On the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Conciliar Declaration Gravissimum Educationis, Pope Leo XIV published the Apostolic Letter  Designing New Maps of Hope, a document in which he discusses a series of ideas on Catholic education aimed at highlighting the unity between faith and reason, between thought and life, between knowledge and justice (1.2). This pedagogy is founded on the person, the image of God, capable of truth and relationship. In times like ours, when relativism devalues ​​the truth value of thought, falsehood takes root in social debate; insisting on the human capacity to know the truth is a solid foundation for the educational task. Likewise, affirming the relational nature of the person is a good counterweight to individualism, so often distant from the social dimension of human action.

On the other hand, a heavy burden of utilitarianism has taken root in the economy and in social relations, hindering human connection. Healthy competition, of course, benefits society. Likewise, we need many mediated relationships to satisfy human needs. The problem doesn’t lie there. The problem arises when only efficiency, results, and maximizing outcomes are sought above all other perspectives; privileging a culture of success that, on many occasions, crosses the thin red line between good and evil, resorting to immoral means to achieve individual gain. When utilitarianism (how much, how it is, what I gain) is the sole reference point, society becomes a jungle where the strongest, the most powerful, win at the expense of other citizens. Indeed, Pope Leo XIV draws attention to the perverse effects of this “soulless efficiency” (9.1), which could also contaminate education, reducing it to a functional and economistic pedagogy. And remember that “education does not measure its value solely in terms of efficiency: it measures it in terms of dignity, justice and the capacity to serve the common good.”

Education, likewise, “is not merely the transmission of content, but the learning of virtues.” We are speaking of a holistic education that fosters the intellectual, volitional, and emotional growth of the individual. An education to “guard the heart that listens, a gaze that encourages, and intelligence that discerns.” Achieving this personal harmony is certainly an arduous, long-term task, especially if—with Saint Augustine—we know that the human heart finds peace only when it rests in God. In education with a Catholic ideal, Pope Leo XIV points out, “faith, when it is genuine, is not an added ‘subject,’ but the breath that oxygenates all other subjects (6)”: faith, a life of faith, unity of life.
The personalist principle flows through the lifeblood of Catholic education, reaching where no algorithm can. Poetry, the arts, beauty, and the humanities are all part of this humanization. It is an education that cultivates the spirit and takes seriously—as Carlos Llano would say—the principle of closeness and impact: not only reaching everyone, but each person with their own face, their own story, and their own vocation (4.1), so that heart speaks to heart. The Holy Father concludes by pointing out three priorities: 1. Cultivating the interior life. Silence that fosters dialogue with conscience and with God; 2. A digital humanism that harmonizes technical, emotional, social, spiritual, and ecological intelligence; 3. Disarmed and disarming peace (10.3), capable of understanding that relationship comes before opinion, the person before the program (11.2).

The Holy Father’s proposal is a rough sketch of an educational constellation in which all the faithful can contribute their own light, tracing paths that unite the human and the divine in this symphony of the Spirit that Catholic education aspires to be.