Pope Francis and the School Meet
Pope Francis and the School Meet
Rome (Italy). On Saturday, May 10 in St. Peter’s Square, the schools will meet with Pope Francis as the response to an invitation that could only have a strong ‘yes’, a ‘yes’ that comes from the children, the families, the teachers, and all the personnel involved in a grand and important journey. According to Pope Francis, it is a ‘great open site’ for the human and spiritual growth of our children. For a long time, the school has been at the centre of much discussion and polemics. Now, it will gather before the Holy Father to recharge its strength, faith, and passion that, unfortunately, are sometimes overcome by tiredness and difficulties.
The day plans to be an encounter and a feast, but also a time of reflection to rediscover the precise journey of teacher, parent, worker, director, and student. It wishes to recall that education is fundamental and that tomorrow’s future depends on today’s school. It seeks to form persons who are not only rich in knowledge, but also in values, quality, and merit.
Once again taking up the words of the then Cardinal Bergoglio, “Education is of itself an act of hope, not only because we educate to build the future, betting on it, but because the very act of educating is crossed by a prospective of hope”. (Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Message to the Educating Communities, April 23, 2008)
“If education is possible and necessary, if cultivating the human person comes before profit, if the school is the frontier of socialization, we cannot do anything false,” affirms Msgr. Nunzio Galantino, General Secretary ad interim of CEI. He reminds us how “the Church has historically always been aware of the urgency to remain within this world because it knows through experience that only free and discerning persons can bring about a just and open society.”
“Taking care of the school is a commitment and an opportunity,” according to the Bishop. “Only by being focused on this attention to the journey of each child can we realize a community at the height of the challenges that this epoch presents with increasing velocity.” We are inside a process of great transformations that the school cannot passively undergo. This is the reason why the school must “renew and re-motivate itself.”
The Salesian School reality has adhered strongly to these premises and it will fully participate in the event, re-evoking those values that unite us in the educational journey. The person of tomorrow is the goal of this journey. For this reason, it needs to ‘weave the threads of history again, those of generations of teachers and pupils, of educational agencies: the school, family, and Church, and, finally, those of the social dynamics of school and work.”
With this spirit, we await the grand encounter in St. Peter’s Square calling together students, teachers, and parents of Centres of Professional Formation and all Schools, both of parity and the state, of every type and level.