'Le Chéile' – Issue 19Issue 19, May 2013, of the bi-annual journal, 'Le Chéile', has just been published and circulated to schools in the North. The journal, a publication of St Mary's University College, aims to celebrate and promote the vision of Catholic education locally:
- By identifying, exploring and promoting ways in which this vision can be lived in Catholic schools
- By seeking to empower teachers with a renewed and revitalised sense of the spirituality and vocational nature of teaching
- By aiming to encourage and inform practitioners in Catholic education locally.
It reads as follows:
A new Pope, the first Latin American and Jesuit to hold that office, has emerged onto the world stage with a strong sense of purpose. At 76, he may be termed an old man in a hurry and he has demonstrated right from the start an acute awareness of the importance of symbolic gestures and actions. His ease in dealing with ordinary people and his impatience with some of the traditional ceremonial trappings have been much noted. Both his preaching on Jesus with the emphasis on promoting ‘a poor Church for the poor’ and his preference for what is simple and frugal in terms of living arrangements and dress - characteristics already well-established during his time as Archbishop of Buenos Aires - indicate his priority is with the poor and marginalised. Much early comment on him has focused in particular on his genuine compassion for people, as evidenced by his embrace, at the weekly audiences in St Peter’s Square, of both children and adults with special needs. But he has also made it abundantly clear that he is no sentimental pushover: his criticisms of consumerist culture and an over-emphasis by business on acquisition and profit at any price have been striking, and are very much in line with the course charted by his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI in his critique of global capitalism.
There are grounds to hope that Francis’s pontificate will be marked by a sharing of the Gospel with people of good will and a challenge for us to live more simply, after the manner of St Francis of Assisi whose name he has chosen. He has already also signalled his commitment to the work of ecumenism among the different Christian traditions and to inter-faith dialogue with the other World Religions. All in all, a new pope who is unassuming, direct and spontaneous, one who uses authority not as a status but a service, is a reminder to us as teachers and principals of where our priorities should lie. In a society which so privileges the impersonal and the bureaucratic, and in a state education system suffocating in audits and red-tape, it is heartening that a new leader has emerged onto the world stage witnessing so powerfully to human and spiritual values which can enrich broader society everywhere. Hopefully, we in Catholic education will be inspired to redouble our efforts to discover anew and actualise those distinctive values and perspectives which make our approach to education so successful and life-affirming, both at home and internationally.
This edition seeks to inform and assist us as we go about our purposeful work in our schools. The articles are as follows:
- Leonardo Franchi offers some pointers on the Catholic professional development of teachers.
- Jim Clarke and Malachy Crudden (both from CCMS) note recent research acknowledging the high level of performance of Catholic education locally, not least in terms of tackling social disadvantage and, looking to the future, underline the importance of the catechetical dimension of the work of our schools.
- Anne-Marie McLaughlin and Thérèse Ferry look at ways in which the Year of Faith is being celebrated at Mount St Catherine’s PS, Armagh and throughout the Derry Diocese respectively.
- Aidan Donaldson reflects on his experience of poverty on a recent immersion education project in Zambia.
- Bríd McGuckin offers amusing and insightful comment on her years of experience of the classroom.
- Fr Kevin Gillespie, writing in Irish, argues that true education is about both knowledge and values.
- Seán McLaughlin, a primary school pupil, urges us to care for the environment.
- Michael Maginn, priest and poet, writes poignantly on the importance of personal reflection as a way to awaken awareness of God’s presence in our lives.
- Seán Skeffington reviews a recent biography of Frank Duff, the founder of the Legion of Mary, and one of the outstanding figures of twentieth-century Ireland.
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Terry Brady highlights the fact that reform and renewal in the Church begins with Christians looking into their own hearts and beginning the work of personal conversion.
- Finally, Aine McNally, does just that when she shares her own journey of the heart towards God.
For further information please contact Rev Dr Niall Coll, Tel: 02890 268262.