CATHOLIC EDUCATION “is not just about imparting a bulk of knowledge, it is not about the vague ethos of a mission statement”, the Archbishop of Dublin Dr Diarmuid Martin has said.
Dr Martin was speaking during a Mass in Dublin on Tuesday to mark the 150th anniversary of Blackrock College secondary school for boys.
“Catholic education is about preparing people for life,” he said. “It is about the bond between faith and life, between faith and culture. Catholic education is about formation in the knowledge of the word of God which emerges in a characteristic way of life.
“Blackrock College was opened to provide education for Catholics at a time of religious renewal. The challenge today is different. This college is called now to provide Catholic education in a world in which there is a crisis of Catholic culture and identity. Its task is to form young people for a lived and an authentic faith.
“Catholic education is about formation in the knowledge of the word of God which emerges in a characteristic way of life.
“That characteristic is, as today’s Gospel reminds us, the path of love.”
The archbishop continued: “At a time in which we can so often drift into a vision of the Christian faith as a mere moral code or just a complex network of teachings, Catholic education needs to present in a challenging and radically renewing way the fact that God is love.”