Pope Francis called for an educational revolution Thursday, telling the Congregation for Catholic Education that more effort needs to be made to accelerate the inclusiveness of education.

Ecology and fraternity are an integral part of education, Pope Francis told the Catholic education leaders ahead of the pope’s Global Compact on Education taking place May 14.

“The educational pact must not be a simple order, it must not be a rehash of the positivisms we have received from an Enlightenment education. It must be revolutionary,” Pope Francis said Feb. 20.

The pope said that the purpose of an “education that focuses on the person in his integral reality” is “above all” oriented “to the discovery of fraternity that produces the multicultural composition of humanity.”

Pope Francis called for educators capable of resetting their teaching methods to form young people in an “ecological ethic.” He said education is a “dynamic reality,” which is “never a repetitive action.”

“Education is called with its pacifying force to form people capable of understanding that diversity does not hinder unity, rather they are indispensable for the richness of one’s own identity and that of everyone,” Francis said.

“As for the method, education is an inclusive movement. An inclusion that goes towards all the excluded: those for poverty, for vulnerability due to wars, famines and natural disasters, for social selectivity, for family and existential difficulties,” he said.

Educational intiativies for migrants and refugees should be put into action “without any distinction of sex, religion, or ethnicity,” the pope told the congregation.

Pope Francis said a “peace-making educational movement” is needed in light of the fractures between cultures masking a “fear of diversity and difference.”

The pope addressed the plenary assembly of the Congregation for Catholic Education. The congregation oversees 216,000 Catholic schools attended by over 60 million pupils, and 1,750 Catholic universities with over 11 million students.

Pope Francis has tasked the Congregation for Catholic Education with organizing his Global Educational Summit.

When the educational pact was first announced in September, “the most significant personalities of the political, cultural and religious world” were invited to attend.

The foundation of the pact is “openness to others,” according to the instrumentum laboris for the education summit.

The aim of the Global Education Pact is to “renew the passion for a more open and inclusive education, capable of patient listening, constructive dialogue, and mutual understanding,” Pope Francis told the congregation.

Source: CNA

Positions and concepts emitted in signed articles are the sole responsibility of their authors.

© Reproduction is authorized provided the source is acknowledged.