Table of Contents
Educational Mission of the Church
Catholic Education: Bridging quality and cost at scale
Centralisation does not mean taking over institutions
Institutes of Higher Studies (Seminaries) and Universities
Introduction
Last week’s post examined subsidiarity-integrated centralisation and fiscal management, concluding that the focus is on deciding which financial functions to centralise for better coordination and which existing centralised functions to decentralise to maximise pastoral fruitfulness.
Today’s post focuses on Catholic education and how subsidiarity-integrated centralisation, beyond canonical oversight, can improve how the Church coordinates resources across educational institutions to create a network of schools while preserving institutional autonomy, thereby creating a leverageable advantage that furthers the Church’s mission.
Educational Mission of the Church
Education aims to form the human person in the pursuit of their ultimate end and the good of the society of which they are members and to which they have an obligation (Gravissimum Educationis, 1; Can. 795). The Church in particular has the obligation and right to education since it has a divine mission to help all arrive at the fullness of the Christian life (Can. 794 §1; Gravissimum Educationis, 1).
Hence, the Church has the right to establish and direct schools of any discipline, type, and level, and the Christian faithful are to assist in establishing and maintaining Catholic schools according to their means (Can. 800). A Catholic school is one under the control of the competent ecclesiastical authority or public ecclesiastical juridical person, or one which the ecclesiastical authority recognises as catholic through a written document (Can. 803 §1). This means that private schools owned and managed by Catholics, even if they are priests or religious, which are not under the control of the competent ecclesiastical authority or recognised as such, are not Catholic schools.
Catholic Education: Bridging quality and cost at scale
Quality education is expensive. Yet one of the strengths of the Catholic Church in Nigeria has been its ability to bridge cost and quality, providing quality education at a cost that is affordable to most families.
The Church’s ability to provide this at scale is due to the assistance of Christ’s faithful in establishing and maintaining Catholic schools. In other words, it is sustained by an asymmetric pastoral model, in which the primary beneficiaries of education are not necessarily the principal providers of the resources that sustain it.
However, despite this success, there is still room for improvement: several Catholic schools within the same diocese struggle to stay afloat while others remain financially strong; some schools within the same diocese have dilapidated infrastructure, while others have solid infrastructure. Reasons for this inequality include the school’s age, geographic location, population changes, insecurity, and the area’s economic situation.
However, another important reason this trend has continued is that Catholic education in Nigeria is currently fragmented, as Catholic schools, seminaries, institutes, and universities largely operate as independent systems. In some dioceses, Catholic schools operate in a largely decentralised manner. Principals and administrators manage their institutions while the diocesan Education Commission provides general oversight and receives periodic reports. This arrangement is effective because it encourages initiative and enables new ideas that can advance the mission of the institution and the Church. It also gives those managing the schools a sense of responsibility.
Unfortunately, this fragmentation is ultimately expensive because when institutions operate largely in isolation, opportunities for coordination, shared resources, and institutional leverage are lost. As a result, some schools have better infrastructure, more qualified teachers, and greater access to educational resources, while others struggle to maintain basic educational standards, find qualified teachers, or even pay staff.
Moreover, a decentralised system makes it difficult for the bishop to properly evaluate whether the diocese needs new schools or whether some existing schools should be closed or merged with another school. Simply put, if a diocesan school in a rural, less populated, and poor area of the diocese does not receive diocesan support, it cannot provide quality education, unlike schools in urban and wealthier parts of the diocese. If a Catholic school remains disadvantaged for serving a poor community, the welfare of clergy and staff working there and the Church’s educational mission are seriously undermined. This is where subsidiarity-integrated centralisation becomes relevant.
Centralisation does not mean taking over institutions
The proposal for subsidiarity-integrated centralisation is not to place all Catholic educational institutions under one administrative authority. This is not feasible because it would undermine not only the principle of subsidiarity, but also the diversity of the Church’s educational mission. Moreover, it is not even practicable, given the number of institutions.
Instead, the question is: what areas can the institutions create value by aggregating their resources to promote pastoral fruitfulness?
