Bishop of Sale
In broadest terms, the Church today is experiencing a new stage of evangelisation as it lives its mission through a change of era (Directory for Catechesis, 2020). In this work, the risen Lord continues to make all things new (cf Rev 21:5).
Life today is complex, pervaded by profound change and we are called in the life of the Church to address the need for the spiritual, moral and pastoral renewal that has arisen (Directory for Catechesis, 2020).
Our schools, working closely with their parishes, can actively work to address these needs. In the 2022 Instruction of the Congregation for Catholic Education, The Identity of the Catholic School for a Culture of Dialogue, we are reminded that the Church undertakes its evangelising mission, among other activities, through Catholic schools. Over the centuries and decades this has taken different forms, yet the mission has remained the same.
This work continues in our primary and secondary schools today. In recent times, taking into account feedback from school leaders, teachers and other interested stakeholders, an important update has been made to our Diocesan Religious Education Curriculum To Live in Christ Jesus. This will ensure that the provision of Religious Education in our Diocese is able to develop the intellectual faculties of students, whilst also helping them form the ability to judge rightly.
It will also enable our schools to hand on the cultural legacy of previous generations, foster a sense of life-giving values in students, develop their knowledge of the Christian story, and prepare them for what life might bring. In enacting To Live in Christ Jesus in our schools, our leaders and teachers will demonstrate a responsiveness to the diversity of socio-cultural situations experienced by students today and a readiness to adopt teaching methods that will invite meaningful responses from students. In this, our schools must be places where each individual has a positive experience of social relationships as a precondition for becoming a person capable of building a society based on justice and solidarity.
Catholic schools should therefore be places of encounter, promoting the agreement of ideas with actions. It can be said that in our Catholic schools, in addition to the tools common to other schools, reason will enter into dialogue with faith, allowing school community members to grapple with and respond to the deepest questions of the human soul in a way not limited to considerations of physical reality alone. Questions of faith can and should be grappled with.
To Live in Christ Jesus fosters this approach and supports teachers in their engagement with students. An important consideration in this work then is the formation and preparation of teachers so that they can enact the curriculum in life-giving ways, demonstrating a depth of secular and religious knowledge, enabling them to engage with student questions and support them in their journeys of faith.
Here, To Live in Christ Jesus and its support resources, will be invaluable tools, equipping teachers with the knowledge and pedagogical skills that are in keeping with the needs of the contemporary world. In mandating this curriculum for use in all Diocese of Sale Catholic Education Ltd (DOSCEL) schools, I am grateful to all who have contributed in some way to the development and updating of To Live in Christ Jesus and I pray God’s blessing on all who will utilise it in their classrooms, schools, and parishes.
Director of Catholic Education - Diocese of Sale
Chief Executive Officer - Diocese of Sale Catholic Education Ltd.
It is with much pleasure that I present the updated revision to the Diocesan Religious Education curriculum, To Live in Christ Jesus.
This curriculum was first mandated for use in the Diocese of Sale in 2018 after a lengthy period of writing and auditing undertaken by Ms Debra Punton, Deputy Director, Catholic Identity, Leadership, Learning and Teaching, Mr Dom Ryan, Manager Catholic Identity and Religious Education, and the DOSCEL Catholic Identity and Religious Education team, collaborating with Religious Education Leaders and Principals from primary and secondary schools across the Diocese.
Our auditor, Reverend Dr Kevin Lenehan, and critical friend, Reverend Dr Brendan Reed, worked with us to ensure that the curriculum was an authentic and contemporary expression of Church teaching. Since 2018, many resources have been developed to assist in the ongoing implementation of the curriculum, and school leaders and teachers have been supported in engaging fully with it through a variety of professional learning opportunities. To ensure that the curriculum is continuing to meet the strategic intent of DOSCEL in the areas of Catholic identity and Religious Education, it was determined that a minor revision be undertaken, and an update of the curriculum provided.
I would like to thank members of the DOSCEL Secretariat Catholic Identity and Religious Education team for their work in undertaking this minor revision. I would also like to thank the school principals and leaders of Religious Education who contributed to this important work. In an address to teachers in Rome in May 2022, Pope Francis reminds us all that teachers in Catholic schools are on the front line in educating so as to move from a closed world to an open world; from a throwaway culture to a culture of care; from a culture of rejection to a culture of integration; from the pursuit of vested interests to the pursuit of the common good.
This pursuit of the common good must be at the heart of all we strive to achieve in schools in the Diocese of Sale. It is my hope that this updated revision of To Live in Christ Jesus will assist us all in this work. Pope Francis asks each of us to go forth with the joy of evangelising by educating and educating by evangelising, walking together with those we are educating. I would encourage each leader and teacher in our schools to continue in this wonderful endeavour.
In undertaking this work, the Church reminds us that we must continue to develop valid pastoral methods and develop a new language attuned to the reality of the plurality that exists in our schools and parishes, proposing the truth of Christ with an attitude of dialogue and friendship (Directory for Catechesis, 2020). As Director of Catholic Education in the Diocese of Sale, and Chief Executive Officer Diocese of Sale Catholic Education Ltd, I commend to you this updated revision of To Live in Christ Jesus to be used in all DOSCEL schools.