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TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATIONBrian J. Kelty aa Australian Catholic UniversityPublished online: 10 Jul 2006.
To cite this article: Brian J. Kelty (1999) TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION, Religious Education: The officialjournal of the Religious Education Association, 94:1, 5-23, DOI: 10.1080/0034408990940102
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INSIGHTS FROM SCHOLARSHIP
Alven NeimanAssociate Editor
Toward a Theology of Catholic EducationBrian J. Kelty
Subterranean Didactics: Theology, Aesthetics, andPedagogy in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig
Jonathan Cohen
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TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
Brian J. KeltyAustralian Catholic University
Abstract
This paper examines the recent change of theological focus inCatholic educational theory. It finds a renewed theory (theology) ofeducation emerging under the themes of the nature of the person,the function of knowledge, human destiny within history, and the in-dividual's stance toward society. This research was prompted by thechanged context of Catholic schooling, which no longer addressesitself to a homogenous Catholic subculture. The paper concludesthat the four themes converge as an emerging theology of education,which regards the transformation of students and their engagementin secular society as the primary educational aim.
INTRODUCTIONWe cannot be satisfied with an education which forms in our stu-dents an individualistic ideal of personal achievement, capable ofopening the way to a brilliant personal life. This has sometimes beenthe effect of a competitive education. We must form in modern stu-dents a new mentality with new dynamic ideals, ideals which arebased on the Gospel with all its consequences. We have to imbueour students with a profound sense of service to others. This againmust not be confined to person-to-person service, but must also in-clude that most fundamental and, today, most necessary service tocontemporary society, namely contributing to changing those struc-tures and actual conditions which are oppressive and unjust. There-fore we have to form, as it were, agents of change and liberation inmodern society. This means a creative education, forming from ourstudents persons able to anticipate the new order of human exis-tence and capable of collaborating in reshaping the new society,
Religious Education Vol 94 No 1 Winter 1999
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BRIAN J. KELTY 7
which is already emerging from the debris of our times. (Arrupe1977,241)
A persistent problem in contemporary Catholic education con-cerns the purposes which Catholic schools seek to fulfill. It is nolonger self-evident that Catholic schools simply serve the purpose ofinitiating the next generation into active church membership as prac-ticing Catholics. The same concern for Catholic identity is expressedby many today, who ask, "What makes Catholic schools Catholic?"(Trafford 1993; Veverka 1993). On the other hand there has been atradition of education, largely by Catholic religious orders, that hasencouraged the understanding of self, society, and the world basedupon past wisdom, at the service of the present. Can this enterprisetake place without a religious basis (Cobb 1988,147)?
An important observation for those unfamiliar with Catholic edu-cational practice is that, in the past, religious education took placealmost exclusively within Catholic schools. The object of the exercisewas to form children and youth so that they would be prepared to facethe world and its temptations. This objective was achieved mainlyby imparting thorough knowledge of Catholic faith and morals. Morerecently, in countries where religious education has continued tobe practiced mainly in schools, the burden of religious enculturationhas often shifted almost entirely to religious education in its role as asubject in the school curriculum. The result has often been a disap-pointing loss of identity for the Catholic school.
In this paper I propose to analyze the profound change that oc-curred in Catholic educational thought between 1929 and 1988, (1) byexploring the relationship between Catholicism and culture; (2) bysketching briefly the context of and the theory underpinning Catholiceducation in 1929; and (3) by analyzing four themes which, taken to-gether, constitute a philosophy or even a theology of Catholic educa-tion. In conclusion I offer a brief assessment of the implications ofsuch a theology for Catholic education today.
CULTURE AND RELIGION
In 1951 H. Richard Niebuhr introduced a fivefold typology to de-scribe the enduring problem of the relationship between Christianityand civilization. Niebuhr attempted to bring clarity to this complexissue by describing typical answers which recur in certain eras and
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8 TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
societies. The typology expresses a dialectic between Christ and cul-ture, in which Christ "exists rather as the focusing point in the con-tinuous alteration of movements from God to man and man to God"(1951, 29). The chief characteristics of culture include its social di-mension, its representation of human achievement, its inevitable po-sition in the world of values, and pluralism. This typology may beunderstood as a continuum, moving from sectarian opposition to theworld toward engagement with the world, in which one may en-counter God in the cosmic struggle between good and evil. Niebuhrthen describes five possible correlations between Christ and culture.At one extreme, which seems to favor the image of Christ above andbeyond the saeculum, is sectarian rejection of the world (Christagainst culture). The opposite extreme stresses the fundamental iden-tity between Christ and culture (Christ of culture).
