Meeting with Italian Catholic religion teachers, Pope Leo XIV upholds their efforts to help young people learn to listen to their restless hearts, saying Catholic teaching holds great didactic value even in secular education.
By Devin Watkins
Pope Leo XIV held an audience on Saturday with participants in the National Meeting of Catholic Religion Teachers, who teach religion courses in Italian public schools.
In his address, the Pope called their work “demanding, often silent and unobtrusive, and nevertheless very important for the growth of so many children”.
Pointing to St. Augustine, he said human beings are filled with a restlessness in our hearts, which longs for relationship with God, creation, and other people, ultimately driven by a thirst for the infinite.
“Your service, an expression of the Church’s care for the new generations,” he said, “is like a springboard from which adolescents and young people can learn to dive into the fascinating adventure of interior dialogue, and in this it constitutes an indispensable element of that educational alliance of which there is such great need today.”
Italian Catholic religion teachers attend the papal audience in the Paul VI Hall (@Vatican Media)
Pope Leo said Catholic religion courses offer deep cultural value, as it offers students an historical overview of how faith has shaped culture and modern society.
Their teaching, he said, delves into Catholic magisterium, Biblical passages, and other fields of religious research, in order to help young people know themselves better and therefore to respect the beliefs of others as well.
“You make accessible to the new generations, in full respect for each person’s freedom,” he said, “what might otherwise remain incomprehensible and vague, showing how true secularity does not exclude the religious fact, but indeed knows how to treasure it as an educational resource.”
Reflecting on their meeting’s theme—“Heart speaks to heart”—Pope Leo urged Catholic religion teachers to help young people recognize “a voice that in reality already resounds within them,” so that they learn to listen to it and not confuse it with the noises that surround them.
Education, he said, helps form people to listen to the heart and gain interior freedom, so that faith and reason work together to lead them to truth.
“People cannot live without truth and authentic meanings,” he said, “and young people, even if at times they seem apathetic or insensitive, behind a facade of apparent indifference, in reality often hide the restlessness and suffering of those who ‘feel too much’ and too intensely, without managing to give a name to what they experience.”
Pope Leo greets a young boy (@Vatican Media)
As they journey with students along the path toward truth, Catholic religion teachers become traveling companions and find the patience and love to respect their students’ personal growth.
In conclusion, Pope Leo XIV renewed the Church’s support for their educational efforts, especially in our times of “dramatic and exhilarating challenges.”
“Truth passes through persons,” he said, “and for your students those persons are also you, called to make yourselves credible teachers, because you are in love with God and with them, to transmit values without self-importance or moralism, to offer gazes that lift up again and to be witnesses of that humble and close coherence that makes even the most demanding contents dear and desirable.”
