Rome, Italy, Feb 22, 2010 / 21:13 pm
During Mass at a seminar on education held in Rome last week, the secretary general of the Italian Bishops' Conference, Bishop Mariano Crociata, defined education as “training in the capacity to judge and choose.”
In his homily, Bishop Crociata explained that this issue touches upon “an important lesson that is usually forgotten, if not eradicated or left aside. He noted that it is generally understood that a person is educated by following a paradigm of autonomy and spontaneity” while being “deprived of judgment and guidance.”
He stressed that, “Educating means training in the capacity to judge and choose” explaining that maturity or “social or professional fulfillment” always “entails fidelity, fatigue, hard and burdensome work, and the capacity to sacrifice oneself.”
Catholics “are called to recognize and fully live out our Christian hope” which helps us to “know how to choose between good and evil.” The bishop added that Catholics also must “follow Christ in the way of the Cross without fear, as the complete fulfillment of our humanity, and be proud to proclaim it as the model for human maturity and for all authentic work in education.”