Meeting with P4 Teacher – Catechists 

Diocesan Offices
Paisley 30^th October 2008 

1. I have often described Catholic teachers as the principal co-workers with the priest within our parish communities. This description, which comes from my own experience as a parish priest, is true especially of those teachers who in any given year who are responsible for the preparation of the children for the sacraments.
   
   
2. In the new guidelines I published at the beginning of school session 2008-09 entitled Sacraments for Children - Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Practical Principles, I note that the parents above all, the parish and the Catholic school all have responsibility for the preparation of the children for the sacraments. Of the Catholic primary school I say “The Catholic primary school has the principal role in the formal catechesis and preparation of candidates.” You are the ones who will deliver what I refer to as the formal catechesis and preparation. Your role is most important and most appreciated. Here, in religious education understood as catechesis and in the preparation of the children for the sacraments, is where teaching as profession and teaching as vocation most perfectly overlap.
   
   
3. The immediate aim of this catechesis is to prepare the children for First Confession and First Holy Communion. But the longer term aim to help them to understand that the sacraments should be part of the lives for evermore after that. You could say that evangelisation and catechesis for Catholic life is 25% teaching and learning, and 75% witness. The example and witness of the significant adults in their lives is crucial for children. You are a very important significant adult in their lives. Your sincere witness about the place of the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation and of the Mass in your lives will be worth than your most creative lesson on these matters.
   
   
4. Your Primary 4 class and the fact that you are preparing them for the sacraments is actually a grace for you. God is calling you and inviting you, the Church is calling you and inviting you, I am calling you and inviting you to deepen your own faith in Christ and to deepen your knowledge and practice of the Sacrament of Reconciliation and of the Eucharist during this teaching session.
   
   
5. As you will know, I took the decision to reserve the Sacrament of Confirmation for children until Primary 7. One of the reasons I did this was to take the pressure off P4 teachers so that you could spend more time on the Sacrament of Penance and on First Holy Communion, and so that the children would receive these sacraments with a greater awareness. I hope that you will be able to use that extra time to the best advantage.
   
   
6. My guidelines Sacraments for Baptised Children – Doctrinal, Pastoral and Practical Principles is not a syllabus or a curriculum. As the bishop, it is my responsibility to guide catechists and teachers as to what candidates for the sacraments should know. I have written these principles principally for you, the teachers, and for other adult catechists so that you have a reliable doctrinal and linguistic framework for your teaching, and so that you can help the children to know what they should know in the best manner appropriate to children.  I also refer you to the Catechism of the Catholic Church and to the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. These are not resources like any other resources. These are the sure foundations for all catechesis and teaching about the faith. It would good for every Catholic teacher, and especially for those who are preparing children for the sacraments, to be familiar with the Catechism and/or the Compendium, and have no fears about accessing it to help you prepare lessons.
   
   
7. So I thank you for coming to this meeting. I was most keen to meet you, to encourage you, and to pray with you. I know you will do a superb job of preparing the children in your charge for the sacraments. I can never tire of thanking you for the sacred task that you do in the name of the Church. May your work in preparing children for the sacraments bring you great joy! May you grow in union with God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I gladly bless and dedicate you now as teacher-catechists for the work of preparing the children of our Catholic schools to receive the Sacraments of First Confession and First Holy Communion in 2009.
   

+Philip Tartaglia

Bishop of Paisley

Meeting with Newly Qualified and Probationer Teachers 

Diocesan Offices

Monday 27^th October 2008

1.    First of all, I want to welcome you to this encounter and thank you for coming here today. I was keen to meet you. I want to congratulate you on qualifying as a teacher. The Church knows well that teaching is a most noble calling, essential to the good of young people in particular and of society as a whole. It is perfectly right and fitting that teachers should be looked upon with respect in our communities. I hope you will be happy, fulfilled and successful in the teaching profession.

2.    You are here today because you are newly-qualified/probationer teachers with posts in Catholic schools within the Diocese of Paisley. The majority of you are yourselves Catholic, although I appreciate that some of you may not be.  

