ON THE WAY TO LIFE Reclaiming reality, history and the human person

1. ON THE WAY TO LIFE Reclaiming reality, history and the human person

2. On The Way to Life On The Way to Life invites us into a dialogue of life and, as Saint Augustine reminds us, this dialogue of life is not about us but about God – the God who is love. All our speech, if it is true speech about this God, will be an act of love. This is both the means and the end of all our translation and transmission. “Take this love, therefore, as the end that is set before you, to which you are to refer all that you say, and, whatever you narrate, narrate it in such a manner that he to whom you are discoursing, on hearing may believe, on believing may hope, on hoping may love.”

3. On The Way to Life: Part IIThe Theological Context The three challenges to Catholic education addressed in this part are: • finding a language to speak of sin and salvation – behaviour • communication of faith in post-ideological context – potential and hope • the crisis of transmission – relevance and authenticity

4. An understanding of culture Identify five words to describe contemporary culture in our society

5. A ‘culture’ is a system(s) of shared belief, values customs behaviours and artefacts that members of a society or group use to interact with each other and to interpret and shape their environment.On the Way to Life What is Culture? Culture is everything. Culture is the way we dress, the way we carry our heads, the way we walk, the way we tie our ties – it is not only the fact of writing books or building houses. Aime Cesair Know the best that has been said and thought in the world Matthew Arnold

6. Believing… that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in search of a law but an interpretative one in search of a meaningClifford Geertz The Church is a Culture too!

7. Secularisation 68.6% marriage 78.5% death 58.9% birth 31% ‘personal God’ 40.1% ‘spirit’ or ‘life force’ 41.6 Religious 53.4%not 5%atheist. Modernity Freedom Rationality Privacy Authority of Conscience Freedom of self expression Objectivity

8. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

9. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

10. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

11. In the YouGov poll featured in The Daily Telegraph, Prof. Anthony King noted that a clear majority wanted the Government to encourage parents to send their children to non-confessional schools, while only 5% wished to encourage ‘faith schools’. Taken together, these trends raise interesting questions for the Catholic Church whose commitment to education has been central to the Catholic community’s success and survival.

12. Pause for reflection and discussion How does contemporary culture affect your own understanding of meaning, truth and faith?

13. Meaning • Modernity requires us to be ‘multi-lingual’ • The task of finding meaning becomes harder for everyone • Education becomes a question of mastering these different ‘languages’ but it cannot supply a sense of unity

14. Some problematic features • With the discovery of the new continent of the subconscious, the ‘turn to the subject’ cannot be the liberation it was thought to be • Instead it is an encounter with a self that is unknown and a will who sources lie in subterranean motivations and experiences • Yet our response to affectivity cannot be to dogmatise. Tradition is not an historical moment

15. No FT…No Comment

17. What is Truth?Where is Trust?

18. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

19. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

20. Response from Sixth Formers at Saint Paul’s, Leicester

21. The Burden of Ordinariness • The ‘ordinary’ confines us to the horizons of the street. We inhabit the ‘Queen Vic’ or walk the length of Coronation Street. • Europe still lives with the ghosts of Hitler and Stalin. We are conscious of the dark forces that drive human motivation and their claim to power. • The literature and drama of modernity produce the figure of the anti-hero. The ordinary needs no history.

22. NOSTALGIA • Nostalgia is symptomatic of exile and is a form not of history but a ‘false memory’ that can never be achieved – the new Xanadu! • This constructed paradise is free from pressure of time and the mobile phone – a sensation of time-space compression

23. The Emergence of a new Religious Subject: the pilgrim and the convert. • For the sociologist both of these are metaphors. The pilgrim in search for identity which becomes a form of self-styling. The convert has deliberately chosen an identity which is sometimes distinct from that offered by the economy, the State and class structure. • Both autonomous subjects who choose their religious identity

24. Theological understanding of the Pilgrim and Convert • Religious subject of Modernity not the same as the subject of Theology • Within Christian tradition the pilgrim is not involved in self-construction but an obedience to a call. At heart it involves an inter-personal relationship with Christ and the Holy Spirit • Likewise conversion is essentially a response to an encounter with Christ • Need to regain this understanding

25. Crisis of Transmission • This is partly due to the competing understandings of truth that we have sketched – the doctrines and epistemology are broken • Vehicle of transmission, namely the continuity of generations represented in the family is, as we have seen, not a stable reality • This is exacerbated in parishes by shifting populations

26. Pause for reflection and discussion What are the implications for our schools and colleges of this shifting landscape?

