At the heart of Catholic education is our mission to share our faith, and form within our staff and students, a deep understanding of Catholic teaching, and to foster an active and committed practice of worship, service and outreach.

As the Congregation for Catholic Education highlighted, the ecclesial nature of the Catholic school "is written in the very heart of its identity as a teaching institution... and by reason of its educational activity, "in which faith, culture and life are brought into harmony". 

With the changing nature of society and the role of the church in secular life, the mission of Catholic schools is more important than ever to our work of educating children and young people. 

The release, last Sunday, of the six discernment papers for the Fifth Plenary Council of Australia (see story below), presents an opportunity for Catholic schools to engage with this discussion and the questions posed by the discernment and writing groups.

For instance, the first discernment paper on how God is calling the church to be missionary and evangelising, highlights the fact that our schools are often the most regular places of encounter of the young and their parents with the faith.

It offers a number of proposals for change, and to strengthen the way Catholic education serves its mission, including:

• consideration of further opportunities for enhancing the preferential option for the poor
• greater collaboration between state and territory jurisdictions and dioceses to ensure mission and evangelisation remain a constant focus in Catholic schools
• empowering the National Catholic Education Committee's Faith Formation and Religious Education Standing Committee to provide leadership formation for senior school and system leaders nationally and supported to develop strategies for the faith formation of students and families
• responding to the needs of Catholic children in public schools (particularly secondary schools) and provide adequate specialist resources, such as paid personnel

As the paper notes, "Catholic schools have been successful in many ways, but we need to continue to review the effectiveness of the culture of our Catholic schools and the courses that they offer, especially in religious education, even as we seek to engage the parents of those who attend these schools".

I invite you to engage with the discernment papers within your local communities, as we look towards the Plenary Assemblies. 

Jacinta Collins 
Executive director