Three other typical answers agree with each other in seeking tomaintain the great differences between the two principles and inundertaking to hold them together in some unity. They are distin-guished from each other by the manner in which each attempts tocombine the two authorities. (Niebuhr 1951, 41—42)
Closest to the "Christ of culture" position, we find Christ as both thefulfillment of culture and as the means relating humanity to the super-natural order (Christ above culture). In the position of Christ in para-dox with culture, two conflicting realms—with separate legitimacy—are juxtaposed. One is the realm of interiority, where God is pres-ent; the other is the outer realm, where despite God's absence thedivine will must be done. The final position expresses opposition be-tween the values of Christ and the values of culture. Its solution is thecall to transform social life through the historic struggle between goodand evil. This position characterizes Christ as transformer of culture.
Christian history may be at least partly described as the move-ment of the Christian church through eras corresponding to locationsin this typology. Early Christianity may be portrayed as a sectarianmovement in opposition to worldly culture, whereas the Constan-tinian settlement brought Christianity into symmetry with culture,sometimes referred to as Christendom. The synthesis of medievaltheology was achieved by designing a universe in which all reality wasthe imperfect mediation of the supernatural order. The Reformationbroke the inherent heteronomy of this order through Luther's doc-trine of the two kingdoms, wherein the orders of Christ and culturecoexist in sinful opposition in the hope of justification beyond history.
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BRIAN J. KELTY 9
A parallel but vastly different answer may be seen in the politicaltheology of Augustine—explicated by Calvin—in which the corruptnature of the human condition can only be remedied by the conver-sion of humankind to Christ in society. I have set out the five posi-tions in figure 1.
I I I 1 ~ iOPPOSITION CONVERSIONIST POLARITY SYNTHETIC AGREEMENT
(against) (transformer) (paradox) (above) (with)Tertullian Calvin Luther Aquinas Constantine
Fig. 1. Niebuhr's typology of Christ and culture
The most appropriate relationship between the church and cul-ture, in Niebuhr's view, was that of transformation. This view is areversal of die previously dominant synthetic model in Catholic the-ology, which corresponds to the Christ above culture model in Nie-buhr's system. In the synthetic model reality was viewed as a two-layeruniverse, consisting of the supernatural and the natural order. Thenatural order was to be integrated by synthesis into a description ofreality from the point of view of the supernatural. At least this is theway that Catholic theology attempted to resolve the inherent dualismin the natural/supernatural schema. The research of many FrenchDominican and Jesuit theologians during the first half of the twen-tieth century resulted in the restoration (ressourcement) of an earlierschema, which emphasized the unity of the created order with theCreator, from whom all things came. This thinking drew especially onPlato and Augustine and saw parallels in the works of creation to theincarnation. The created order was imbued with the Spirit of God.However, incarnational theology of this style does not account for theexistential problem of evil. By describing Christ as the transformer ofculture, Niebuhr draws on the theology of Augustine and Calvin toconclude that the realization of culture's full potential for good—involving human cooperation—has yet to be worked out.
Niebuhr's typology provides a useful instrument with which to ana-lyze the changing attitude toward culture that has marked Catholi-cism at different times. I propose to use the typology as a templateand to inspect the remarkable change that took place in Catholic edu-cational thought over a sixty-year period. This task may be achievedby examining the 1929 encyclical of Pius XI, which set the agenda ofCatholic education for the next thirty years, and a trilogy of educationdocuments that emanated from the Congregation for Catholic Edu-
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10 TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
cation.1 The documents of the Second Vatican Council stand as tem-poral midpoints between these two benchmarks and keep a foot inboth camps. The Declaration on Christian Education (GravissimumEducationis) tended to repeat verbatim the principles of the 1929 en-cyclical, whereas the major innovative documents, especially The Pas-toral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (Gaudium etSpes), contain ideas that have enormous implications for educationaltheory. For these reasons the council provides a criterion againstwhich the past and the future can be gauged.
