This document discusses the key principles of the Vatican II document Gravissimum Educationis, which addressed Catholic education. It established the universal right to education, the role of parents as primary educators, and the importance of religious knowledge and faith formation. It also addressed higher education, the tasks of schools, and the need for collaboration between Catholic institutions and partnership between church and state on issues of education. However, it noted ongoing challenges around secularization, globalization, and supporting Catholic educators that remain unfinished tasks.

1. Gravissimum Educationis
50 years on
Bob Davis
Professor of Religious and Cultural Education
Head of School of Education

2. Gravissimum Educationis:
Context
• The Vatican II Backdrop
• Pius XI's apostolic encyclical, Divini Illius
Magistri, Dec. 31, 1929
• The Rise of Progressive Education
• Church, Laity and State
• Justice, Peace and the Coming of Global Society

3. Gravissimum Educationis:
Key Principles
• The circumstances of our time:
democracy, participation and self-
fulfilment
• The RIGHT to an education: the
growth of popular education as a
signature of modernity
• Fundamental principles of Christian
education : education as the totality of
life, liberty and the pursuit of salvation
• Change

4. Gravissimum Educationis:
Universal Right to an Education
• Entitlement: Dignity and formation of the human
person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and the good
of society
• Education and the Social Sciences: accessing the
most advanced insights of the human sciences and
the effective pedagogies of learning and teaching
• The individual in secular society: freedom,
responsibility and the common good of the whole of
humanity
• The individual in the community of the faithful:
the formation of conscience and moral understanding

5. Gravissimum Educationis:
Belonging
• Belonging to the Mystical Body:
Christian Education, Religious Knowledge
and growth in faith
• Belonging to the Family: parents as
primary and principal educators
• Belonging to civil society: family,
subsidiarity and the common good of
mutual recognition and affirmation
• Belonging to Christ: catechetics of the
Gospel proclamation to a world in need

6. Gravissimum Educationis:
Schools
• The tasks of the school: intellectual
growth, right judgement, moral
development and the material flourishing
of society
• Parental rights and duties: school
choice, diversity and distributive justice
• Church, State and Citizenship: excellent
teaching as the key to a shared culture

7. Gravissimum Educationis:
Moral and Religious Education?
• The commitment to pluralism and the rights
of the Church: affirming difference in solidarity
• The ethos of the Catholic school: freedom,
charity and the good of the earthly city
• The Catholic Teacher: secular and religious
knowledge, pedagogical skill and the lifelong
formation in faith
• Multicultural Catholic Schools: service and
witness beyond the Church

8. Gravissimum Educationis:
Higher Education
• The Catholic College and University: liberty
of inquiry
• Faith and Science: the commitment to
investigation, discovery and the unity of truth
• Sacred Theology and Sacred Science: the
commitment to the religious and theological
literacy of all; the dialogue with the other
• Pastoral care: the foundation and work of the
Catholic Chaplaincy

9. Gravissimum Educationis:
Collaboration
• The coordination of Catholic institutions:
ensuring synergy and the concentration of resource
on greatest need
• Internal coherence: interdisciplinarity and the
nurture of the Catholic mind
• Partnership of Church and State: the support of
Catholic education as a pillar of the good society
• The covenant with teachers and academics:
affirming and supporting the work of the Catholic
teacher
• The service to the next generation: engaging
with and learning from the young

10. Gravissimum Educationis:
The unfinished tasks…
• Responding to the mass laicisation of popular education
• The radical secularisation of knowledge and culture
• The cosmopolitan family: gender, authority and sex
education
• Global change and non-Catholic participation in Catholic
institutions
• The deepening ambiguities of the Church-State contract
• The curricular vacuum and the reclamation of the Catholic
mind
• The confusion of Religious Education, Catechetics and
theological literacy
• Supporting educators?