Salvador Mas

What is the point of a Catholic school if it is embarrassed to teach Catholicism? Pope Leo XIV has just given the French bishops a timely reminder of something that ought to be obvious, but so commonly is not the case. In a letter to the French bishops gathered at Lourdes for their autumn plenary assembly, Pope Leo has returned to one of the most important themes of his recent visit to France: the Church must recover confidence in her own identity and mission. This time, he is focusing on Catholic education which is the very spear point of evangelisation. While Pope Leo acknowledges that Catholic schools should welcome pupils who do not share the faith, respecting their freedom of conscience & contributing to the common good & he also insists that this openness cannot come at the expense of their essential purpose; Catholic education cannot abandon its Christ-centred educational mission. That may seem obvious, it is a deceptively simple statement, but it raises some rather uncomfortable questions about the direction of Catholic education, not only in France but here in Britain as well. Catholic schools are frequently praised for their academic achievements, pastoral care, inclusivity & contribution to social cohesion. All of these things are really important & a genuinely Catholic education ought to excel in them of course, but none of them, taken individually or together, explains why the Church operates schools in the first place. The Church does not establish schools merely to provide another respectable option within the state education system. She establishes them because she believes that Jesus Christ reveals the truth about the human person, and that education which neglects this truth is ultimately incomplete. This is not an argument for turning every lesson into a catechism class, still less for coercing children into religious belief. Faith cannot be imposed, and genuine education must cultivate intellectual freedom, serious inquiry and respect for conscience. We have to recognise that there is a profound difference between respecting a pupil's freedom to believe & behaving as though the truth of Christianity is something a Catholic institution ought to conceal. A Catholic school should be a place where the faith informs the entire educational enterprise: its understanding of human dignity, its moral vision, its appreciation of beauty, its intellectual tradition and its conception of what it means to live a good life. The sciences should be taught rigorously, history honestly and literature imaginatively. But the questions of what human beings are, why truth matters and what constitutes our ultimate good cannot simply be excluded from the educational vision and this is where Pope Leo's intervention is particularly interesting: He describes Catholic education as concerned with the integral development of the person: spiritual, cultural, intellectual, moral and social. These are not competing objectives, with the religious element added as an optional extra. They belong together because the human person is not simply a future employee, consumer or participant in the economy. We are creatures made for truth, goodness, beauty and, ultimately, communion with God. There is also a wider cultural significance to all this. For generations, Catholic schools have played an extraordinary role in educating children from disadvantaged backgrounds, integrating immigrant communities and contributing to the intellectual and social life of their countries. That contribution was never independent of their Catholic identity, it arose, in considerable measure, precisely because of it. If we progressively remove the supernatural horizon from Catholic education, we may preserve many admirable institutions, but we risk losing the very thing that made them distinctive. I think perhaps, that is the question we ought to be asking more frequently. When a Catholic school becomes indistinguishable from a secular school in its understanding of the human person, moral formation and ultimate purpose, what exactly remains Catholic about it? Mere symbols? The crucifix on the wall? A patron saint? An occasional school Mass? These things are important, but they cannot substitute for an educational philosophy genuinely shaped by the faith. Pope Leo's letter also encourages the French bishops to introduce young Catholics, particularly catechumens and recent converts, to the lives of the saints which I think is an important connection. The saints are not simply inspiring historical personalities. They are witnesses to what a life transformed by grace actually looks like. They demonstrate that Christianity is not merely an ethical framework or a cultural inheritance, but a living encounter with Jesus Christ that changes how we understand ourselves and the world. A Catholic education which neglects this dimension risks producing young people who know something about the Church without ever understanding why anyone would give their life to Christ. There is much discussion today about the future of Catholic education, its relationship with the state, its financial sustainability and its place within increasingly secular societies. These are legitimate concerns but they must not obscure the prior question of what Catholic education is actually for. The Church does not need schools that are Catholic in name but secular in substance. She needs schools confident enough in the truth of the Gospel to offer young people something the secular world cannot. Perhaps the most important question for Catholic educational leaders is not how much of the faith they can retain without alienating contemporary society, but how faithfully they can communicate the extraordinary intellectual, moral and spiritual inheritance entrusted to them. Because if Catholic schools are no longer prepared to propose Christ as the answer to the deepest questions of human existence, who exactly do we expect to do it?