3. Aims of R.E. in the School

The general aim of Religious Education is to awaken people to faith and then to help them throughout their lives to deepen and strengthen that faith.[1]

The fundamental principles governing the Religious Education of students in this school may be stated as follows:

Religious Education: 

• Contributes to the revelation and communication of God’s love.
• Invites the student to respond to God with love and gratitude through a variety of experiences, including prayer and liturgy.
• Respects the student as a person.
• Engages with her personal and social development.
• Encourages students to ask key questions humankind has always asked.
• Deepens the appreciation and understanding of the Catholic tradition.
• Fosters and deepens the student’s faith.
• Contributes to the student’s religious and moral development.
• Helps the student to tell her own story and the story of her faith community.
• Promotes open, mutually respectful and inclusive attitudes among students of different social, ethnic and religious backgrounds and highlights ecumenism as an essential feature of modern Christianity.
• Animates effective, active and cognitive religious experience.
• Embraces those with special education needs.
• Facilitates authenticity, commitment and responsibility on the part of the student and the teacher.
• Recognises the whole school, whole community nature of Religious Education.
•  Acknowledges the wisdom gained through intergenerational reflection.
• Values the partnership between home, school, parish and the Loreto tradition.
• Promotes hospitality, generosity, compassion, justice, respect and peace.[2]

In summary, the religious education of students in this school is an interdisciplinary affair, grounded in education theory and practice and closely but critically connected to the contemporary culture.[3]

[1] A Syllabus for the Religious Education of Catholic Pupils in Post-Primary Schools, (Dublin: Veritas, 1982), p. 44.
[2] G. Byrne, Children’s Religious Education: Challenge and Gift, G. Byrne and R. Topley (Editors) Nurturing Children’s Religious Imagination-The Challenge of Primary Religious Education Today, (Dublin: Veritas, 2003) p. 59.
[3] D. Lane, Reimagining the Catholic World, N. Prendergast and Luke Monaghan (Editors) Reimagining the Catholic School, (Dublin: Veritas, 2003) p.59.