3.    However, you are all in Catholic education, at least for the moment. We have all listened to a passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. This short extract is a classic New Testament moment, which shows that faith comes from hearing the message, which itself depends on preaching, which in turn is predicated upon someone being sent to preach. The Catholic Church is not embarrassed to invite Catholic teachers and teachers who work in Catholic schools to see themselves as people sent by God to our young people to help them grow to maturity in Jesus Christ.

4.    For that reason, I encourage you to see teaching not just as a profession but as a vocation, that is to say, God’s purpose for you. This is the way God calls you to friendship with him, the way God calls you to holiness. Of course, teaching is a profession in every respect. As a profession others will guide you. As a bishop, I just want to emphasise for you this deeper aspect of your profession, especially if you are a Christian and a Catholic, that for as long as are a teacher, this is God’s call to you in Jesus Christ, this is your way to friendship with God and to holiness of life. This is the way you follow Jesus Christ.

5.    It is against that background of the personal call and vocation of the Catholic teacher within the mission of the Church that the mission of the Catholic school has developed, a mission to educate the whole person providing high quality education and pastoral care through the promotion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as understood and transmitted by the Catholic Church and through service to the common good.

6.    St. Paul says: “If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” For Catholics and Christians, the vocation of the teachers has implications. We need to know and be convinced of our faith with our minds and give assent to it in our hearts. Catholic teachers should be practising Catholics whose lives are at one with their faith. Catholic teachers need to be formed in their faith. For those of you who are Catholic, please don’t be simply be Catholics working in Catholic schools, but be Catholic teachers.

7.    For those of you who are not Catholic or who are not people of religious faith, I want to say a word to you. Often teachers in Catholic schools who are not Catholic are very careful about respecting the Catholic mission of the school and indeed, many share the core convictions of that mission about the integral formation of the human persons through the spiritual and moral values which are transmitted in the message of Jesus Christ and of the Catholic Church. There is a charter for Catholic Schools in Scotland which all teachers, including non-Catholic teachers, are asked to subscribe to and do subscribe to. I ask you to make your contribution to Catholic schools as best you can and I hope that your experience of Catholic schools will be life-enhancing for you, maybe even life-changing, and I hope that it brings you closer to divine mystery to which all human beings are attracted and which we believe to have been shown forth in Jesus Christ.

8.    In a word, really, I am very much a supporter of Catholic schools. As part of the public provision of education in Scotland, I believe they do not just benefit the Catholic community but the whole of our society. I want Catholic schools to be as good as they can be both in terms of an integral formation of our young people and in terms of a witness and advocacy of the person and message of Jesus Christ.

9.    I am very much a supporter too of Catholic teachers and of all who work in Catholic schools in whatever capacity. I want you to be fulfilled professionally. I want you to feel part of the mission of the Church working for Jesus Christ in service of our brothers and sisters. In the reading we heard, St. Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news.” You are those messengers of Good News to our children and young people. I want your faith to grow and your knowledge of Jesus Christ to deepen and develop. I want you to live and teach with faith and love, and become those messengers of good news.

1. The Doctrinal Note is devoted principally to an exposition of the Catholic Church's understanding of the Christian mission of evangelization, which is to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ; the word "Gospel" translates "evangelion" in the Greek New Testament. "Jesus Christ was sent by the Father to proclaim the Gospel, calling all people to conversion and faith. ‘Go out into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature' (Mk 16,15)." [n. 1]

2. The Doctrinal Note cites Pope John Paul II's Encyclical Letter "The Mission of the Redeemer" in recalling that "‘Every person has the right to hear the Good News [Gospel] of the God who reveals and gives himself in Christ, so that each one can live out in its fullness his or her proper calling.' This right implies the corresponding duty to evangelize." [n. 2]

3. Today there is "a growing confusion" about the Church's missionary mandate. Some think "that any attempt to convince others on religious matters is a limitation of their freedom," suggesting that it is enough to invite people "to act according to their consciences", or to "become more human or more faithful to their own religion", or "to build communities which strive for justice, freedom, peace and solidarity", without aiming at their conversion to Christ and to the Catholic faith.

Others have argued that conversion to Christ should not be promoted because it is possible for people to be saved without explicit faith in Christ or formal incorporation in the Church. Because "of these problems, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has judged it necessary to public the present Note." [n. 3]

4. While some forms of agnosticism and relativism deny the human capacity for truth, in fact human freedom cannot be separated from its reference to truth. Human beings are given intellect and will by God that they might come to know and love what is true and good. The ultimate fulfillment of the vocation of the human person is found in accepting the revelation of God in Christ as proclaimed by the Church.

