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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&