view from the inside 2a
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VIEW FROM INSIDE ROME
World Congress on Education
Vatican City
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
What does the educational landscape look like
around the world from the vantage point of
Rome? We have hopes that, given the whirlwind
of educational fads rising and failing in the last half century, and some concerns expressed in the latest
document from the Holy See, that we may find a renewed purpose and effort to clarify and understand the
Church's great treasurehouse of philosophy on educational practice and material!
This trip to the World Congress on Education, sponsored by the Holy See's Congregation of
Catholic Education, started out for us in what I believe was a perfect manner !y wife and I,
representing educators and publishers from the "nited States, arrived a couple days early to
en#oy a bit of this glorious city before getting down to wor$ "pon arrival, we headed over to
the %asilica Sant'&gostino for !ass %efore !ass, we went to the side altar and visited the tomb
of St !onica, mother of St &ugustine, and prayed for everyone we $now, especially mothers
We prayed for our St &ugustine &cademy school families, alumni and benefactors, for all who
have participated in the Institute programs over the years, and for all teachers and students
using the Catholic Tetboo$ (ro#ect boo$s It is a group numbering in the tens of thousands
now, but each and every prayer is miraculously multiplied and efficacious, so we offer them for
you all
The visit to this church was an important step inorienting our participation here )uring mass I
reflected on St !onica and how everything was
ordered correctly in St !onica's world She $new her
son's profound intellectual gifts would ta$e him far and
wide and ma$e him an intellectual figure of historic
proportions, but she also $new that all that really
mattered was his immortal soul's salvation This is
eactly the right orientation to ta$e to a meeting in
which we contemplate and discuss Catholic education
in the modern world It is the proper orientation allCatholic education should be modeled upon, in any time or place, but especially the modern
world *Ever ancient, ever new,* as &ugustine said
If this Congress is to bless the world, it will be because it will have clearly defined Catholic
education's role as a tool of the Church to pass on Catholic culture, both intellectual and moral,
to future generations This culture we aim to pass on means nothing less than living our
baptismal call to bring Christ to the world through love of neighbor with our ultimate end,
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Heaven, as the arbiter of all our acts and decisions We are not primarily about +college and
career, as necessary as those goals are We are about +heaven readiness Some may thin$ that
sounds trite, or pious, or politically incorrect, but reflecting on !onica's passion and prayer for
&ugustine, and &ugustine's relentless search for the truth, until Truth found him, Catholic
education can ta$e no other path if it is to be true to its mission -or, +our hearts are restless,
.ord, until they rest in Thee*
& final note/ Today is the opening day of the Congress, where
we register and have our Inaugural Session in (aul the 0I Hall
1The Holy -ather's Wednesday (apal &udience was also this
morning2 It was refreshing to see many familiar faces about St
(eter's (ia33a, from a Saint &ugustine &cademy family, to Sr
4ohn !ary -lemming, 5(, of the "SCC% We also saw Sister
!ary &nne, 5( from &6uinas College in 7ashville and -r
%elemonte, S4, superintendent of schools in the diocese of 4oliet
It was a treat to run into %ob .aird of the Cardinal 7ewmanSociety in the registration line, and some of the &nn &rbor
)ominicans
The opening conferences seemed to follow some of the disparate themes of the "nstrumentum
#a$oris, the document this Congress is predicated upon !any good terms were used in
speeches 8eg, Catholic Intellectual Tradition or Catholic Identity9, yet as the tal$s went on it
was clear that different definitions for those terms were being used Some spea$ers' use of such
terms did not really s6uare with what one might generally regard as accepted meanings in the
spirit of the intellectual tradition of the Church, if one considers that tradition encompassing
millennia of thought, philosophy, theology, literature, etc
-ollowing the tal$s, however, we en#oyed other wonderful
and lively conversations with leaders in Catholic education
in &merica, including (residents 4ohn :arvey, of the Catholic
"niversity of &merica and -r Sean Sheridan, T5;, of the
-ranciscan "niversity of Steubneville, The Hon ;ichard
:reco, 4r of The !ontrose &cademy, 7<, Sister !ichelle
:eiger of The &cademy of 5ur .ady in 7ew 5rleans, (aul
and !ary 4o Scamperle, )r )aniel :uernsey of &ve !aria,
and several other wonderful souls Seeing all these lights of
ecellence in this place gives me great hope in the cominggenerations of Catholic education for &merica I am not sure
where all the hundreds of others from around the world are coming from, in terms of a Catholic
Intellectual Tradition, but I am hopeful that the "nited States contingency bodes well for our
own future == and hopefully other delegates bring a similar conviction
%rrivederci&