Finally, a convenient way to describe the vastly changed philoso-phy of Catholic education is through the use of four common thematicheadings. These are the nature of the person, the function of knowl-edge, the view of history, and the social goals of Catholic education.
CATHOLICISM AND CATHOLIC EDUCATION (1929)
Stalin once asked cynically, "How many divisions does the popehave?" While the Russian dictator was thinking in military terms, itwas possible to answer that question in the 1950s by pointing to theCatholic Church, which was the largest Christian body in the world.The metaphor was not an entirely inappropriate description, for theCatholic Church then referred to itself as "the church militant."Moreover, the Catholic Church operated with military-like precision,due to the organization of its many institutions. Although it is easy tomake too much of this structural pattern, the uniform governance ofdisparate structures such as monasteries, universities, hospitals, andreligious orders, exercised through the congregations of the Roman
1 An encyclical, which takes the form of a letter from the pope, has an aura ofauthority. The documents produced by the Second Vatican Council represent theconsensus of the teaching authority of the bishops; however, the Vatican II docu-ments were all pastoral in character and represented a change in the attitude of theCatholic Church toward modernity. The trilogy of education documents referred tohere all issued from the Congregation for Catholic Education and demonstrate theimplications of Vatican II for Catholic education. As official discussion papers thesedocuments have authority akin to a vision statement: The first document, The Catho-lic School, was issued in 1977. The second, Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses toFaith (1982), addresses the issue of "lay teachers" taking the place of religious ordersin conducting Catholic schools. The Religious Dimension of Education in a CatholicSchool, which concerns the religious culture of Catholic schools, was issued in 1988.The two most recent documents were produced under the leadership of CardinalWilliam Baum of the United States. Concepts familiar to the North American schoolrenewal movement are present, especially in the most recent document.
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BRIAN J. KELTY 11
Curia, should not be forgotten. The local parish plant, consisting ofa church and accompanied by a school, meeting rooms, or hall, andsometimes even by a small cemetery, may have been unique in itsability to endure, regardless of the administrative mechanisms of thewider church. The priests of a diocese were subject to the will of theirbishop who was, in turn, supervised by Roman superiors and theiragent, the apostolic nuncio. This vast enterprise known as the RomanCatholic Church was operated by a huge "army" of priests and bythe men and women of the various religious orders of the CatholicChurch. At the head of the church's corporate life was the supremepontiff, the vicar of Christ, the pope.
A watershed had been reached during the pontificate of Pius XII(1939-58). Although overshadowed by John XXIII's spectacular pro-gram of aggiornamento, Pius XII had also been a reforming pope.Perhaps more significant, he led the church through World War II,and seemed to consolidate institutional life in his last years throughrepressive policies.
The first encyclical on the subject of education was Pius XI sDivini Illius Magistri of 1929 (cited hereafter as DIM). Until thattime it was the only encyclical to concern itself specifically withChristian education (understood as schooling), and as such it set theagenda for Catholic education for at least the next thirty years. A cur-sory reading of the document reveals the accuracy of its research oncontemporaneous educational theory and practice and an incisivecritique from the perspective of Catholic Christianity. The document,with its emphasis on the ultimate otherworldly end of education, pro-motes a distinctively Catholic view.
It is therefore an extremely important matter to make no mistakein this question of education; as important, in fact, as it is to makeno mistake in regard to man's final destiny for it is to this end thatthe entire work of education is directed. For if the whole purpose ofeducation is so to shape man in this mortal life that he will be able toreach the last end for which his creator has destined him, it is plainthat there can be no true education which is not totally directed tothat last end. (DIM, par. 7)
The theme of education as preparation for eternal life in the worldto come runs like a thread through the entire encyclical. Educa-tion is discussed under the fourfold headings of agency (a hierarchi-cally ordered relationship among church, family, and state); sub-ject (the flawed but redeemed human person); environment (the safe
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12 TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
haven provided by family, church, and school); and end (the perfectChristian). This entire discussion is regulated.by the following prin-ciple: "The proper and immediate end of Christian education is tocooperate with divine grace in forming the true and perfect Christian"(DIM, par. 118).
TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF EDUCATION
The "old agenda" for Catholic education rapidly unraveled inthe years following the Second Vatican Council. With the benefit ofhindsight, I suggest that the demise of a strong Catholic educationalphilosophy was predictable for two reasons. First, the council's con-tribution to Catholic education consisted of the rather uninterestingDeclaration on Christian Education, which was repetitious of therecent past. Whereas the major agenda of the council had been to facemodernity and to address its implications for contemporary Chris-tianity, Catholic education was left with its traditional heritage. Sec-ond, because so much of the council's renewing vision directed thechurch's energy to the internalization of individualized Christian con-viction, this enterprise translated into a vigorous renewal of religiouseducation, especially in Catholic schools (McClelland 1991). This de-velopment was at the expense of an articulated educational philoso-phy, which might have built on the best theological insights of Vati-can II. From the perspective of Niebuhr's typology, the synthesiswhich united human culture to Christ above had been abandoned forthe ideal of Christ the transformer of culture. This strategy is moststrongly represented in Gaudium et Spes, in which the church criti-cally engages with culture as never before. It is especially ironic thatone may find a clear search for a postconciliar Catholic educationalphilosophy in a recent publication.
The educational philosophy of post-Vatican II Roman Catholicismderives, first, from the characteristics of Catholicism itself; second,from the statements and publications of various official and quasi-official bodies (e.g., national episcopal conferences, groups such asthe National Catholic Educational Association); and, third, fromthe corporate life of various forms of Catholic communal life (e.g.,schools as "faith communities," diocesan agencies, justice centers,and other alternative educational institutions), especially as thesecommunities struggle to formulate and embody ideals in "missionstatements." Together they form a certain consistent pattern that de-serves more detailed analysis. (Boys 1989,132)
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BRIAN J.KELTY 13
In this work the notions of religious education and the philosophy ofCatholic education are at times confused.
Here I begin analyzing the pattern observable in current Catholictheory and practice by reflecting theologically on certain educationalthemes. A complementary approach to the analysis of Catholic educa-tion maybe found in Bryck, Lee, and Holland (1993), which takes anempirical approach to a series of schools typical of the United States.The work, however, analyzes good, school practice rather than pre-senting a philosophy or theology of education. The fact remains thatthe referent "faith community" in the case of a Catholic school is anincreasingly amorphous concept, with contexts varying from the tribalcohesion of traditional Catholicism in a "Christian" country to themission school conducted in an alien religious culture. Secularism ispresent even in Catholic schools, hence the pressing need for a theo-logical framework for those who conduct Catholic schools in variouscontexts. My position is that such a framework may be constructedfrom the documents which I analyze in this paper.
An emerging literature successfully attempts the task of construct-ing a theology of education, as is the case with Giuseppe Groppo'sTeologia dell'educazione (1991). Groppo's encyclopedic study detailsworldwide movements in Roman Catholic theology and shows impli-cations for a theology of education.
The major Catholic Church documents that discuss education inCatholic schools move away from principally otherworldly concernstoward preparing people capable of working for the transformationof this world. This shift of focus is expressed unevenly. Although, asstated, the most profoundly expressed concerns for the transformationof the culture are to be found in Gaudium et Spes (hereafter cited asGS), subsequent education documents show a relatively consistentcommitment to the transforming work of justice in the world.
Educational philosophy typically reflects initially on the fourthemes of person, knowledge, history, and society. These same themesare present in the work of those who, throughout the history ofWestern culture, have strongly influenced the development of educa-tional philosophy, such as Plato, Augustine, Comenius, Locke, Rous-seau, Pestalozzi, Herbart, Froebel, Dewey, and Whitehead. In thecase of Catholic educational philosophy, the Thomistic synthesis ofthe Middle Ages and the neo-Thomistic revival of the late nineteenthcentury strongly emphasized an integral educational philosophy suchas that found in Reddon and Ryan (1942). The four themes of the
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14 TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
person, knowledge, history, and society were integrated into an edu-cational philosophy and program which strove for the eternal salvationof both students and educators. Both social changes and the revolu-tion in Catholic theology of the last thirty years clearly demonstratethat an unitary Catholic philosophy of education is no longer possible,and may not be appropriate to the mission of the church. Since Catho-lics now seldom form tightly knit subcultures, one may no longer as-sume group cohesion and identity. Personal commitment and convic-tion are now matters of individual development and identity. Analysisof Catholic education documents does not yield a fully developededucational philosophy, but gives four central ideals by which Catho-lic education maybe identified. These ideals provide appropriate con-tent for a theology of Catholic education which claims tie SecondVatican Council as the source for its educational rationale.
