A truly democratic society, committed to the dignity of the human person, acknowledges, promotes and protects the quest of every person for a spiritual and religious experience.

Jesus is the good news. He is the reason for the season.

But there is more. God cannot come to anyone except through someone. That’s why we can only meet him in and through love for someone else. This God-community is the Church.

But the Church itself is just a first step in a long journey. The point of arrival is not just a God-community. It is a God-humanity, in which God will be “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28) when “all will be one, as you and me, Father, we are one…” (Jn 17:21).

This is the mission entrusted to the Church. This is the very nature and purpose of all it does: to spread the Good News that, in Jesus, all people can have the fullness of life.

Church schools share in this core identity and mission. No, they are not just employment opportunities. They are not just efficient cogs in a country’s economic system. They are not indoctrination centres or production lines to inflate the ranks of the faithful. They are not hotbeds for some conservative ideology seeking to survive in our culture.

They are a ministry (service) the Church offers to parents who wish their children to experience Jesus as the way, the truth and the life. They are not simply schools ‘owned’ or ‘run’ by the Church. They are part and parcel of the Church’s core spiritual mission. They are faith schools.

Hence they are a concrete expression of the fundamental human right of freedom of religion. A truly democratic society, committed to the dignity of the human person, acknowledges, promotes and protects this quest of every person for a spiritual and religious experience. It is our seeking of higher aspirations that makes us human.

The issue is not so much whether Church schools should be run by people who outwardly conform to some behaviour patterns (such as baptism or an approved marital or sexual status) which entitles them to the privileges or advantages attached to a Church institution.

The real issue is whether Church schools (like all other ministries of the Church) can find people who are so enchanted by and in love with the person of Christ, that they strive with all their beings to share him as the best news a child can receive.

Church schools... are faith schools

The apostles gave up their lives to build his Church because they believed that in Christ the fullness of humanity can be found. And it is because holy men and women were passionately in love with Christ and his Gospel that they founded the Church schools we have today to give some real humanity to poor, destitute children neglected by a society that was still too barbaric to invest in education.

What the Church is doing now regarding its schools is inviting them to rediscover their true identity and mission. It is calling for an honest refocusing on the strengths and weaknesses that help or hinder that mission. In this context it is calling for more people who are in love with Jesus and with his Gospel, to share the Church’s mission and help children and their families experience the joy of this good news.

Wanted are people who believe that, in Christ, life is beautiful. Wanted are people who believe that it is in giving that one receives and in dying to self that one finds real life. Wanted are people who are more dedicated to protect and strengthen the weak ones than to exploit them.

This is Church schools’ identity and mission. Everyone is welcome to join and be part of this team. The Church is not interested in accepting the ‘perfect’. They don’t exist. But the Church does welcome all those of good will, however imperfect, who are seriously and sincerely striving to live the beauty of the Gospel and follow Christ generously and unconditionally. He has embraced our weakness so that no one stops believing in a love that can survive the worst pain of our failures.

What better news can we give to so many beautiful yet broken children who come to Church schools?

Should the Church be prevented from entrusting this mission to those who really believe in it and are striving to live it freely as their life-choice?

pchetcuti@gmail.com

Fr Paul Chetcuti is a Jesuit and co­ordinates the Spiritual Development Unit of the Church Secretariat of Catholic Education.