CATHOLIC IDENTITY
Gina Bernasconi, Education Officer - Religious Education with the Catholic Education Office Ballarat headed to Leuven in the
middle of September where she is working with Professor Pollefeyt’s team at Katholik University Leuven (KUL) for the whole of
Term Four. Catholic schools across Victoria were created through the vision, dedication, hard work and commitment of the
whole Catholic community. Today, schools are challenged to: articulate their identity and vision and express their distinctiveness
as Catholic schools in a society where the Christian faith is increasingly marginalized. To assist schools in facing these present
realities the Catholic Education Commission of Victoria Ltd. (CECV) and the Catholic Education Offices of Melbourne, Ballarat,
Sandhurst and Sale, have entered into a research partnership with the Catholic University in Leuven, Belgium (KULeuven) which
enables schools and colleges to articulate their catholic identity and then begin the work of enhancing it. The purpose of the
project and the work of CEOS therefore is to assist schools to understand better how their Catholic identity is expressed in work
and practice and to support them in their future development. Gina will be engaged in developing a theological background
document to support schools in their ‘next step’ after their interpretation of survey results, as well as the development of
‘practical theological instruments’ that are relevant to the Australian educational context. This is a significant professional and
personal commitment from Gina on behalf of Catholic education in our Diocese and we congratulate and thank her for agreeing
to the international intensive experience.
Gina shares a little bit of her experience with us:
Everyone in our little office at KUL - about eight people all up, are as nice as you'd imagine. The team is
diverse, switched on and very welcoming. The ECSIP work they're concerned with is all about the data,
interpretation and writing of the school reports. At morning tea and lunch we talk and the experiences
of Catholic identity loss in education are remarkably the same between their schools and ours - except
that Belgium is in a worse position – unfortunately, our data indicates we’re moving in the same
direction – with increasing speed. Right: Dr. Malou Ibita, a member of the ECSIP team at KUL
The weather has just started to turn and it’s cooler in the night; I've started using the heater in the
evenings. There's an amazing re-developed supermarket at the end of my street just outside the
Begijnhof gate and it's full to the brim with Christmas goods. I can buy beautiful Santa chocolates of every
size and chocolate type but they're not the coco-cola Santas we know, they're the traditional St Nicholas
figures and represent Christmas everywhere, even on the ads on TV. It’s strange to find what I’d call a
‘religious santa’ in a country that has become secularised when ‘our secular santa’ is nowhere to be seen.
I think the difference is more to do with culture than any religious inferences – which are mine. I've
attached photos of little devotional shelters that I find unexpectedly when I walk. I think they’re
remnants of a religious environment past. When I see the kids playing around them I wonder if they think
anything at all about them - or whether they're just fixtures like the lamp poles on the street – who
would know?. I feel like I'm somewhere else all the time - which I know is to be expected given that I am
somewhere else! Living here you get to see the everyday in the ways that a tourist trip won't allow; it’s a
blessing. It’s very beautiful here and I meet kindness everywhere - particularly when I have to ask
someone in a supermarket what it is exactly, that I'm buying! This is the adventure of a lifetime for me
and I’m most grateful.
Gina
Photos below from Left, Christmas lights going up on the Town Hall; Pope’s College, part of KUL where Gina works each day; One
of the KUL libraries!