The Person: Making Human Beings More Human
Catholic educational statements consistently come back to the na-ture of the person.
For it must always be borne in mind that the person who has toreceive a Christian education is the whole human being: a com-pound of spirit and body united to form one nature; endowed withall the imperfections of mind and body which belong to that natureand with others that transcend it; man, in other words, as we knowhim from reason and from divine revelation; man, therefore, fallenfrom the noble condition of his origin, redeemed by Christ and sorestored to the supernatural dignity of being God's adopted son, butnot re-endowed with those preternatural privileges by which hisbody had formerly been immortal and his mind gifted with perfectbalance and integrity. This is why there still remain in man the un-happy effects which flowed from Adam's sin upon the human race,especially weakness in the will and unbridled desires in the heart.(DIM, par. 67)
This statement presents a cautious view of the person. The hand ofAugustine is discernible in the talk of sin, weakness, and a will flawedby desire. A rather different emphasis had emerged by 1988 when, ina keynote address to the National Catholic Educational Association,Doyle stated:
The Church proclaims the personally unique reality and resourcethat is each human person. The Church would assert that in a demo-
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BRIAN J. KELTY 15
cratic society the Gospel can assist the human person to discernvalues compatible with it in the changing and often opposing politi-cal, economic, ecological, sociological, technological and religiousrealities in the world. (1989,43)
Commitment to personal development and growth in personal free-dom are priorities for educational efforts claiming consistency withthe goals of Catholic education. "Transcendent humanism" has beenat the center of the Christian tradition from the idea's inception.Christianity shares this perception with the Jewish faith, from whichhumanism had sprung. Human nature is cast in the image of Godboth in its dominion over and responsibility for the created order; theperfectibility and development of the human are two interior dispo-sitions which dispose the person to transcendence itself. The humanvision of God thus has a volitional element as well as a rational com-ponent. Both elements have been emphasized at different times dur-ing the two millennia of Christian history. The limitation imposed bya physical nature and the flaw of sin may be overcome by the capacityof the will to respond to the moral transformation of life. The greatstrength of this characterization of human existence is that it is un-ashamedly anthropocentric within the limits imposed by a realisticknowledge of evil. In principle, equity is claimed for all, regardless ofstatus, race, or gender. This Christian anthropology takes confidencefrom its experience of transcendent humanity in the mystery of JesusChrist. It was Paul VI who proclaimed that "Catholic educators canbe certain that they make human beings more human" (PopulorumProgressio [1967], par. 19). An even more profound doctrine of theperson found its way from the philosophy of Blondel into the teachingof the Second Vatican Council, which declared,
By his power to know himself in the depths of his being he risesabove the whole universe of mere objects. When he is drawn to thinkabout his real self he turns to those deep recesses of his being whereGod who probes the heart awaits him, and where he himself decideshis own destiny in the sight of God. (GS, par. 14)
This Christian tradition is at its weakest when seeking to accountfor individual identity, which in the twentieth century takes shape asthe result of a dynamic self-defining process rather than through theintegration of a preexisting set of external definitions and precepts.The way forward is in careful attention to how contemporary Chris-tians experience the challenge of what it is to be fully human. Personal
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development and freedom stimulate the Christian imagination toeven greater efforts to transform the world into a place in which equityand justice are provided for all.
Knowledge: Transcendence of Self
A particular concern of Catholic education has been the highvalue placed on human rationality. For Catholicism, the correlationbetween faith and reason has a long tradition, a dialectic first statedtentatively in the writings of Justin Martyr. Aquinas achieved an im-pressive synthesis of Christian doctrine with the Aristotelian cate-gories of his day. There have been recent attempts, such as those byMaritain and Lonergan, to reconstruct the synthesis from the per-spective of a "modernized" Thomism. A version of knowledge thatwas realist was essential to the religious worldview within a Thomisticframework. In this framework, knowledge corresponded with the ex-ternal world, which was perceived through the senses. Thus knowl-edge was unitary and limited only by the competence of the knower.The world of things was created by the knowing subject more or lessin the subject's own image and likeness.