5. This search for truth cannot be accomplished entirely on one's own, but inevitably involves help from others and trust in knowledge that one receives from others. Thus, teaching and entering into dialogue to lead someone in freedom to know and to love Christ is not inappropriate encroachment on human freedom, "but rather a legitimate endeavor and a service capable of making human relationships more fruitful." [n. 5]

6. The communication of truths so that they might be accepted by others is also in harmony with the natural human desire to have others share in one's own goods, which for Catholics includes the gift of faith in Jesus Christ. Members of the Church naturally desire to share with others the faith that has been freely given to them.

7. Through evangelization, cultures are positively affected by the truth of the Gospel. Likewise, through evangelization, members of the Catholic Church open themselves to receiving the gifts of other traditions and cultures, for "Every encounter with another person or culture is capable of revealing potentialities of the Gospel which hitherto may not have been fully explicit and which will enrich the life of Christians and the Church." [n. 6]

8. Any approach to dialogue such as coercion or improper enticement that fails to respect the dignity and religious freedom of the partners in that dialogue has no place in Christian evangelization.

9. "Since the day of Pentecost ... the Gospel, in the power of the Holy Spirit, is proclaimed to all people so that they might believe and become disciples of Christ and members of his Church." "Conversion" is a "change in thinking and of acting," expressing our new life in Christ; it is an ongoing dimension of Christian life.

10. For Christian evangelization, "the incorporation of new members into the Church is not the expansion of a power-group, but rather entrance into the network of friendship with Christ which connects heaven and earth, different continents and ages." In this sense, then, "the Church is the bearer of the presence of God and thus the instrument of the true humanization of man and the world." (n. 9)

11. The Doctrinal Note cites the Second Vatican Council's "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World" (Gaudium et Spes) to say that respect for religious freedom and its promotion "must not in any way make us indifferent towards truth and goodness. Indeed, love impels the followers of Christ to proclaim to all the truth which saves." [n.10] This mission of love must be accomplished by both proclamation of the word and witness of life. "Above all, the witness of holiness is necessary, if the light of truth is to reach all human beings. If the word is contradicted by behavior, its acceptance will be difficult." On the other hand, citing Pope Paul VI's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii nuntiandi, the Note says that "even the finest witness will prove ineffective in the long run, if it is not explained, justified... and made explicit by a clear und unequivocal proclamation of the Lord Jesus." [n. 11]

12. The CDF document points out the important role of ecumenism in the Church's mission of evangelization. Christian divisions can seriously compromise the credibility of the Church's evangelizing mission. The more ecumenism brings about greater unity among Christians, the more effective evangelization will be.

13. When Catholic evangelization takes place in a country where other Christians live, Catholics must take care to carry out their mission with "both true respect for the tradition and spiritual riches of such countries as well as a sincere spirit of cooperation." Evangelization proceeds by dialogue, not proselytism. With non-Catholic Christians, Catholics must enter into a respectful dialogue of charity and truth, a dialogue which is not only an exchange of ideals, but also of gifts, in order that the fullness of the means of salvation can be offered to one's partners in dialogue. In this way, they are led to an ever deeper conversion to Christ.

"In this connection, it needs also to be recalled that if a non-Catholic Christian, for reasons of conscience and having been convinced of Catholic truth, asks to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church, this is to be respected as the work of the Holy Spirit and as an expression of freedom of conscience and of religion. In such a case, it would not be question of proselytism in the negative sense that has been attributed to this term." [n. 12]

14. The Doctrinal Note recalls that the missionary mandate belongs to the very nature of the Church. In this regard it cites Pope Benedict XVI: "The proclamation of and witness to the Gospel are the first service that Christians can render to every person and the entire human race, called as they are to communicate to all God's love, which was fully manifested in Jesus Christ, the one Redeemer of the world." Its concluding sentence contains a quotation from Pope Benedict's first Encyclical Letter "Deus caritas est": "The love which comes from God unites us to him and ‘makes us a we which transcends our divisions and makes us one, until in the end God is all in all (1 Cor 15:28)'."