Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Christian Education.”Gravissimum educationis”, Pope Francis on 28th of October established a foundation meant to boost catholic education worldwide. Gravissimum educationis was promulgated on October 28, 1965 by Pope Paul VI, following approval by the assembled bishops by a vote of 2,290 to 35.
In the text, the Holy Father expresses his gratitude to the Congregation for Catholic Education for the initiatives organized to commemorate the 50th anniversary since the declaration “Gravissimum educationis” on Christian education, promulgated the Vatican Ecumenical Council II on 28 October 1965.
“I am likewise pleased to learn that the same Dicastery wishes to constitute on this occasion a Foundation named Gravissimum educationis, with the aim of pursuing ‘scientific and cultural ends, intended to promote Catholic education in the world’,” he wrote, quoting the foundation’s statutes.
The Pope’s letter instituted the Gravissimum educationis Foundation in Vatican City, making it subject to canon law, Vatican City civil law, as well as its own statutes.
The conciliar document, issued Oct. 28, 1965, stated that Catholic schools are meant “to help youth grow according to the new creatures they were made through baptism as they develop their own personalities, and finally to order the whole of human culture to the news of salvation so that the knowledge the students gradually acquire of the world, life and man is illumined by faith.”
In his letter Pope Francis quoted from the declaration, saying, “The Church recognizes the ‘extreme importance of education in the life of man and how its influence ever grows in the social progress of this age’, are profoundly linked to the fulfillment of ‘the mandate she has received from her divine founder of proclaiming the mystery of salvation to all men and of restoring all things in Christ’.”
