Also Gives Advice to Teachers and Administrators
VATICAN CITY, SEPT. 17, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education offered students some advice as the new school year gets under way.
Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski told Vatican Radio that students should try to grow in true wisdom, develop an ever-increasing critical sense and know how to discern good from evil.
Cardinal Grocholewski also added the importance of increasing the sense of responsibility for actions and knowing how to use what is learned in school.
The 67-year-old prelate said it is not enough to gain technical knowledge.
"To live wisely involves sacrifice, renunciation, domination of our desires, of our instincts," he said. "But only living wisely makes a person mature and doers of the true good, of true progress.
"Contact with the Lord, with Christ, helps a great deal in the formation of wisdom, therefore teaching religion is important."
"It is important that your faith grows," the cardinal added, "and never forget your prayer,” because “your greatest friend is Christ.”
Cardinal Grocholewski exhorted students to live in contact with God, saying, "It is he who truly loves you and who will help you to become mature persons, who know how to contribute to the true good and that of others."
Schools' task
The cardinal also spoke about the values that schools today must try to recover: "Above all one must try and love the truth and search for the truth.
"Often today we see this relativism in regard to the search for truth about our life and our destiny. In this way various demagogies and tendencies to dominate others can befall us. Instead, to grow in the truth, to love the truth, means to become ever freer."
The cardinal maintained that already in elementary schools, "there must be efforts to root in the hearts of children, of young people, this love of truth."
"For us Christians, the truth can never be separated from that which Jesus has taught us: 'I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life,'" he explained.
Cardinal Grocholewski also had a word for professors, defining a good educator as “one who loves their students. It is very important that teachers confirm with their lives, with their example, with their love, that which they teach."
ZE07091707 - 2007-09-17