A note: Some of these quotes are clunky, not due to our translation -- we translated literally. It's that Francis' thoughts, not only as they are in his head, but as they come out of his mouth, are all over the place and incomplete. But you get his drift.
Also, and this should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: We hate reporting this stuff. But, either way, it must be kept and preserved, a record for the future so that, we pray, our children's children will never make the mistakes our recent relatives did, welcoming their own version of a "springtime" which quickly became a living Hell.
The Pope: “No to proselytism in Catholic schools”
Then an accusation: teachers are badly paid.
November 21, 2015
Vatican City: Never proselytize in schools. Pope Francis said this in the Paul VI Audience Hall to seven thousand participants at the World Congress on Catholic Education organized by the Congregation in charge of Catholic Education.
"Christian education -- the Pope says -- is not only teaching catechism and proselytizing. Never proselytize in schools. Christian education is bringing up the young in complete reality with human values and one of these [values] is transcendence. Today there is a tendency to neo-positivism, which is education in immanent things, in countries of Christian tradition as well as those of pagan tradition. We are closed to transcendence but closure is of no use in education.”
And once more, referring to the terrorism emergency: “The greatest temptation in wars, at times like this, are walls and the greatest failure for an educator is to educate inside [these] walls. We need to go to the peripheries, which is not only doing works of charity. From the peripheries reality is understood better than from the centre. In the centre one is always covered, always defended.”
Finally a jab at the economic treatment of teachers: “Educators are among the most badly-paid workers. What does this mean? Simply that the State isn’t interested. If it did, things wouldn’t be like this.”
Translation: Contributor Francesca Romana