With die arrival of post-Enlightenment critical thought, this uni-form world disintegrated. Metaphysics could no longer presume tohold the high ground in philosophy; epistemology was to become theprincipal philosophical discipline as the consequences of subjectivitywere recognized. Every form of knowledge to some extent was ahuman construct. Objectivity and certainty of a quasi-empirical typewere thus dethroned, and the religious worldview of an earlier styleof Catholicism was "deconstructed." Christian theology is frequentlypracticed today in a far more anthropological key. The inner psycho-logical world of the person is appropriated as the locus of the tran-scendent dimension.
Let me demonstrate the transition which has taken place in Catho-lic educational thought in this case. On the one hand we have theteaching of Pius XI from 1929:
The Church... does proclaim, as she has proclaimed in the past andwill continue to proclaim, that she alone because she is instituted byJesus Christ and has received the Holy Spirit sent by the Father inHis name, directly and perpetually possesses the whole truth (omnemveritatem) in the sphere of morals, in which every particular moraltruth is contained, whether those truths which men are able to ascer-
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tain by the aid of natural reason alone, or those which form part ofdivine revelation or can be deduced from it. (DIM, par. 22)
On the other hand, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catho-lic School (1988) integrates faith and knowledge with a greater aware-ness of subjectivity.
The world of human culture and the world of religion are not liketwo parallel lines that never meet; points of contact are establishedwithin the human person. For a believer is both human and a per-son of faith, the protagonist of culture and the subject of religion.(RDECS, par. 51)
History and Human Destiny: Belief in the World to Come
Belief in the world to come is one of the most enduring andpowerful forces in the Catholic belief system. One has simply to allowthe imagination to wander through the heavenly court, populatedwith a multitude of angels and saints, or to visit a local church andinspect the imagery. The comforts of such a world may indeed be per-ceived as an illusionary projection to divert attention from the earthlyworld one inhabits. However, it is possible to read the heavenly worldas a popular reconstruction of positive eschatological images foundin many New Testament writings. This worldview sits comfortablyalongside a positive reading of history and destiny itself. Catholicismencourages hope for greater social justice and peace on earth, untilthe time when God wul rule over all things.
Belief in an ultimate destiny conveys most dramatically howCatholicism has changed over the last twenty-five years. Earlier thiscentury there existed an explicitly Catholic philosophy of educationgrounded in the neo-Thomistic revival inaugurated by Leo XIII, whowrote his encyclical Aeterni Patris in 1879. Within this philosophicalframework, reality was a two-layer construction consisting of thenatural world and the supernatural world. By reason of the synthe-sis achieved by neo-Thomism, the natural world was instrumental toother purposes, education included. "For the Thomist the primaryend for all education was aiding the person to achieve a supernaturaldestiny" (Elias 1989). Indeed the very identity of Catholic educationwas expressed in terms of supernatural ends.
Eternal destiny was also expressed in terms of the catecheticalanswer, which affirmed that "God made me to know, love and serve
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him here on earth and to be happy with him forever in heaven." Thissupernatural destiny was couched, as Congar (1949) claimed, in aphysical language. This language vividly emphasized events: prin-cipally death, judgment, and geography, including purgatory, heaven,and hell, with appropriate sensory details such as fire and gnashing ofteeth. True to its scholastic framework, this language is concernedwith describing the nature of what it considers reality to be. The pointof Congar's description is to note a shift of emphasis to the fulfill-ment of God's intent for humanity and creation within history. Thisnew emphasis stresses the relation between God and humanity and,through humanity, with the world. Thus the emphasis is called an an-thropological style, an attitude of hope which takes the transcendentdimension of humanity as its reference point.
Although conciliar thinking was far more developed in the areaof eschatology, it had limited influence on the Catholic educationdocuments. The emphasis was on personal salvation through perfec-tion and holiness in this world. In this framework, the ideal Chris-tian student is described as one who responds to a personal call fromJesus with a life of perfection and witness. This individualistic idealof holiness fails to take account of the communal dimension of Chris-tian life, and therefore social justice is not perceived as integral tothis life.
