Rome Prepares for a Jubilee of the Educational World; A Global Call to Teach with Heart.
In late October 2025, Rome will become a global classroom. Educators, students, school leaders and thinkers will journey from every continent to pass through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. Their destination: the Jubilee of the World of Education, a week-long celebration for Catholic schools, universities, and educators. The theme: “How can we make hope visible in education?” is in harmony with the deeper meaning of the Jubilee of Hope.
Organized by the Dicastery for Culture and Education, the Jubilee runs from October 27 to November 1, 2025. Over these days, classrooms become chapels of conversation, where faith, intellect, and hope converge. Key events include:
The Opening Mass initiating the academic year in St. Peter’s.
Papal audiences with students (October 30) and educators (October 31) in Paul VI Hall.The Global Educational Village hosting networks and models of education, where schools share innovations and mission.
Reflective moments at “The School of the Heart” exploring what it means to educate from the heart, not just the mind.
A Promise, Not a Program
This Jubilee isn’t a conference of administration. It’s a pilgrimage. It asks teachers to reconnect with their deepest call. As educator and faith-leader mingled in planning, Vatican materials frame it as “a constellation of hope,” inviting cooperation, contemplation, and communal renewal.
In a recent address to Jesuit and Catholic educators, Pope Francis offered a line that captures the spirit:
“This is true education: accompanying young people so that they discover in service to others and in academic rigour the construction of the common good.”
He reminded educators that schools must open students not only to ideas, but to others:
“We need to pass from the culture of the self to a culture of ‘us’, in which a quality education is defined … by its humanizing results and not its economic results.”
In another address, he urged teachers to walk the path of accompaniment:
“A true educator … is never frightened by mistakes … he accompanies, takes them by the hand, listens, dialogues.”
These words reflect the challenge at the heart of Catholic schooling: faith can’t remain in theory. It must be lived in patience, in guidance, in presence.
Living the Jubilee in Our Schools
The Jubilee of Education can move Catholic educators to renew how faith, service, and hope shape school life. Beyond religion classes, the Catholic worldview can be made visible in culture, discipline, curriculum, service learning, and the arts.
Schools and boards can respond by creating new professional development opportunities focused on theology, catechesis, and faith integration. Workshops, retreats, and collaborative courses can help teachers reflect on vocation and deepen spiritual formation in practical ways.
The Jubilee’s call to “make hope visible” can inspire community projects, school pilgrimages, and service programs that form conscience and witness mercy, justice, and reconciliation. It is a reminder that Catholic education forms both the intellect and the heart.
In Canada, this renewal connects directly with reconciliation and inclusion. Teachers are invited to explore how Indigenous worldviews, truth, and reconciliation can meet Catholic teachings in dialogue and respect. A Jubilee of Education in this context means cultivating schools that are inclusive, healing, and rooted in the Gospel’s call to serve all with dignity.
What the Jubilee Means for CISVA
For CISVA’s 46 schools from Powell River to the Fraser Valley, the Jubilee offers both mirror and horizon.
Mirror: The themes echo what CISVA already names; education is about who the student becomes. It’s faith formation, relational growth, and moral purpose woven through academic discipline.
Horizon: The Jubilee’s networks and dialogues invite CISVA to share its practices, learn from peers, and deepen its voice among global Catholic educators.
We pray for our CISVA staff who are going to be walking through the Holy Door, exchanging in the Education Village about faith integration in the digital age, or reporting how a small classroom project turns into student leadership. These are encounters that shape school identity.
Walking Into Tomorrow
The Jubilee asks every educator to pause. To ask: Am I still walking with my students? Do I teach from the heart or to a test? In Rome, the liturgies, the talks, the shared meals will inspire, but the real work begins when teachers return to classrooms.
May this Jubilee be a fresh wind for CISVA’s mission. May our teachers, renewed, return ready to accompany students with integrity, courage, and hope.