This is where some form of central coordination helps, such as pooling resources together to support disadvantaged schools, aggregating procurements to reduce purchasing costs, and establishing a common assessment framework to maintain standards. One notes here that the purpose is not to eliminate the principal’s authority, but to give principals access to a stronger institutional system. Moreover, some central coordination helps ensure that every mission school is conducive for any principal and staff working there.
Institutes of Higher Studies (Seminaries) and Universities
The need for some form of central coordination beyond canonical oversight is even more important for institutes of higher studies and universities. In 2017, Pope Francis ordered that academic faculties of major seminaries be required to have distinct governance and administration independent of the seminary (Veritatis Gaudium, 21). The Dicastery for Education must approve the statutes of these institutes.
He also called for “networking” among institutions, a form of cooperation between faculties or universities of the same region or of a wider territorial area to help in promoting scientific research, better formation of students, advance of interdisciplinary studies, find realistic paths to resolving contemporary crises, and to promote Christian wisdom across cultures (Veritatis Gaudium, Foreword, 4, d; art. 66).
One way to achieve this cooperation in promoting scientific research is to pool resources to invest in academic integrity systems and collectively subscribe to academic journals. In the norms of application for Veritatis Gaudium, the Dicastery for Culture and Education encourages cooperation and coordination between libraries of ecclesiastical institutes and universities in the same city or region (Norms of Application for the Implementation of Veritatis Gaudium, art. 45).
For instance, all the Catholic institutes of higher studies (seminaries) and universities in Nigeria can pool funds and form a library-buying consortium to purchase large packages of journals from multiple publishers at a lower combined cost. While the Nigerian University Libraries Consortium struggles with this, Catholic institutes and universities are better organised and structured to create a network through which they can collectively acquire, coordinate, and share selected academic resources, thereby promoting quality research and academic rigour. In an age of AI, academic originality and independent critical thinking are indispensable to the formation of priests and the promotion and sustenance of the Catholic faith in Nigeria.
Change of orientation
One of the advantages of subsidiarity-integrated centralisation is a change of orientation on how one thinks about ecclesial resources.
Here, instead of viewing another ecclesiastical institute or university as a competitor, one sees it as a collaborator and enabler in furthering the Church’s educational purpose and mission.
Hence, the questions go beyond what a particular school has to what the Catholic educational network has. At the diocesan level, one easily finds out the total number of nursery, primary, and secondary schools; which schools belong to the parish, the diocese or a religious institute; the total number of students enrolled in each and the total number of students in diocesan schools; the total number of teachers and the teacher-student ratio; which schools have adequate infrastructure and are financially sustainable, and which schools need support because of low enrollment or location.
This helps the bishop properly evaluate whether the diocese needs new schools or whether some existing schools need to be suppressed or merged with another school. It also helps the bishop decide where to channel resources because, while a school may not be economically viable, its continued existence is strategic for promoting the holistic salvation of souls across the diocese.
At the higher level, centralised data help to quickly calculate and access the total number of seminarians/students, the academic strength of some institutes, libraries and databases that can be shared, and the number of qualified lecturers. Hence, data becomes part of the infrastructure of subsidiarity-integrated centralisation, enabling the Church to properly understand its educational capacity and the leverage it has in pursuing its educational mission.
In the final analysis, a Catholic educational network makes it easier for Catholics to assess Catholic education from nursery to the university, while scholarship opportunities are better managed. Here, education becomes a continuous pastoral pathway to achieve the Church’s salvific mission, as the educational system serves as an environment in which Christian education accompanies the child through the developmental phases of life.
Conclusion
The purpose of subsidiarity-integrated centralisation in Catholic education is not to centralise educational administration. This contradicts the subsidiarity principle. Instead, the goal is to build a Catholic educational ecosystem in which, beyond canonical oversight, Catholic educational institutions are not isolated units but are connected through digital infrastructure, data, expertise, and resources.
May God continue to help us🙏🏾
K’ọdị🙋🏾♂️
