Pope Leo XIV on Education
Drawing New Maps of Hope
In 2025 Pope Leo published a pastoral letter on Catholic Education reminding us of our fundamental call to educate holistically, making faith central to our values and way of doing and being. He also reminds us of the privilege of education and the responsibility of educators to impact the world’s future – how we want to be in the world. Within it, you will find a manifesto of hope that confronts reality and navigates a path that opens hearts and minds.
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Without comment, here are a few quotes that capture the essence of Pope Leo’s message.
Christian education resembles a choreography…to form the “whole” person means avoiding compartmentalization. When it is true, faith is not an added “subject,” but a breath that oxygenates every other subject.” (6.2)
Christian education is a collective endeavour: no one educates alone. The educational community is a “we” where teachers, students, families, administrative and service staff, pastors and civil society converge to generate life [7]. This “we” prevents water from stagnating in the swamp of “it has always been done this way” and forces it to flow, to nourish, to irrigate. The foundation remains the same: the person, the image of god, capable of truth and relationship.” (3.1)
Constellations reflect their own light in an infinite universe. As in a kaleidoscope, their colours intermingle, creating further chromatic variations. This is what happens in catholic educational institutions, which are open to meeting and listening to civil society, political and administrative authorities, as well as representatives of the productive sectors and professional categories. (8.3)
Our attitude towards technology can never be hostile, because “technological progress is part of god’s plan for creation.” But it requires discernment in didactic planning, evaluation, platforms, data protection, and equitable access. In any case, no algorithm can substitute what makes education human: poetry, irony, love, art, imagination, the joy of discovery and even learning from mistakes as an opportunity for growth (9.2)
Where access to education remains a privilege, the church must push to open doors and invent new paths, because “losing the poor” is equivalent to losing the school itself. (10.4) I ask educational communities: disarm words, raise your eyes, and safeguard the heart. Disarm words, because education does not advance with polemics, but with meekness that knows how to listen. Raise your eyes. As god said to abraham, “look toward heaven, and number the stars” (gen 15:5): know how to ask yourselves where you are going, and why. Safeguard the heart: relationships come before opinions, people before programs. Do not waste time and opportunities. (11.2)
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