Catholic Education is important for the life of the church*

By Renee Smith
rsmith.camsel@rcpos.org

Without finding a way to transmit the faith to the next generation Catholic schools risk becoming mausoleums says Archbishop Jason Gordon. He was speaking on Friday, November 9 to a gathering of Catholic educators at the 66^th Annual Catholic Teachers Association Convention.

He said in order to address the challenge of the transmission of faith, “we have to get to the Catholic family, parish and schools”.

“It is not business as usual…all three institutions must start working together to be able to achieve this objective if we want to instil the Catholic ethos.”

Noting there are many instances where Catholic students go through at least 12 years in a Catholic institution and leave with little to no knowledge of their faith, Archbishop Gordon asked the question “who has failed whom?”.

To this he responded, “If teachers and parents don’t have a comfort in their faith, they can’t pass on that faith and if catechists are too comfortable in a faith which is archaic, it will not be passed on effectively to the millennials.”

Speaking on the child today, Archbishop Gordon said many lack discipline, values and respect for others. To combat this, boundaries must be established by those put in charge of the children.

“We have to take back our schools; they don’t belong to the government or to the children. We have to want our schools to be a different kind of school that we see around us. We have to band together and decide we are not accepting second-rate discipline and values in our schools anymore,” he remarked.

The convention was held at the St Benedict’s RC Church, La Romaine. The day included Holy Mass celebrated by the Archbishop, display booths, a healing session and greetings from the Ministry of Education, CEBM, TTUTA, and La Romaine parish priest, Msgr Christian Pereira.