In the early 1960s, both Paulo Freire and the Second Vatican Council emerged on the world stage with transformative ideas and approaches rooted in Catholic practice and doctrine. Both Freire and the council fathers wrote highly of the vocation of educators and challenged all Catholics to live out their vocations in solidarity with those who are oppressed. The Second Vatican Council and Freire's critique can offer insights for teaching religion in any context.

1. Two Catholic Visions of the Teaching
Vocation: Paulo Freire and the
Second Vatican Council
April 2013
Photo Soure: http://forumeja.org.br/book/export/html/1412

2. Meagen Farrell
Graduate
Student, Theology &
Religious Studies
John Carroll University
farrellink.com
@farrellink
facebook.com/Farrell.Ink

3. Objectives
• Introduce Paulo Freire and the Second Vatican
Council.
• Compare their visions for the ideal educator.
• Consider the implications of these viewpoints
for educators and Catholics.

4. What do you know about Vatican II?

5. What was the Second Vatican Council?
Called by Pope John XXIII
to “open the windows”
of the church.
1961-1965, bishops from
around the world
gathered in St Peter’s
Basilica for sessions.
Committees developed a
series of documents on
which bishops debated
and voted.
Photo source: http://www.leadertelegram.com/news/front_page/article_2607663a-82ee-11e2-8805-001a4bcf887a.html

6. What do you know about Paulo Freire?

7. Who was Paulo Freire?
• Catholic, Brazilian educator
who led a mass literacy
campaign in 1963 for 2
million adults.
• Literacy gave voting rights.
• Military responded with a
coup & exiled Freire until
1979.
• In exile, he led literacy
campaigns around the
world.
Photo source: http://mensagens.culturamix.com/frases/pensamentos/pensamentos-de-paulo-freire

8. Why is Paulo Freire important for
educators?
Dialogic approach
• Wrote Pedagogy of the
Oppressed and other
international classics on
adult education.
• Critiqued the “banking
system of education”
emphasizing lecture &
passive students.
• Promoted the opposite:
communication & dialogue.
Photo source: http://melaniecervantes.tumblr.com/page/3 via ROMCLibrary.org

9. A Sample of the Freirean Method
• I need volunteers to take turns to read.

10. Identification with the Oppressed
• Paulo Freire:
• Humanization is humanity’s vocation, which
“is thwarted by
injustice, exploitation, oppression, and the
violence of the oppressors; it is affirmed by
the yearning of the oppressed for freedom
and justice, and by their struggle to recover
their lost humanity” (Pedagogy of the
Oppressed 28).

11. Identification with the Oppressed
• Second Vatican Council:
• “The joys and hopes, the grief and anguish of
the people of our time, especially those who
are poor or afflicted, are the joys and hopes,
the grief and anguish of the followers of Christ
as well. Nothing that is genuinely human fails
to find an echo in their hearts” (Gaudium et
Spes 1).

12. Necessity of Formation for the
Teaching Vocation
• Paulo Freire:
• “Nobody becomes an educator on a Tuesday
at four in the afternoon. Nobody is born an
educator or marked to be one. We make
ourselves educators, we develop ourselves as
educators permanently, in the practice and
through reflection upon the practice” (Paulo
Freire Reader 232).

13. Necessity of Formation for the
Teaching Vocation
• Second Vatican Council:
• “Splendid, therefore, and of highest
importance is the vocation of those who
*…undertake+ a teaching career. This vocation
requires special qualities of mind and heart,
most careful preparation and a constant
readiness to accept new ideas and to adapt
the old” (Gravissimum Educationis 5).

14. Parents as the First Teachers
• Paulo Freire:
• “One of my concerns, at the time, as valid
then as it is now, was with the political
consequences of that kind of relationship
between parents and children, which later
becomes that between teachers and pupils,
when it came to the learning process of our
infant democracy” (Pedagogy of Hope 14).

15. Parents as the First Teachers
• Second Vatican Council:
• “Since it is the parents who have given life to
their children, on them lies the gravest
obligation of educating their family. *…+ The
role of parents in education is of such
importance that it is almost impossible to
provide an adequate substitute” (Gravissimum
Educationis 3).

16. Need for Political & Social
Transformation
• Paulo Freire:
• “Now the person who has this new
understanding can engage in a political
struggle for the transformation of the
concrete conditions in which the oppression
prevails” (Pedagogy of Hope 23).

17. Need for Political & Social
Transformation
• Second Vatican Council:
• The Church “recognizes in those who are poor
and who suffer, the likeness of the poor and
suffering founder. It does all in its power to
relieve their need and in them it endeavors to
serve Christ” (Lumen Gentium 8).

18. Who Should Lead Theological
Education?
• Paulo Freire:
• “The oppressed must be their own example in
the struggle for their redemption” (Pedagogy of
the Oppressed 54).
• “This conditioning *to think about the people
instead of with the people] affects the theological
training of the leadership of the militant
church, as well as the education dispensed by the
church. Even theological education and reflection
are touched” (Politics of Education 130).

19. Who Should Lead Theological
Education?
• Second Vatican Council:
• “Among the more important duties of bishops,
that of preaching the Gospel has pride of place.
For bishops *…+ are authentic teachers *…+ they
vigilantly ward off whatever errors threaten their
flock (see 2 Tim 4:14). *…+ the faithful, for their
part, should concur with their bishop’s judgment,
made in the name of Christ, in matters of faith
and morals, and adhere to it with religious
docility of spirit” (Lumen Gentium 25). [emphasis
mine]

20. What is one word or phrase that stood
out to you?

21. What are similarities & differences
between Freire & Vatican II?

22. What do you think this means?
• For Catholics?
• For educators?
• For students?

23. Thanks for coming!
• Join me at 3:30pm in Admin 225 for my next
session: “Crowd-funding for Student
Scholarship” where I will discuss…

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