The first posting of 2012 concerns Pope Benedict XVI's annual message for the World Day of Peace (January 1) which, this year, takes education as its theme. Since his election in 2005, Pope Benedict has made a number of references to education in various speeches: his speech to the Diocese of Rome in 2007 is probably the best known of these. The recently published message for 2012 has developed his key thoughts on education and placed them in the public domain as a vital reference point for all involved in education today. (It would be a mistake to see these thoughts on education simply as guidelines for Catholic education. His field of reference is far wider.)
Pope Benedict addresses first the role of educators before dealing in turn with the following topics: educating in truth and freedom; education in justice; educating in peace. He concludes with an appeal to all, and especially to young people, to raise one's eyes to God. Running through the text are themes which are common to Benedict's wider writings on faith and culture: the need for integral education and the noxious effects of utilitarianism, rationalism and individualism on economics and culture. For Benedict, the key 'outcome' of education (if I may be permitted to use this difficult and problematic term to refer to the work of a nuanced intellectual) is freedom. The following passage is a neat summary of his broader vision:
It is the task of education to form people in authentic freedom. This is not the absence of constraint or the supremacy of free will, it is not the absolutism of the self. When man believes himself to be absolute, to depend on nothing and no one, to be able to do anything he wants, he ends up contradicting the truth of his own being and forfeiting his freedom. On the contrary, man is a relational being, who lives in relationship with others and especially with God. Authentic freedom can never be attained independently of God (section 3).
This text asks deep questions about the purpose of education in a world in which innovation tends to be confused with progress and traditional sources of authority are, it seems, no more than reminders of unenlightened times. Pope Benedict has, once again, challenged these new 'orthodoxies'. What will our response be?
