Our questions of identity and anxieties for the faith and the church quieten down, will fall into place, in the joyful awareness that the Lord is with us, in memory, in presence, and in mission, and as our hearts are warmed by that presence we will respond with creativity, courage and care to the others we meet in the name of the Lord. The global social dynamics of pluralisation of cultures and worldviews, individualisation and commodification of choice, and detraditionalisation of identities and forms of belonging, powerfully affect the way in which people perceive themselves and the way they belong to world around them. Strong Catholic identity, therefore, can be found in schools that have the following characteristics: Curriculum. Disciples follow where the Lord goes ahead of us, for he himself is the way and makes the way known to us. These believers and the tradition they inherit will be the building blocks of any attempts to strengthen the school’s Catholic identity in the future. We live in an increasingly materialistic and secular world. Being a Eucharistic people is the chief identifier of being Catholic. But there is still work to be done. If, on the other hand, our worldview presumes that Jesus is alive, alive indeed in the transfigured existence of the resurrection, himself a source of the divine aliveness present and available to us to participate in here and now, then our story, our very existence, is qualified by and oriented by that presence. I’m an athlete. The decision of the Australian Bureau of Statistics to list ‘no religion’ in the first place among options on the 2016 census form strongly implies the Bureau expects that option to attract the majority of respondents this year. I’m a student. The Principles of Catholic Identity in Education articulate elements the Church expects to find in Catholic education. And like those first disciples we must learn to relinquish our desire to see, touch and hold onto a physical, demonstrable presence and accept rather the word of an other who witnesses to his presence (scriptures), and associate ourselves with the community of others who recognise him in the breaking of the bread (church, sacraments). Identity. The other great narration of Catholic identity is the memory of salvation, a story which is told within the narrative of creation but brings creation to a new and almost unimaginable identity, a participation in the eternal love and life of the Trinity. For Christian individuals and communities intentional and concrete encounters in dialogue with others, believers and nonbelievers alike, is a matter of fidelity to the Lord’s command of love of neighbour and love of enemy. The first is the, The other great narration of Catholic identity is the, The ultimate question of Catholic identity, as scripture scholar Luke Timothy Johnson puts it, is whether we think Jesus is dead or alive. Catholic Virtual is proud to serve our Catholic schools and their students around the world. ‘The disciples view other people only as those to whom Jesus comes… they approach the together with Jesus. I’m a mom. Catholic identity is more than a set of values, a code of ethics, an example of heroic living or human achievement; rather, as Pope Benedict put it, it is ‘the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction’ (, And Jesus continues to make known himself and the life-giving spirit he brings in the same manner as he did during the ministry in Galilee and Judea: firstly by calling and forming disciples to be with him, For disciples then, real encounter in dialogue with others is not a matter of political correctness, not simply a strategy for social cohesion and deradicalisation, nor just the decent thing to do, but a matter of fidelity to the present and living Lord Jesus, who is leading us into these encounters just as surely as he led Peter and John and James and Mary of Magdala and the other Galilean women and Bartholomew and Paul and Priscilla and Aquila into strange and life-giving encounters with others. What does it mean for me to hold onto a Catholic identity and its Gospel-inspired worldview in a cultural environment in which that worldview means little and is often misunderstood or dismissed? Saint Leo University is a community rooted in the Catholic faith and in the spirit of our Benedictine founders. Formation 3. Catholic identity embeds me in two great narrated memories or plotlines, which do not originate with me, but into which I find my personal story invited and implicated. Catholic Identity Conference . October 23-25, 2020 | Pittsburgh, PA. 2020 CIC Video On-Demand Register TODAY. All students of all faiths are welcome at CCHS and we encourage and guide all members to contribute to our Catholic identity and the formation of a faith community which responds to the spiritual life of the students, teachers, staff and parents. One-in-five Americans identify Catholicism as their religion. Culture 2. Catholic Identity. We will strengthen our Catholic identity t… Creating an environment that is identifiably Catholic. Catholic Identity intersects faith, life and culture to offer all students lifelong meaning and purpose. Institute of Faith Education Nearly one-in-ten adults (9%) qualify as “cultural Catholics.” When asked about their religion, they identify with a faith other than Catholicism (mainly Protestantism) or say they have no religious affiliation. Ensuring their genuinely Catholic identity is the Church's greatest educational challenge. It is expressed in structures and processes; in curriculum and the learning environment; in the formation of staff to support, teach and lead; in strategic planning and community culture; the wellbeing of students; and the engagement of parents, parish and wider community. Catholic Identity. So the way of the disciple in our pluralising and secularising context can only be the way of discernment, personal and communal, in response to the leading of the living Lord and his Spirit, and in responsibility for forging the encounters of dialogue in which the Lord is calling us to find our identity and mission. If our worldview presumes that he is, in fact, dead then Jesus will be of interest to us a figure of historical enquiry, a source of moral values and perhaps a tragic witness to the tendency of humans to reject and kill those who teach of love and justice. Our culture today tends to commodify memory into ‘experiences’ that can be produced, purchased, simulated, exchanged, or deleted. But since he exists now in the mode of God, the presence of the risen Lord is not a demonstrable fact, as is his historical career in first century Palestine. The stakes of marking ‘Catholic’ on the census paper are high for us today. This is so for both individual and communal subjects of identity. Speaking from the heart of the Church with a confident Catholic identity, you are forming talented and creative disciples, equipping them with a Christian vision of life, culture, and history and sending them out well prepared to be leaders in the contemporary world.” — Bishop James Conley Certainly at the organisational level, the church communities we belong to have been under the spotlight of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, and other Parliamentary and local enquires, bringing to light the long history of criminal behaviour of church personnel against children and vulnerable adults in their care, and the inadequate responses of many Christian leaders to these crimes. When we modulate this understanding of identity into a Catholic Christian key, it describes a narrative of self that holds together memory (past), presence (present), and mission (future). I salute the courage and vision of Archbishop Rush in founding the Institute in 1974, and the work of its governors and staff past and present in offering creative and responsive opportunities in faith and mission formation for a range of cohorts in the Archdiocese and beyond. Specifically, about my Catholic identity. We bring Learning and Teaching 4. The exercise was useful because mission hiring is often viewed by faculty as a third hurdle after quality and diversity. For disciples then, real encounter in dialogue with others is not a matter of political correctness, not simply a strategy for social cohesion and deradicalisation, nor just the decent thing to do, but a matter of fidelity to the present and living Lord Jesus, who is leading us into these encounters just as surely as he led Peter and John and James and Mary of Magdala and the other Galilean women and Bartholomew and Paul and Priscilla and Aquila into strange and life-giving encounters with others. 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