Commitment to the Common Good

towards, the common good. Yet, as Hollenbach (1996) points out, in the face of numerous problems that plague our complex social world, the need for a stronger sense of community, for a recognition of our de facto technological, political and economic interdependence, and for virtues of mutual co-operation and mutual responsibility, are all the more urgent. Hollenbach (1996) observes that “recovery of confidence that we both need and can attain a shared understanding of the lineaments of what a good life together might be is an urgent necessity in pluralist democracies today”(p.94). As explored in Chapter 3, the concept of authenticity holds that, through the process o f coming to know, one can gain insight into the objective and common good - education is seen as a key way of attaining this.

The promotion of the common good is intrinsic to the Catholic faith. It involves a form o f duty towards the larger community o f one’s fellow beings and Catholic thought has long held that the common good is the overarching end to be pursued in social and cultural life - including education. Indeed, Bryk et al (1993) consider that it is this vision of the common good - o f “reaching out” and “other-directedness” - which most characterizes Catholic schools. While many schools coming from a social, humanist ethic have a strong social justice agenda, for the Catholic school, a policy o f working for the common good is undertaken as working for the building up o f the kingdom o f God. The Vatican decree, The Catholic School (1977), states that schools must help young people

to overcome their individualism and discover, in the light o f faith, their specific vocation to live responsibly in a community with others. The very pattern of the Christian life draws them to commit themselves to serve God in their brethren and to make the world a better place for man to live in.

The fostering o f a concern for and commitment to the common good involves a move away from individualistic concern for the private good to a more social concern for justice and the good of the larger community. For contemporary society, the Catholic commitment to the common good involves a recognition that all people are living images of God and, as such, links Catholic Christians with the larger community of non-Catholics, non-Christians and non-believers and enjoins all to work for a social justice which is “opposed to every form o f imperialism, hegemony, greed, or unrestrained quest for power, trampling upon the basic rights of the human person; and racial, cultural and religious discrimination” (Pope John Paul II (1992) pp.38-39).

This understanding o f the common good puts it in direct continuity with Aquinas’s understanding of the premier moral virtue as the promotion o f justice, which directs a person’s actions toward the good of fellow human

beings and in line with Lonergan’s contention that humans, through their capacity for reason, have the ability to arrive at an objective, ethical conception o f the common good which is of essential importance to the social ethic. Clearly, the Catholic community possesses a long tradition - from Aquinas to Maritain to John Paul II - that, in its renewed contemporary form, positions it to make a potentially unique contribution to the education o f individuals and ultimately to society by ensuring that pupils in Catholic schools are nurtured in ways that enable them both to understand the meaning of justice in society and to work for its achievement and thus contribute to the common good.

Specifically, the Church (CSTTM, 1997), in explaining how Catholic schools can promote the common good, encourages Catholic educators to cultivate attitudes in their students based on Christian values, and it lists such attitudes and values as including - a freedom which includes respect for others, conscientious responsibility, a sincere and constant search for truth, a spirit of solidarity with and service toward all other persons, a sensitivity for justice, and a special awareness o f being called to be positive agents of change in a society that is undergoing continuous transformation.

Clearly, this work is all the more necessary in postmodern society where many communities are becoming rapidly multi-cultural and pose new challenges for the protection of human rights, respect for diversity and the fostering o f social cohesion. The explicit role of the Catholic school in this regard, through fostering pupils with a deep concern for social justice and the common good, is succinctly summed up in the Vatican decree Lay Catholics, Witnesses to the

Faith (1982) - and bears complete quotation here, viz.

the vocation of every Catholic educator includes the work o f ongoing social development; to form men and women who will be ready to take their place in society, preparing them in such a way that they will make the kind of social commitment which will enable them to work for the improvement of social structures, making these structures more conformed to the principles of the Gospel....Today’s world has tremendous problems: hunger, illiteracy and human exploitation; sharp contrasts in the standard of living o f individuals, and of countries....along with many other examples of the degradation of human life. All of this demands that Catholic educators develop in themselves, and cultivate in their students, a keen social awareness and a profound sense of civic and political responsibility.

Thus, in the first instance, commitment to the common good in Catholic schools involves students being nurtured in an unstinting commitment to the good of

issues o f social justice and fostering in them an ability to act authentically to make the world a better place. As Chittester (2003) states:

They must leave us able and willing to envision something better for the world than power and profit at any cost....They must have the commitment to question its social axioms rather than simply comply with them, (p.23)

A second key constituent of the principle of the common good is the Catholic Church’s fundamental call to be of service to the poor.

All of the Vatican documents on education outline the preferential option for the poor as a key priority for schools stating that “first and foremost the Church offers its educational services to the poor” (CS, 1977). In 1992, the Church went further, stating that in today’s society it is incumbent upon affluent communities to have a preferential concern also for those who flee political or economic conditions that threaten their lives and physical safety (Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, 1992, p. 10). In 1998, the Congregation for Catholic Education (CSTTM (1997)) elaborated still further on what is meant by “the poor” stating that the preferential option for the poor leads to “avoiding all forms of exclusion” and that the Church does, in fact, mean to offer its educational service “in the first place to those who are poor in the goods of this world or who are deprived o f the assistance and affection of a family or who are strangers to the gift o f faith” (own emphases). This is echoed by the Irish Bishops’ directive (ICBC (2008)) - which states that

Catholic schools are “called to serve others, above all those who are victims of poverty and injustice of any kind”.

These statements are powerful in their directness. The question must now be asked as to how they are to be interpreted in the context of Irish Catholic primary schools.

Without question, in contemporary Ireland, the preferential option for the poor must be given renewed and urgent consideration. Today, in Ireland, poverty continues to be a persistent reality despite the greatly increased wealth generated by the years o f the “Celtic Tiger”. Statistics from the latest EU Survey on Income and Living Conditions, compiled in 2006 when the Irish economy was at its height, show that 14% of all children in Ireland under 14 years o f age are living in consistent poverty and that 20% of children are at risk o f poverty. Furthermore, latest census figures (Census 2006) show almost half a million non-Irish nationals now living in Ireland, and a Report from the Central Statistics Office states that “non-Irish tend to belong to the lower social classes compared with the Irish” (Census 2006 (a)).

The implications for Catholic schools seem obvious and unequivocal - if any school is to have an authentic Catholic ethos then it must make extraordinary efforts to include the poor, the marginalised and the excluded - who in today’s society tend to be minority ethnic groups and the socio-economically disadvantaged. The Church is unequivocal on this point. While recognising that “unjust situations often make it difficult to implement this choice”, they also

acknowledge that “sometimes, however, it is Catholic educational institutions themselves that have strayed from such a preferential option” (CSTTM, 1997). Clearly, the preferential option for the poor demands that Catholic schools play their part in rectifying the social fragmentation that exists perhaps more than ever before in Irish society today.

Concern for the common good must be witnessed to and lived out in the life of the Catholic school - both by what it teaches its students in terms of solidarity and social justice and also by how it acts as an institution in society in terms of its structures, policies and procedures. In sum, commitment to the common good must permeate Catholic education. The Catholic school must strive to develop each student’s capacity to reflect on and respond to difficult and complex moral issues and help to develop a deep understanding of the demands o f justice, truthfulness, reconciliation, solidarity and integrity o f conscience. Furthermore, the Catholic school must act as an organisation whose structures and policies - perhaps particularly in the area of admissions - reflect the overarching Catholic concern for the common good and an unequivocal preferential option for the poor.