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Pope Francis’ Address to a delegation from the publishing house “La Scuola” (The School’)
Hall of Popes – Thursday, 21 November 2024
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Your Excellencies,
Dear brothers, sisters, good morning and welcome!
On 28 June 1965, Pope Paul VI, received and addressed the representatives of the Scuola Editrice (Publishing School), to the foundation of which his father had contributed,
He concluded his address as follows “We pay tribute to your perfect pedagogical science; we encourage your activity at the service of the school […]; we acknowledge your modern sensitivity to scholastic problems; we praise the fruits that you have already so largely obtained; and we vow to the strong intentions that drive your activity, not only for the preservation of the efficiency that has been achieved, but also for the boldness of new developments and new conquests”
Looking today at the state of your company, which has courageously acquired two other Catholic publishing houses, SEI and Capitello, in order to have a greater impact on schools, one could say that you are fulfilling the vow of your great fellow citizen.
His assessment of the situation at the time, which recognized the development and vitality of your group, is still valid today, thanks be to God..
You are not afraid to take risks in difficult moments, due to the competition from the big publishing houses and the current cultural change, marked by the displacement of religious research and widespread indifference.
Besides, the founders of “La Scuola” (The School) were courageous when, in order to guarantee support from the journal Scuola Italiana Moderna and to realize a pedagogic presence of Catholic inspiration in Italian schools, they joined together the intelligence of priests and impassioned laypeople for the education of the new generations.
Passion for education and the formation of formators are the pillars on which your activities are based.
Textbooks for students of all orders and levels, magazines for teachers, pedagogical works, training courses for teachers, collaboration with the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart: all this testifies to the awareness that educating children and young people in the values of the Gospel is an essential contribution to a society of responsible people, capable of building bonds of fraternity with all.
To be Catholic, as I have tried to show especially in the Encyclical Fratelli tutti, is to be able to see the good that the Holy Spirit is spreading everywhere and to embrace it without fear of losing one’s own identity. The Second Vatican Council taught us this, for example, in the Constitution on the Church, where it affirms: “Since the Kingdom of God is not of this world (Jn 18:36 – Jesus answered, “My kingship is not of this world; if my kingship were of this world, my servants would fight, that I might not be handed over to the Jews; but my kingship is not from the world.”), the Church or the People of God, in building up this Kingdom, does not take anything away from the temporal well-being of any people. On the contrary, she promotes and adopts, insofar as they are good, the abilities, riches and customs in which the genius of each people is expressed [and] … purifies, strengthens, elevates and ennobles them“ (Lumen gentium, 13).
Hence an attitude of openness and dialogue towards everyone: in fact, school is first and foremost a place where one learns to open one’s mind and heart to the world.
“Education does not consist in filling the head with ideas, but … in accompanying and encouraging students on the path of human growth and spiritual growth, showing them how friendship with the Risen Jesus expands the heart and makes life more humane”.
Education is helping to think well, to feel well, and to do good.
The three languages:
(1) the language of the heart – feeling well –
(2) the language of the head – thinking well –
(3) the language of the hands – doing good.
But in harmony:
to do what one feels and think; to feel what one thinks and do; to think what one feels and do.
These three languages, united, all of them.
“This vision is fully relevant today.
We feel the need for an “educational pact” capable of uniting families, schools and society as a whole”
And this is the key?
The unity of schools with families. I think this has been lacking in recent times.
But I remember that in our time, there was great unity and cooperation.
. I once said a bad word to the teacher – I was nine years old.
The teacher, a lady I love, – I visited her until she died – called my mother. They talked, and then they called me. My mother said to me “apologize to the teacher”. I apologized. I went back to the classroom, happy that it had gone so easy, but it hadn’t. and that’s when they gave me the second part. There was a unity.
Today so many times it’s the other way around! Isn’t it?
Parents go and complain because the teacher did this to the child. That’s terrible.
Going back to those memories is good for us.
The activities you are carrying out, preparing textbooks
– to help students to think,
– to open their minds and hearts to the various forms of knowledge,
– to open the spirit to the history that has formed us,
– to understand the social value of religion,
are proof that you are moving in the direction taken by the founding members
.
The challenges they faced with courage and determination are very similar to those you are facing today.
Far from being a cause for lament and fear, epochal change is a new opportunity: the future belongs to the new generations.
Think of the beginning of our Latinness, of our European culture. Think of the defeat of Troy.
What did he do? Did he complain? No.
He takes the child, he takes the father, and they move on.
That’s kind of the attitude: that “sublato montem patre petivi” (translated: – I climbed the mountain and carried my father) (Aeneid, II, 804).
It’s the way to go forward, it’s always an opportunity, in bad times and in good times
The future belongs to the new generations, and they will be able to build it if the teachers you train know how to transmit to them confidence and courage, if the texts you prepare will succeed in awakening a thirst for knowledge and wisdom.
Brothers and sisters, the Bible teaches us that in moments of crisis, the voice of the prophets knew how to point to horizons of hope.
The founding members of “La Scuola” (the school) made this teaching their own.
I hope that you will continue to do so, aware that fraternal humanity is learned in the classroom, thanks to effective texts, competent and passionate teachers and technical means adapted to the condition of the students. With God’s help, may you live up to your history!
I cordially bless you and your work. And please, I ask you to pray for me. Thank you very much!
