reaffirmed that education today is a shared mission. A mission that demands collaboration, creativity and fidelity to the Gospel and to one’s own charism.

Only in this way will it be possible to recognise and value the “immense good” that is accomplished every day in educational works throughout the world, even in the most difficult contexts.

In this endeavour, consecrated life is called to be truly a “sky filled with stars for the new generations”.