NEW EDUCATION

– Introduction: the newly emerging scene in the field of education. – Urgent need of “new educa­tion”. – The challenge of the young. – Distinction between “education” and “evangelization” as such. – Should education come before evangelization? – Don Bosco's choice of a field of work, and his practical example. – Educating by evangelizing. – Looking again at the “Preventive System”: - creativity of the “artist”; - in solidarity with the young; - with eyes trained on the New Man; - for a work of anticipation; - seeing “reason” and “religion” in the same light; - with inventive attention given to free time; - towards the reality of life. – Self-sanctification through educating. – Prompted by Mary in her role as Mother of the Church.

Rome, Solemnity of Pentecost

19 May 1991

My dear confreres,

During my visits to various provinces in recent months I have been able to see for myself the ef­forts that are being made to give practical effect to the deliberations and guidelines of the General Chapter. It is a question of putting into practice the riches the Congregation has amassed in the period that has followed Vatican II.

For us this forms part of that “new evangeliza­tion” that is demanded at the present day, and to which we are insistently urged by the Pope, the Bishops and the GC23.

Young people themselves are asking in different ways to be enlightened and followed in the intricate course of their existence. Parents and many of those bearing responsibility at a civil or ecclesial level are turning to members of Don Bosco's Fa­mily as experts in education.

In addition a number of confreres have recently asked me to put forward some reflections on the practical manner in which we carry out our educa­tive mission.

Today one sees education as taking on almost emergency proportions in both civil society and in the Church; and on the other hand one hears objec­tions advanced which call for a fitting response.

In a long conversation I had at Havana with a minister of the Castro government, I was struck by something he said about the “youth of the revolu­tion”: immorality and lack of mystique among youth are among the greatest concerns of the cur­rent regime.

In another context at Prague, in a meeting with the deputy prime minister of the present govern­ment I heard the ecclesial situation summed up in these terms: the Church has been compelled to live in a ghetto for the past 40 years, and now if she fails to come out into the open she will have no in­fluence on young people who are no longer linked to a parish or other ecclesial institutions, who are totally ignorant of the Gospel, or who have been led astray by an atheistic ideology and have grown up with a mentality lacking any personal ethic.

In nearly every society education is no longer considered an activity leading to the formation of christians; its cultural environment is secularist in nature, or based on ancient religions.

The Church through Vatican II has taken note of the closing, if that is the right word, of an era of 'christianity' to be followed by a new kind of rela­tionship with the world; and so she speaks of new evangelization and pastoral rethinking. And all this touches deeply the field of education.

If in particular we look at the numerous followers of other religions, we find pedagogical models of various kinds, permeated by concrete religious aspects with specific positive values, but having in common (and the fact is of significance for us) an anthropology that precinds altogether from the mystery of Christ and, in consequence, from an overall vision of man and from a complex of practical and mysteriously efficacious mediations that contribute to the full maturing of the individual.

The fundamental objection stemming from these varied and complex situations is that the edu­cation of the young, so fundamental and indispens­able in every society, is not only no longer linked in practice with evangelization but is in fact deliberately separated from because it is considered a cul­tural sector with an autonomous field of develop­ment.

This emerging fact in the area of education is to be linked especially with the central position of man in the cosmos and in history: a massive “an­thropological turning-point.” The reference is to man in himself, as a subject open to a thousand and one possibilities. It is one of the expressions asso­ciated with that great sign of the times that goes by the name of the “personalization process”.

And so a previously unobserved problem arises which directly affects and calls into question the significance and methodology of our educational activity. The GC23 wants us to be able to take up the values put forward by the signs of the times, discerning them in the light of faith. Hence as we come to grips with the present anthropological turnabout we must clearly avoid falling into a nar­row anthropocentricism which characterizes it from a cultural standpoint.

In the reflections that follow, it is not our purpose­pose to tackle all the vast aspects of the present educational panorama after its development by the human sciences. Nor is it possible to examine the multiple demands of particular concrete situations and cultural differences. Our interest at this point is to reflect on the mutual relationship between our educational and evangelizing activities. The enlight­enment we derive from so doing will call for further efforts on our part at study and discern­ment. There will in fact be one manner of applica­tion in secularized societies; another among peo­ples engaged in the exhausting process of libera­tion; and still another in cultures associated with the great religions of the east, etc.

Reflection on the mutual relationship between human development and christian growth we must consider as fundamental and indispensable in every situation. From its correct interpretation depends the proper and efficacious application of the Con­stitutions themselves (articles 31 to 43).

And therefore: an anthropological turning-point, yes; but with Christ, the New Man, at the vertex.