Education Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Catholic Social Thought

Fossil fuel companies and Christian institutions – withdraw or engage?

There is increasing pressure on Christian organisations to disinvest from fossil fuel industries, but there is surprisingly little discussion about whether this is a good idea.

Adding diversity to the university

Globally, there are 1,400 Catholic universities. They make a substantial contribution to the intellectual life of the Church. However, there are few Catholic higher education institutions in the UK. There is a reason for this. After the hierarchy was restored in England and Wales, the focus was on building schools and then churches without much thought being given to higher education. Indeed, most of our Catholic higher education institutions evolved from teacher training colleges.

The Late Scholastics as early economists

We have posted before about the late scholastics: The late scholastics, universal human rights and discrimination and other posts on this blog on human rights, globalisation, interest and property rights have incorporated their profound impact.

No salvation in fiscal policy

Yesterday, I ended a presentation to sixth-formers by commenting that nobody would want to be Rishi Sunak. Of course, in the strict sense that is not true – indeed, many of the people to whom I was talking might well have had ambitions to be Chancellor of the Exchequer. What I meant was that the Chancellor was facing the most difficult combination of circumstances of anybody in his position since the mid-1970s.

Citizenship and Education

In this post I explore citizenship education through the lens of Catholic teaching on education. I also make reference to Pope Leo XIII’s teaching on citizenship. I show that there is such a thing as a Christian ‘idea’ of citizenship. This might not sit comfortably in a society which seeks to marginalise (intentionally or unintentionally), the Christian voice.

Citizenship, education and religion

How citizenship education in the Catholic school is both understood and taught makes it a crucial feature of the contemporary educational scene.

Citizenship education flows from a political or civic desire to build community cohesion – universally deemed a ‘good thing’. How to promote, far less achieve, this in a multi-cultural society remains problematic.

For some, citizenship education is a ‘secular’ version of religious education: values emerge, it seems, from reason alone without a concomitant contribution from revealed religion. Although religious belief and practice should be fundamental parts of citizenship education, contemporary articulations of citizenship education minimise discussion of the difficult issues arising from religious faith or identity. Nonetheless, the number of children of all faiths and none who are educated in Catholic schools should place the Catholic school not at the margins but at the heart of citizenship education.

Religions, of course, are an expression of diversity. This leads to the following question: is contemporary education a means of monopolising thought and values within a conceptual framework which purports to be inclusive but, intentionally or otherwise, fails in this objective?

Why Saving Catholic Schools from Covid’s Impact Is a National Imperative

This article was originally published in Forbes in July 2020. Previous articles on education have emphasised that Catholic social teaching has mandated that there should be no discrimination against Christian schools when it comes to funding education. This policy imperative runs into different obstacles in different political environments. This article looks at the challenges in the US, especially in the covid crisis.

“Go and set the world on fire.” Those simple words from St. Ignatius of Loyola coloured all of his works, most notably the establishment of the Jesuits, among whose leading contributions is Catholic education.

Liberty in Education and Catholic Social Teaching

The provision of public services by the government has always raised concerns about the respect for individual liberty. And in the case of education, this issue gets even more relevant. For being a vehicle of transmission of knowledge, education contributes not only to tackle ignorance and to increase the level of literacy of the population, but also to create and promote a common set of values and behaviour patterns. In this post we analyse the perspective of Catholic social teaching on the provision of education by the government.

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