According the Australia Catholic Year Book (2015) there are some 1653 Catholic School in the country, with 402.584 students in the primary schools, 333.104 students in the secondary schools and more than 68.000 students in the tertiary education or special schools around the country. Due to the multi-cultural and multi-religious composition of the Catholic school students, faith education becomes part of the Catholic identity of each education institution. With the drastically diminishing numbers of religious and priests and rapidly growing numbers of lay people involved in education mission, the 2016 Conference in Perth also tackled this challenge.
The very rich days of the national event were animated by many top resource persons, including Card. Oscar Maradiaga Rodriguez, SDB (Honduras), as special guest and speaker.
In his address the Salesian archbishop said that teaching the faith in the current social context means not so much teaching a set of values or dogmas, but bringing people to know and meet Jesus. "It is not so much asking 'Do I believe in God?', but (...)'Do I trust God? Do I believe in God as presented by Jesus? That there is a Divine Providence at work in my life?'" Archbishop Costelloe then cited the statement by Pope Francis at the World Congress on Catholic Action (November 2015). "For me, the biggest crisis in education, from the Christian perspective, is that people are closed to transcendence."
Full text of Archbishop Costelloe’s address is available on: Catholic Archdiocese of Perth