The Christian perfection to which we are all called is a gift of Jesusthrough the mediation of the Spirit; but the gift requires our co-operation. Our apostolic witness must make this perfection visible inthe world, today and in the future.... The only thing they [students]have to do is live their lives as students as best they can. (RDECS,par. 95)
The Transformation of the World
The Catholic attitude toward society, as well as its educationalrole, has constantly been affected by its relationship to the secularstate. This reality provided the starting point for contemporary docu-ments, beginning with Pius XI's 1929 encyclical. More recently, thediscussion has moved from a somewhat confrontational statement ofthe rights of Catholics to Catholic education, to a recognition of thereligious dimension of all education.
Catholic social theory had survived from the thirteenth throughthe twentieth century, evidenced by the way Catholic social teaching
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developed from the late nineteenth century. What is of interest in thispaper is the way in which that social teaching found its way into theCatholic educational agenda. Because Pius XI was arguing againstnationalist governments for the rights of the church to educate, herestates classical Catholic social teaching clearly when he lays outthe hierarchical structure: "[T]wo of these [societies], the family andthe civil society, are of the natural order, and the third, the church, isof the supernatural order" (DIM, par. 1). Clearly, the social order con-sists of three layers, including three societies: the family, the state, andthe church. The encyclical defines complete and perfect societies associeties that have all that is needed in order to accomplish their givenpurpose (DIM, par. 13). Therefore, the family, as a society, is incom-plete and imperfect insofar as it lacks any of the means to achieve itspurpose. The family needs both the church and civil society. On theother hand, by definition, the church is "a supernatural society em-bracing the whole human race . . . a society which is consequentlysupreme in its own order" (par. 14). One conclusion is that all threesocieties—the family, civil society, and the church—have a distinctrole to fulfill in the process of education (par. 15).
Later in the encyclical the supremacy of the church's social roleis further nuanced. Pius XI refers to the church's jurisdiction in mat-ters related to "the salvation of souls and the worship of God" (par.59). In many respects it is on the subject of social teaching that theeducational philosophy of Divini Illius Magistri most explicitly fore-shadowed the developments during the Second Vatican Council. Asummary statement reads:
Far from renouncing the activities of this life, far from suppressinghis natural powers, the true Christian nurtures and protects these,uniting them with his supernatural life in such a way that the life ofnature is enhanced and provided with more effectual aids, not onlyfor the attainment of spiritual and eternal goods but also for needs ofthe natural order. (DIM, par. 123)
The priority continues to be the supernatural life, but the "needsof the natural order" are acknowledged. It is further conceded thatnature is supported by the supernatural for the sake of nature's ownfinality. This position reverses the simplistic argument that the natu-ral exists only for the finality of the supernatural order. The implica-tions of this principle for education are far-reaching. It may be sug-gested that education also has its own finality. Vatican II will make
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20 TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF CATHOLIC EDUCATION
this argument using an incamational principle that may be applied toeducational practice. In this view, education has a substantive valuein its own right, opposed to the instrumentalist view in which edu-cation is principally a technique for evangelization.
Principles for Christian life in the world are translated into aneducational platform by the authors of Lay Catholics in Schools (here-after cited as LCS), who consider Catholic schoolteachers to be theprincipal agents for the social development of youth. They performthis task by
preparing them in such a way that they will make the land of socialcommitment which will enable them to work for the improvement ofsocial structures, making these structures more conformed to theprinciples of the Gospel. (LCS, par. 19)
This document highlights the importance of understanding structuralissues in any effective social reform, while this passage moves towardmeeting one criticism of transformative leadership—that is, its lackof breadth (Rost 1991,123-28). Social awareness based on a sense ofresponsibility contains an ethical dimension consistent with the com-mon good of a pluralistic society. Rather than simply starting fromthe assumption that society finds its basis in agreed moral content,the argument appeals to a common moral purpose for the improve-ment of society. An ethics of intentionality is more likely than anideological stance to win consent to a conversation about processes bywhich to improve society. In this way people of goodwill might initi-ate "the civilization of love" the document calls for.
