Together to look beyond

Rome (Italy). “Rebuilding the Global Educational Pact” is the theme of the global event, held at the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome and live streaming on YouTube Vatican Media, on 15 October 2020. “We need a Global Educational Pact that educates in solidarity and a new humanism”. Pope Francis relaunches the theme of education, proposing to all people of good will adhesion the Global Pact on Education, a pact to generate change on a global scale, so that education may be a creator of fraternity, peace, and justice.

The event was moderated by Alessandro Gisotti, Deputy Editorial Director of the Dicastery for Communication. Presentations were made by the Rectors of the Lateran University, Professor Vincenzo Buonomo, and of the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, Professor Franco Anelli; the sociologist Silvia Cataldi, Professor at the University “La Sapienza” of Rome; the Director General of Unesco, Audrey Azoulay; the heads of the Congregation for Catholic Education, Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi and Archbishop Angelo Vincenzo Zani .

The Pope’s video message was also commented by young students, the first interlocutors of the Holy Father’s Message.

Video-Evento GlobalCompactonEducation

“We believe that education is one of the most effective ways to humanize the world and history. Education is above all a question of love and responsibility that is transmitted over time from generation to generation. Education, therefore, is proposed as the natural antidote to an individualistic culture, which at times degenerates into a true cult of the ego and the primacy of indifference. Our future cannot be the division, the impoverishment of the faculties of thought and imagination, of listening, dialogue, and mutual understanding. Our future cannot be this. Today we need a renewed season of educational commitment, involving all the components of society.”

Integral text of the Pope’s video message 

Faced with a “change of epoch”, it is necessary to invest in education, through the formation of consciences that are mature, free, responsible, attentive to others, open to dialogue, capable of facing the challenges of the present time with courage and creativity. “This pact can work if we, as educators, as teachers but also as parents, return to the true meaning of culture, to that ‘cultivate’ which is a verb that implies taking time and taking care.”

Education is a matter of the heart (D. Bosco)

Attention to the person involves trust in the potential of the subjects; a basic trust aimed at recognizing in each person a capacity to grow, to strive for the truth, the good, the beautiful; a conscious trust in the resources, the efforts, and the frailties of every human being.

Good Christians and honest citizens (Preventive System)

We need an education that applies the Educational Pact in daily life, starting from the real problems of young people. Young people are not the future but the present!

Forming active and responsible citizens is the mission of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians in the world: to build laboratories of fraternal relationships, to network, to weave bonds with the territory, and to promote the civilization of love.

the Global Educational Pact

To make a ‘pact’ it is necessary to meet, accept, and identify common values and objectives, on which to work together. We need to listen to the voices of children, young people, and little ones; values and knowledge must be transmitted; it is necessary to build a future of peace and to defend the dignity of every person.

It is an appeal for every Educating Community, for every person of good will, because everyone, individuals and institutions, in their own specific ways, contribute to the quality of the environments and contexts within which the formation of people takes place.

This is the main way to educate, to generate in people, especially in the young, trust in life and in others, helping to build humanity, solidarity, and peace.