Cathal BarryMsgr Jim Cassin said “it is essential that parents are catechised and empowered to carry out their formative role as evangelisers of their children”.
Parents have a “critical role” in the religious life of their children, the head of the Irish bishops’ Commission for Catholic Education and Formation has said.
Speaking at a meeting of the Catholic Principals Association in Cookstown, Co. Tyrone last week, Msgr Jim Cassin said “it is essential that parents are catechised and empowered to carry out their formative role as evangelisers of their children”.
He also encouraged schools to recognise that young people are capable of handing on the Faith “through the experience of ministry in social justice and in peer leadership”.
Msgr Cassin told the meeting that in his view there were five essential elements that give the Catholic school its particular characteristic spirit or ethos.
These five elements were the belief that the human person is made in the image of God, that we meet God in the ‘bits and pieces’ of everyday life, that we are saved as a community, the fact that we belong to a tradition and that we value knowledge.
Msgr Cassin also said the faith formation of the young which is nurtured and deepened at first and second level in schools must continue at third level and throughout adult life.
“A key transition takes place with the entry to university. Ways of supporting the catechesis of young people through university is fundamental to on-going development of the Faith,” Msgr Cassin suggested.
He concluded by saying that if all the above takes place during the school years, it was realistic to expect that some will hear the call to religious life and priesthood.
“There is no doubt that Catholic schools nurture faith in the young and the lives of many pupils are testament to their faith. The Church and schools need to find ways of vocational recruitment and discernment,” he said.