VATICAN - Holy Father Benedict XVI reminds Catholic religion teachers of their role in “giving soul to the school and assuring the Christian faith of a full citizenship in areas of education and culture.”

Vatican City (Agenzia Fides) - “May your teaching be similar to that of Saint Paul, capable of showing your students that dimension of freedom and full appreciation of man redeemed by Christ, as is present in God's plan, and in this manner, showing true intellectual charity to many children and their families.” This is the desire expressed by the Holy Father Benedict XVI to the Catholic religion teachers whom he received in an audience on April 25.
“The teaching of the Catholic faith forms an integral part of the history of schools in Italy,” the Pope said in his address. “The extremely high number who choose to study this subject is, furthermore, a sign of the exceptional importance it has in the educational process and an indication of the high levels of quality achieved.” What daily distinguishes the work of religion teachers, from other professors, is “focusing on man created in God's image,” as the religious dimension “is intrinsic to the culture, collaborating in the global formation of the person and allowing a transformation of knowledge into wisdom of life.”
Continuing his address, the Pope affirmed: “Your service, dear friends, is located precisely in this crucial crossroads, in which – without improper invasions or confusion of roles – a universal tendency towards the truth and toward the 2,000 year-old testimony offered by believers at the light of the faith is found, along with the extraordinary heights of knowledge and art reached by the human spirit and the fecundity of the Christian message that has so profoundly contributed to the life and culture of the Italian people. With the full and acknowledged scholarly dignity of your teaching, you contribute to both giving soul to the school and assuring the Christian faith of a full citizenship in areas of education and culture. Thanks to the teaching of Catholic religion, then, school and society are enriched with what is a true workshop of culture and of humanity, in which, by examining the significant contributions Christianity has made, people are enabled to discover goodness and grow in responsibility, to seek to confront their views and refine their critical sense, and to draw from the gifts of the past in order to better understand the present and to project themselves towards the future.”
In the context of the Year of Saint Paul, Benedict XVI exhorted them to look upon the Apostle to the Gentiles, in whom we find “the humble and faithful disciple, the courageous preacher, the great mediator of Revelation,” to sustain the identity “of educators and witnesses in schools.” Paul, in the First Letter to the Thessalonians (4:9), defines the believers as “instructed by God,” with God as their teacher. “In this word, we find the secret to education,” the Pope said, recalling how “in Pauline teaching, the religious formation is not separated from human formation...The religious dimension is, then, not an appendage but an inherent part of the person, from the youngest ages. It means fundamental openness to the other, to the mystery that presides every relationship and encounter among human persons. The religious dimension makes man more of a man.”
Finally, the Pontiff mentioned that “knowledge of the Bible is an essential element in the program of Catholic religion” and that the professor of Catholic religion, “in addition to the duty of human, cultural, and didactic competence typical of every teacher,” has the vocation of manifesting that the God who is spoken of it the classroom is the essential reference point in their life: “Far from being a form of interference or a restriction on freedom, your presence is a fine example of that positive spirit of secularism which enables constructive civil coexistence to be promoted, founded on reciprocal respect and faithful dialogue, values that a country always needs.” (SL) (Agenzia Fides 27/4/2009)