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goal: to foster the growth of good Catholic human beings who love God and neighbor and thus fulfill their destiny of becoming saints.

If we fail to keep in mind this high supernatural vision, all our talk about Catholic schools will be no more than “a gong booming or a cymbal clashing” (I Cor 13:1).

. . . .

2. Founded on a Christian Anthropology

Emphasis on the supernatural destiny of students, on their holiness, brings with it a profound appreciation of the need to perfect children in all their dimensions as images of God (cf. Gen 1:26-27). As we know, grace builds on nature. Because of this complementarity of the natural and supernatural, it is especially important that all those involved in Catholic education have a sound understanding of the human person. Especially those who establish, teach in and direct a Catholic school must draw on a sound anthropology that addresses the requirements of both natural and supernatural perfection. [15]

For Catholic schools to achieve their goal of forming children, all those involved–parents, teachers, staff, administrators and trustees–must clearly understand who the human person is. Again and again the Holy See’s documents repeat the need for an educational philosophy built on the solid foundation of sound Christian anthropology. How do they describe such an anthropological vision? In Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith the Vatican proposes a response:

In today’s pluralistic world, the Catholic educator must consciously inspire his or her activity with the Christian concept of the person, in communion with the Magisterium of the Church. It is a concept which includes a defense of human rights, but also attributes to the human person the dignity of a child of God; it attributes the fullest liberty, freed from sin itself by Christ, the most exalted destiny, which is the definitive and total possession of God himself, through love. It establishes the strictest possible relationship of solidarity among all persons; through mutual love and an ecclesial community. It calls for the fullest development of all that is human, because we have been made masters of the world by its Creator. Finally, it proposes Christ, Incarnate Son of God and perfect Man, as both model and means; to imitate him, is, for all men and women, the inexhaustible source of personal and communal perfection. [16]

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[16] Cf. Hancock, Recovering a Catholic Philosophy of Education, 34. In a speech addressed to Catholic educators in New Orleans, Pope John Paul II presented: “the pressing challenge of clearly identifying the aims of Catholic education, and applying proper methods in Catholic elementary and secondary education. . . . It is the challenge of fully understanding the educational enterprise, of properly evaluating its content, and of transmitting the full truth concerning the human person, created in God’s image and called to life in Christ through the Holy Spirit” (Address to Catholic Educators, New Orleans [12 September 1987], 7).
[17] Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education, Lay Catholics in Schools: Witnesses to Faith, 18; cf. Congregation for Catholic Education, The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School, 63; Congregation for Catholic Education, Consecrated Persons and their Mission in Schools: Reflections and Guidelines, 35.