Bishop emphasizes the need to support and promote Catholic education

Resources have been issued for Education Sunday. File photo of children from Saint Richard Reynolds Catholic College (High School and Primary school) in Twickenham.

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The Catholic Education Service has issued prayers and resources to mark Education Sunday on 11 September, emphasizing the continued need “to support, promote and defend Catholic education”.

The Bishop of Leeds, Marcus Stock, chair of the Catholic Education Service (CES), said that the distinct enterprise of Catholic education, “whether in home, school, college or university, is built on the belief that it is God our Father who enlightens the eyes of our minds ”, in a message released last week in preparation for the beginning of the academic year.

“A Catholic education facilitates truth and freedom above all when it places the eternal Word of God, Jesus Christ, at its center,” he said.

The Church in England and Wales has marked Education Sunday since 1848, which this year takes as its theme “enlightening the mind”, referring to the words of St Paul in that Sunday’s Gospel Acclamation: “May the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ enlighten the eyes of our mind, so that we can see what hope his call holds for us. ” (Ephesians 1: 17-18)

The CES resources include prayers, activities and suggested themes for homilies. It suggests that pupils wear their school uniforms to Mass, and encourages them to reflect on the words of St Thomas Aquinas, the patron saint of schools and learning: “Three things are necessary for the salvation of man: to know what he ought to believe. ; to know what he ought to desire; and to know what he ought to do. ”

In a foreword to the resources, Paul Barber, director of the CES, described the historic importance of education in “handing on the faith and improving the spiritual, moral, social and cultural lives of the next generation” and said that it was ” by far the largest charitable endeavor of the Church in this country ”.

He said: “Catholic schools continue to be true to their mission: they are more diverse than any other type of school, they recruit disproportionately more children from the poorest areas of the country and still consistently manage to be the highest performing schools in the country. . ”

This year, the 175th anniversary of the CES, proved challenging for Catholic education, with events such as the long-running dispute at the John Fisher School in the Southwark archdiocese threatening its public image. The National Secular Society claimed in July that a critical Ofsted report of a Catholic primary school in Wigan “shows how ill-suited faith schools are to the educational needs of children in the twenty-first century.”

Catholic education, said Mr Barber, “is a precious legacy from our forebears, and a testament to their courage and foresight”, and he called the modern network of schools and universities “a great achievement to be celebrated”.

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