This week marked World Catholic Education Week. As part of the events, staff at Light of Christ School Division gathered Tuesday for Faith Development Day.
During that day, staff heard from Sister Clare Fitzgerald, a prominent Catholic speaker who has lectured and presented on Catholic education around the world. The native Bostonian holds four doctorates – three of them honorary.
Her message to those at JPII on Tuesday morning was wide-ranging. She pointed to the importance of Catholic education.
“We as Catholic educators educate our students, whether it be maths, and sciences, through the lenses of our Catholicism and our Catholic faith.”
Fitzgerald also pointed to the words of a German theologian who had said “we are summoned by the events of our time to perform the tasks that God has assigned for our time.”
Her main theme focused on “Catholic education in the age of Francis – How do we navigate in winds blowing from the Southern Hemisphere.”
Fitzgerald was referring to Pope Francis, a Jesuit from Argentina, and the implications of his historic ascension to the papacy.
“Two thousand and some years, we are led by Europeans in the papacy. And all of a sudden, in our time … we suddenly get somebody from another hemisphere, but not from the United States and not Canada,” said Fitzgerald.
“How does the Vatican, how does the Catholic church, how do we as Catholic educators navigate when you’ve got somebody in the Papacy who comes for the first time in our history of our Church, not from Europe but from the Southern hemisphere,” she said.
“That’s what our situation is right now. He has put us in an absolutely new direction of Catholicism.”
More events were scheduled for later on in the week. On Thursday, a division-wide mass was scheduled at the Civic Centre beginning at 10:30 a.m., celebrated by Bishop Albert Thevenot. Scheduled for the afternoon, CatChat was to entertain elementary students at the Civic Centre, while Pure Witness was to entertain high school students with a concert and rally at JPII in the gymnasium.