Ah awareness of student development enters the discussion whenthe document refers to the often difficult task for teachers of helpingstudents understand "the global character that is proper to culture"(LCS, par. 20). Nor is the structure of the school itself forgotten. Thehidden agenda inevitably embedded in the policies and practices thatmake up the school's routine is recognized. Lay Catholics in Schoolsstates the issue strikingly: 'The educational community of a school isitself a 'school.' It teaches one how to be a member of the widersocial communities" (par. 22). The point is that the values that theyoung observe and frequently integrate into their own lives are em-bedded in both the institutional procedures and the professionalbehavior of individual teachers (par. 32). Social development, in thiseducational philosophy, is not concerned with introspective interests,but looks to "others in the educational community, in the other com-
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munities that they [students] may belong to, and [to] the entirehuman community" (par. 34). Thus the educational process becomesunashamedly "political" in its processes. Educational goals no longertake guidance exclusively from the heavenly city on the horizon; theyare not derived from a self-contained theological system and trans-lated into school practice. The Catholic teacher is enticed to looktoward the global reality, which "will provide the data needed to givethe kind of formation that students need now, and . . . prepare themfor the future that can now be predicted" (par. 35). This approachconstitutes an unreserved commitment to the political education ofyoung people who find their way into Catholic schools.
CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOR THETWENTY-FIRST CENTURY /
Clearly, an emerging Catholic educational theology, which aims to-ward the transformation of human culture, is now available to Catho-lic schools through a set of highly authoritative educational policystatements. These documents set out a view of the person that em-phasizes the individual's still-developing potential. The view of knowl-edge is no longer confined to realist metaphysics, but is far more opento phenomenological approaches. In the past, Catholic educationalaims were an explicit attempt to effect the eternal salvation of soulsfor their eternal heavenly happiness. In contrast, these educationdocuments encourage a hermeneutical approach to eschatologicallanguage. These developments permit a refraining of Catholic edu-cational philosophy so that it directs its energy to personal develop-ment, remains open to the possibilities of new knowledge, reinforcesits view of history and human destiny with metaphors of hope, andprepares graduates who are motivated to work for justice.
Catholic education takes place in a wide variety of settings, whichmay include communities of those who claim one faith, one bap-tism, and one Lord. Many school communities, however, will reflectthe pluralistic society in which they operate. Catholic educational re-sponses to this pluralism may legitimately be diverse, providedschools work out an adequate rationale for their decisions. Such ratio-nales must emphasize that the dignity of the person warrants everyeducational effort that seeks human development. Such human de-velopment is intimately connected to how learning enables one toconstruct a meaningful universe. A challenge to Catholic education is
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to find ways to convey a Catholic account of the universe that fully re-spect varying points of view within the school community. The Chris-tian sense of destiny and history offers a potent personal resource toteachers and students, but also motivates the committed and some-times the uncommitted to work for the transformation of the world.
Throughout the history of Catholicism, education has absorbedmuch of the church's interest and energy. Although universal edu-cation was not possible in earlier periods of Christian history, thechurch has a long tradition of relating to differing cultural contexts.H. Richard Niebuhr helps to clarify the great variety of relationshipsbetween faith and culture that emerged through the course of Chris-tian history. His typology is useful because it enables us to identify theshift of emphasis now taking place in the Catholic Church. This shiftmoves from a relationship between faith and culture that dependedupon the great medieval synthesis of the natural and supernaturalworlds, to seeing the function of faith—working within its ownmilieu—as the transformation of the world.
A question remains: "Does this philosophical shift constitute atheology of education?" The answer is affirmative in part becausethis modified philosophy of education takes faith in God and religiouspractice seriously. However, this project is incomplete as it stands.Groppo suggests four fundamental challenges for a contemporarytheology of education. First is the evaluation of the educational prob-lems which culture presents to faith; second is the critical appropri-ation of modem theology's understanding of salvation, holiness, au-tonomy, human action, and education as liberating and humanizingprocesses; third is the understanding of the process of religious con-version and development; fourth is the description of the parametersof maturity and growth in both developmental and religious terms(Groppo 1991, 440).
Brian J. Kelty teaches theology and church leadership at the AustralianCatholic University in Brisbane.
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