Catholic Education and Intercultural Dialogue: Continuing the Conversation

As one of the most influential and widespread educational agencies in the world, the Catholic Church has a responsibility to ensure that its global network of schools, colleges, and universities, no matter the social, political, and cultural contexts in which they find themselves, offers challenging and life-enhancing educational experiences to all students. Given current scholarly and political interest in the juncture between globalization and education, it should come as no surprise that the Congregation for Catholic Education has recently turned its considerable resources to addressing the issues arising from this growing contemporary phenomenon.¹ The publication in 2013 of Educating to Intercultural Dialogue in Catholic Schools: Living in Harmony for a Civilization of Love is a significant moment in the history of the Holy See’s teaching on education in that the document proposes “intercultural dialogue” as an overarching aim of Catholic schooling.² For the purposes of the present article, the meaning of intercultural dialogue will be understood as referring principally to dialogue between people of different religious traditions.³

Educating to Intercultural Dialogue, published almost fifty years after the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Christian Education, Gravissimum Educationis,⁴ offers a seven point plan as a supportive template for intercultural approaches to education.⁵ While the title of the document asserts (or so it seems) that so-called intercultural dialogue leads to social harmony, it remains necessary to engage critically with the nuances of this powerful proposition. Only then can we begin to make sense of what seems to be a radical shift in the aims of Catholic education.

In recognition of this evolving context, the present article begins with some general observations on the nature of Catholic culture in education. Two principal arguments are then proposed. First, the development of processes for purposeful intercultural dialogue must be predicated on a mature understanding of one’s own faith tradition. Second, the authentic formation of Catholic teachers in their own religious tradition is essential for the success of the intercultural enterprise. Two keys to this formational process are then proposed: the importance of liturgical formation and an active love of the Church’s educational tradition.

Catholic Culture in Education

A systematic reading of Educating to Intercultural Dialogue makes it clear that the commitment to intercultural dialogue cannot be interpreted as a cipher for a weakening of Catholic identity. On the contrary, the Catholic school remains called to exemplify in its mission an authentic Catholic culture.⁶ How can this be done?

The Church must approach all forms of dialogue from a position of strength and confidence in its own worthy philosophical, theological, and educational traditions. A commitment to dialogue is not a position of relative weakness aimed simply at gathering some meagre crumbs from the unsympathetic table of secularism. Furthermore, it goes without saying that, given the plural context in which Catholic schools normally find themselves today, the tone of any debate on what is understood by Catholic culture and its relationship to education and evangelization requires forms of language and imagery that are positive and welcoming. The starting point is to see how the Catholic mind can illuminate the debate. This intellectual tradition is, as Muldoon rightly argued, “an intellectual tradition in service to the human family and as such it is motivated by love.”⁷ While there are competing visions of how best to define terms like “Catholic intellectual tradition,” agreement that it does indeed exist is a step forward.⁸ Three points naturally flow from this.

First, an authentic understanding of the implications of the term “Catholic culture” must move beyond a simplistic view of culture as something “out there” to which the Church has to respond. Catholic culture is better defined as a manifestation of embodied religion as it must flow from, and remain united to, a distinct Catholic worldview.⁹ It is fully bound up with the reality of the Incarnation and a Catholic sacramental imagination as shown in the many ways in which the members of the Church live their faith amidst the pots and pans of daily life.¹⁰ Hence, Catholic culture...