Catholic Education
Pope Leo XIV has updated the priorities for Catholic education (the largest non-governmental provider of education globally) and set out his vision that it ‘embraces the entire person: spiritual, intellectual, emotional, social, and physical’. Citing Saint John Henry Newman, a 19th century English cardinal, the Pope says Catholic education ‘goes against a strictly mercantilist approach that often forces education today to be measured in terms of functionality and practical utility’ and instead should be measured on the basis of promoting ‘dignity, justice, the capacity to serve the common good’.
At the Jubilee Mass tomorrow, 1 November, in St Peter’s Square, Rome, with our very own Fr Ambrose concelebrating, the Pope will declare Newman a Doctor of the Church and co-patron of Catholic education alongside St Thomas Aquinas. In two thousand years of Church history, only thirty-eight saints have been given the title of Doctor of the Church, thirty of whom were declared before 1054AD. It is amazing that John Henry Newman, England’s most recent saint, is being given the same standing as Thomas Aquinas.
If you'd like to tune in for the Jubilee Mass, you can access the live stream here. The service begins at 9.20am GMT on Saturday 1 November.
