“In the educational forum, the diakonia (service) of truth takes on a heightened significance in societies where secularist ideology drives a wedge between truth and faith.” This type of society dismisses any argument that is metaphysical, that is to say, not based on material evidence, he said.
This “relativistic horizon” leads to the situation where “the goals of education are inevitably curtailed.” Without any reference to transcendent truth, a slow “lowering of standards occurs,” the Pope explains. “We observe today a timidity in the face of the category of the good and an aimless pursuit of novelty parading as the realization of freedom. We witness an assumption that every experience is of equal worth and a reluctance to admit imperfection and mistakes. And particularly disturbing, is the reduction of the precious and delicate area of education in sexuality to management of 'risk', bereft of any reference to the beauty of conjugal love.”
Faced with this situation, the Pontiff posed the question: “How might Christian educators respond? These harmful developments point to the particular urgency of what we might call "intellectual charity".
Being intellectually charitable means guiding “the young towards the deep satisfaction of exercising freedom in relation to truth, and it strives to articulate the relationship between faith and all aspects of family and civic life. Once their passion for the fullness and unity of truth has been awakened, young people will surely relish the discovery that the question of what they can know opens up the vast adventure of what they ought to do,” he said.
The Holy Father also spoke about the debate over religious freedom that has been raging over the last few decades. Academic freedom calls on educators “to search for the truth wherever careful analysis of evidence leads you,” he explained.
Nevertheless, “any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission; a mission at the heart of the Church's munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it,” Benedict XVI explained.
Catholic institutions must fulfill their duty and privilege of ensuring that students receive instruction in Catholic doctrine and practice, Benedict emphasized. “This requires that public witness to the way of Christ, …both inside and outside the classroom. Divergence from this vision weakens Catholic identity and, far from advancing freedom, inevitably leads to confusion, whether moral, intellectual or spiritual,” the Pontiff insisted.
In closing, the Holy Father called on Catholic educators to “Help them to know and love the One you have encountered, whose truth and goodness you have experienced with joy.”
He left the educators with the words of St. Augustine: "we who speak and you who listen acknowledge ourselves as fellow disciples of a single teacher.”
To read the entire address click here.