The new dialogue about Catholic Church schools and the issue of students from other religions attending them reminds me of very important advice and food for thought offered by Pope Francis in his address to participants in the plenary session of the Congregation for Catholic Education (for Educational Institutions) on February 13, 2014:  “Catholic schools and universities are attended by many non-Christian students as well as non-believers. Catholic educational institutions offer everyone an education aimed at the integral development of the person that responds to right of all people to have access to knowledge and understanding.

“But they are equally called to offer to all the Christian message – respecting fully the freedom of all and the proper methods of each specific scholastic environment – namely that Jesus Christ is the meaning of life, of the cosmos and of history.”