Introducing our CPAL Word of the Month for November. On this occasion, the reflection focuses on the commitment assumed, as the Apostolic Body, for an education for all.
Because we are all committed to education
The Global Education Pact (PEG) that Pope Francis has proposed is an invitation and a particular occasion for all of us to assume our role as educators. No social actor, regardless of the type of activity to which it is dedicated, is excluded in this task. The Pope is clear about it and the proposal has been launched for everyone.
Whether we dedicate ourselves to working with children, youth or adults, accompanying an indigenous community or on the radio, in a spirituality center or in the publication of a magazine; whether we exercise our social responsibility in sports training or artistic promotion, in community organization, in socio-political reflection, in strictly pastoral and sacramental work or in family formation, in technical training or in infant, secondary or superior, we are all educators.
To educate is, literally, “to help people to bring out the best in themselves” (from the lat. educere); and in that challenge we all find ourselves. Allowing and helping each one of the people -without any exception- actually have the opportunity and not only the ownership or the capacity to develop and manifest their singular being, is to collaborate in the marvelous work of creation: to educate.
The future of the humanization of the planet goes through education: there is no other better antidote against violence and war, the exclusion and humiliation of thousands, the dehumanization and degradation of creation, the inequality and injustice that afflicts the world. As long as there is only one person operationally prevented from developing and manifesting the best of himself, all the educational effort of the rest of humanity will be justified. To be ignorant of that personal and social responsibility, or to renounce it, leaving it in the hands of a few (the school and its actors) is to renounce one’s own humanity.
The Society of Jesus has stood out throughout its history for its role in the field of education; not only for the foundation of colleges and universities, but for his creativity in the ability to propose “mode and order” when exercising the educational vocation. The ratio studiorum marked an era of humanity and left its mark for many years, not only in what was done pedagogically (in various schools) but in educational action in general. It is impressive to see how the most typical intuitions of Saint Ignatius and the Jesuits of the first generations have been taken up multiple times, and they do not stop being present and current in the triad: experience, reflection, action (see, judge, act), which it continues to be the basis of the contemporary educational paradigm under various forms and names. This educational action has been exercised by the apostolic body of the Society of Jesus not only in formal schools but in the most diverse apostolic fields: among native peoples, in the development of the arts, in the tasks of communication or spirituality , social service, popular training, adult training, non-formal education, etc.
Last week, the international commission in charge of reflecting on the renewal of the CPAL Common Educational Project (PEC) met, within the framework of carrying out an interesting weekly that developed three important challenges: education and citizenship, educational innovation and human formation. integral.
The commission has already carried out an important phase of the study and reflection commissioned by the PAC.2, which leads us to the conclusion that: having been the PEC a pioneering instrument for the development of the philosophy and pedagogical and educational proposal of the CPAL , and recognizing that this text deserves a revamp in certain concepts and proposals, it continues to be an important referential framework that we do not want to ignore in its unique value. For this reason we thank God, its authors and all those who during the past 17 years have contributed so that its orientations produced so much fruit. In some way -not exclusively- its orientations have been inspiring and motivating educational work, and have been collected, developed and carried forward -updated, in many cases- in multiple regional, provincial and institutional documents; They have even been included in documents of an international nature by the General Curia.
Now then, given that educating is not simply schooling but is a task that is the responsibility of all social actors, within the framework of the Global Educational Pact and the Common Apostolic Project (PAC2) we want, together with the entire apostolic body of the Society of Jesus in the CPAL, and looking at the context of our Latin American reality with its lights and shadows, to continue our work having as an object of reflection the educational action of the entire apostolic body of the Society of Jesus in Latin America and the Caribbean , and continue to carry out the task of the commission until we come to propose some fundamental common guidelines that, thanks to collaboration and networking, allow us to be more assertive in the educational service that we develop.
For this reason, we are not going to update or revamp the PEC, but rather to recognize and honor its value and its drive to be inspired by it and what it has generated, to try to develop a new proposal that helps to tune our multiple educational action from the place of apostolic insertion in which each member of the apostolic body is. We are looking, then, for a multitext (multiple: in its forms, in its possibilities, in its interlocutors, etc.) that helps us to inflame in an Ignatian way all the (apostolic) educational actions that we carry out in the diversity of services that we provide.
Join us in this task because, since we all educate, your participation is essential!
P.S. At the same time that we thank God for this marvelous task, we want to THANK especially the existence of the CPAL for 23 years, which celebrated its anniversary on November 27. To all and all congratulations!
Roberto Jaramillo, S.J.
CPAL PRESIDENT
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1. Silvia Smelkes, Mariangela Riserio, Elsa Lazaroni, María Leonor Romero, Cristóbal Madero, Esteban Ocampo, Luis Guillermo Guerrero, Luiz Fernando Klein, Raimundo Barros, with the company of Nelson Otaya, Juan Felipe Carrillo, Roberto Jaramillo and other collaborators (as) more.
2. It is possible to see the conferences and discussion of the tables at the following internet link: https://bit.ly/SeminarioPEC
3. Very particularly to Fr. Gerardo Remolina Vargas, Fr. Luiz Fernando Klein and Fr. Jesús Montero Tirado.
CPAL Communications Office