Pope Francis: It is essential that education be based on love

Pope Francis today received the participants of the XI National Congress of the Educational Commitment Movement of the Italian Catholic Action, to whom he indicated that “it is essential that education is based, in its method and its purposes, in love.”

At the beginning of his speech, delivered from the Apostolic Palace of the Vatican, the Holy Father highlighted the challenge of educating both on a human and Christian level.

Educating, for the Pontiff, means above all “rediscovering and valuing the centrality of the person in a relational context where the dignity of human life finds fulfillment and adequate space to grow.”

The Holy Father also referred to the challenge that Christian education especially faces, in the midst of the “secularization process.” According to the Pontiff, this “crosses unexplored terrain, marked by anthropological and cultural changes, to which we continue to seek answers in the light of the Word of God.”

However, he highlighted the positive experiences “that many families, schools, parish communities, associations and pedagogy itself transmit to us.”

“Big-hearted educators”

Later, he encouraged those present to become “big-hearted educators, in the labyrinths of complexity” that affects human relationships.

“For the good of the children, young people and adults who live next to you, you are called to broaden your hearts, to not be afraid to propose high ideals, without becoming discouraged in the face of difficulties,” he added.

He also urged “to build and strengthen fruitful relationships with the various actors in the educational process: families, teachers, social leaders, sports animators and coaches, catechists, priests, men and women religious, without neglecting collaboration with public institutions.”

He also advocated for an education “that places the person, his inalienable value and his original dignity at the center, so that it is always and in all cases considered the end and never reduced to a means, for any reason.”

He also encouraged the movement to continue working so that education allows the person to return “on himself, to cultivate interiority, transcendence, spirituality, as indispensable elements for the integral development of the human person, in all its dimensions: existential, spiritual, emotional, cultural, social, political.”

At the end of his speech, the Holy Father asked them – in view of the next Jubilee – to pay special attention to children, adolescents and young people: “We must look at them with trust, with empathy, I would like to say with the look and heart of Jesus. ”.

“They are the present and the future of the world and the Church. It is up to us to accompany them, support them, encourage them and, with our testimony, show them the good path that leads to all being brothers,” he expressed.

“Through educational processes we express our love for others, for those who are close or have been entrusted to us; and, at the same time, it is essential that education be based, in its method and its goals, in love. Without love you cannot educate,” Pope Francis finally said.