27. Vatican II • The council was not called to refute a heresy but holds before us the presence of Christ in the Church, in the Sacraments, in the offices of its bishops, priests and people, in the hearts of all the faithful, in secular culture, in other faiths, in all humanity and in history itself • The importance of memory

28. New understanding of Revelation Revelation becomes an experience not just a proposition: it is the Person of Christ. Faith can no longer be just an assent to formulas, or a poor substitute for reason when the assertion of an ecclesial authority; it is an encounter with the Person of Christ mediated in and through the Church. It is not, therefore an act of assent but also of consent; it must be a movement of the heart and will as well as the intellect

29. Central Theological Foundations for Vatican II • 2.1 Nature and grace: reclaiming reality and history • 2.2 Christ-centred humanism: reclaiming the human

30. Pause for reflection and discussion • What are the qualities of a modern-day Catholic? • How has Vatican II informed your understanding of the Church? • Implications for mission, curriculum and outreach

31. Central Theological Foundations for Vatican II • 2.1 Nature and grace: reclaiming reality and history – a turn to the ‘theological subject’ • 2.2 Christ-centred humanism: reclaiming the human – humanity must not only be grasped in the fallenness of its history but in the glory of its future

32. Alpha and Omega The remainder of Part II reflects on: • finding a language to speak of sin and salvation – behaviour • communication of faith in post-ideological context – potential and hope • the crisis of transmission – relevance and authenticity

33. Religious Education For the 14-19+ students is an exciting, engaging, and challenging study of matters which lie at the heart of being human …

34. Summary of 14-19 Implementation Plan • Recognition of need to fulfil statutory requirements such as religious education but less clear where • Schools required to ensure young people’s access to all Diplomas via 14-19 partnerships involving themselves, colleges and work-based learning providers • New providers of 16-19 provision opening by September 2007 following competitions held by the Learning and Skills Council from January 2006

35. Scope and Nature of Diplomas • From September 2008: • ICT • Engineering • Health and social care • Creative and media • Construction and the built environment

36. Scope and Nature of Diplomas • From September 2009: • Land based and environmental • Manufacturing • Hair and beauty • Business administration and finance • Hospitality and catering

37. Scope and Nature of Diplomas • From September 2010: • Public services • Sport and leisure • Retail • Travel and tourism

38. Catholic Christianity Two other principal religions, one Abrahamic and one other Moral education including differences in human and religious frameworks A secular world view The philosophy of religion

39. The Catholic contribution to education Catholic schools, colleges and parishes are called to form citizens who draw their values from the person of Jesus and see their faith as intimately connected to how they live and treat others in society

40. The Catholic contribution to education • Students will become increasingly aware of education at the service of human flourishing, as an “inclusive” and “holy endeavour”; not simply as a utilitarian use to employment • Like salvation, education introduces us to the ‘not yet’

41. What resources will we bring to this task? • Home, school, parish – how foundational ? • Withdrawal of religious – impact? • Nature and grace – the salvation of the ‘Queen Vic’ for the ‘ordinary’ too is consecrated and a means to holiness

42. Do we have the confidence to create in our schools, colleges and parishes a renewed Catholic culture that passes on the educational mission we have received and help students to:

43. recognise the presence of God in themselves, others and creation; • reflect seriously on their personal faith and respect the faith of others; • discern their true vocation; • engage with the wealth of information that is now available to them through modern technology;

44. be imaginative and creative; • question critically; • use free will with integrity; • understand the dignity of human work and their contribution; • be at the service of others for the Common Good; • live life to the full.

45. Over to you… • On The Way to Life (OTWTL) marks the beginning of a conversation both within the Catholic community and wider. It will be enriched by your response

46. Over to you… • Does the essay OTWTL frighten you? • Has what you have heard today resonated or caused you to question? • Will Chapter One help you review the context of your mission? • Is that mission relevant to the Church of your childhood or today’s children?

47. Over to you… Please send any responses from today or from your staff groups to me: Father Joseph A. Quigley National Religious Education Adviser Catholic Education Service 39 Eccleston Square London SW1V 1BX E-mail: therese.gordon@theredepartment.com

48. Thank you Thank you for your work and commitment to Catholic education – your vocation is a noble calling and one sanctified by Christ.