Faced with an educational crisis, “schools must ask themselves about the mission they are called to undertake in the modern social environment,” the Pope said. Catholic schools, “though open to everyone and respecting the identity of each, cannot but present their own educational, human and Christian perspective,” the Pontiff explained.
The modern context of global society presents Catholic institutions with a “coming together of religions and cultures in the joint search for truth”. This means, "not excluding anyone in the name of their cultural or religious background,” and on the other hand, “not stopping at the mere recognition” of this cultural or religious difference, Benedict XVI reflected.
The Pope also provided the educators with specific recommendations for reform of the ecclesiastical study of philosophy and theology. In the field of philosophy, he asked that changes be made so that the “metaphysical and wisdom-related dimensions of philosophy” are highlighted. “The ecclesiastical disciplines”, he added, “especially theology, are today subjected to new interrogations in a world tempted, on the one hand, by a rationalism which follows a false idea of freedom unfettered by any religious references and, on the other, by various forms of fundamentalism which, with their incitement to violence and fanaticism, falsify the true essence of religion.”