Gravissimum Educationis 50 years on

Bob DavisProfessor of Religious and Cultural Education

Head of School of Education

Gravissimum Educationis:Context

• The Vatican II Backdrop

• Pius XI's apostolic encyclical, Divini Illius Magistri, Dec. 31, 1929

• The Rise of Progressive Education• Church, Laity and State• Justice, Peace and the Coming of Global Society

Gravissimum Educationis:Key Principles

• The circumstances of our time: democracy, participation and self-fulfilment

• The RIGHT to an education: the growth of popular education as a signature of modernity

• Fundamental principles of Christian education : education as the totality of life, liberty and the pursuit of salvation

• Change

Gravissimum Educationis:Universal Right to an Education

• Entitlement: Dignity and formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and the good of society

• Education and the Social Sciences: accessing the most advanced insights of the human sciences and the effective pedagogies of learning and teaching

• The individual in secular society: freedom, responsibility and the common good of the whole of humanity

• The individual in the community of the faithful: the formation of conscience and moral understanding

Gravissimum Educationis:Belonging

• Belonging to the Mystical Body: Christian Education, Religious Knowledge and growth in faith

• Belonging to the Family: parents as primary and principal educators

• Belonging to civil society: family, subsidiarity and the common good of mutual recognition and affirmation

• Belonging to Christ: catechetics of the Gospel proclamation to a world in need

Gravissimum Educationis:Schools

• The tasks of the school: intellectual growth, right judgement, moral development and the material flourishing of society

• Parental rights and duties: school choice, diversity and distributive justice

• Church, State and Citizenship: excellent teaching as the key to a shared culture

Gravissimum Educationis:Moral and Religious Education?

• The commitment to pluralism and the rights of the Church: affirming difference in solidarity

• The ethos of the Catholic school: freedom, charity and the good of the earthly city

• The Catholic Teacher: secular and religious knowledge, pedagogical skill and the lifelong formation in faith

• Multicultural Catholic Schools: service and witness beyond the Church

Gravissimum Educationis:Higher Education

• The Catholic College and University: liberty of inquiry

• Faith and Science: the commitment to investigation, discovery and the unity of truth

• Sacred Theology and Sacred Science: the commitment to the religious and theological literacy of all; the dialogue with the other

• Pastoral care: the foundation and work of the Catholic Chaplaincy

Gravissimum Educationis:Collaboration

• The coordination of Catholic institutions: ensuring synergy and the concentration of resource on greatest need

• Internal coherence: interdisciplinarity and the nurture of the Catholic mind

• Partnership of Church and State: the support of Catholic education as a pillar of the good society

• The covenant with teachers and academics: affirming and supporting the work of the Catholic teacher

• The service to the next generation: engaging with and learning from the young

Gravissimum Educationis:The unfinished tasks…

• Responding to the mass laicisation of popular education• The radical secularisation of knowledge and culture • The cosmopolitan family: gender, authority and sex

education• Global change and non-Catholic participation in Catholic

institutions• The deepening ambiguities of the Church-State contract• The curricular vacuum and the reclamation of the Catholic

mind• The confusion of Religious Education, Catechetics and

theological literacy• Supporting educators?