Not quite. ‘Values’ - at least as I understand them - are a kind of ethical code, a moral outlook. Doctrine is different: it is the reason, the motivation and the final aim of that moral outlook. We are not good because it is nice to be good. We are good because Christ commands us to be, and he commands us to be because by being good we conform ourselves to his image, become like him (with the help of grace) and eventually join him in heaven.
Well yeah, it’s more accurate to say that our values are influenced by what we believe. So fidelity to the Catholic faith is implied, and perhaps because he is talking to
Catholic educators they should know that they have to be faithful to the Church. Perhaps you think that should’ve been emphasized, but there’s no reason to be overly critical of the Pope.
Here’s the Catechism…
CCC 1886:
Society is essential to the fulfillment of the human vocation. To attain this aim, respect must be accorded to the just hierarchy of values, which "subordinates physical and instinctual dimensions to interior and spiritual ones:"8
Human society must primarily be considered something pertaining to the spiritual. Through it, in the bright light of truth, men should share their knowledge, be able to exercise their rights and fulfill their obligations, be inspired to seek
spiritual values; mutually derive genuine pleasure from the beautiful, of whatever order it be; always be readily disposed to pass on to others the best of their own cultural heritage; and eagerly strive to make their own the spiritual achievements of others. These benefits not only influence, but at the same time give aim and scope to all that has bearing on cultural expressions, economic, and social institutions, political movements and forms, laws, and all other structures by which society is outwardly established and constantly developed.
He is speaking in Italy to Italian educators, which means to educators from a culture that has two components: Catholicism and secularism. In this context the only ‘diversity’ that comes to mind is a mix of the two.
Every instance that I have found where the Pope uses the word “diversity” always is in the context of “unity” also. Here’s an
example from an address to Catholic theologians (not too far from the educational sphere):
The diversity of viewpoints should enrich catholicity without harming unity.
Maybe he’s saying that there is some good to be gathered from some of what a secular viewpoint contains? I mean that’s not really a radical idea; look at St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Albert the Great, even more recent work done by St. John Paul II in phenomenology.
And what does the Pope mean by ‘ideology’? Does ideology mean some sort of militant political system? Who on earth would teach that in a Catholic school in Italy?
I can’t tell you exactly what the Pope means by “ideology”, but perhaps by it he means something that isn’t agenda-driven. Here’s another example of the
Pope using “ideology”:
- Making the Gospel message an ideology. This is a temptation which has been present in the Church from the beginning: the attempt to interpret the Gospel apart from the Gospel itself and apart from the Church…There are other ways of making the message an ideology…I mention only a few:
a) Sociological reductionism. This is the most readily available means of making the message an ideology. At certain times it has proved extremely influential. It involves an interpretative claim based on a hermeneutics drawn from the social sciences. It extends to the most varied fields, from market liberalism to Marxist categorization.
b) Psychologizing. Here we have to do with an elitist hermeneutics which ultimately reduces the “encounter with Jesus Christ” and its development to a process of growing self-awareness. It is ordinarily to be found in spirituality courses, spiritual retreats, etc. It ends up being an immanent, self-centred approach. It has nothing to do with transcendence and consequently, with missionary spirit.
c) The Gnostic solution. Closely linked to the previous temptation, it is ordinarily found in elite groups offering a higher spirituality, generally disembodied, which ends up in a preoccupation with certain pastoral “quaestiones disputatae”. It was the first deviation in the early community and it reappears throughout the Church’s history in ever new and revised versions. Generally its adherents are known as “enlightened Catholics” (since they are in fact rooted in the culture of the Enlightenment).
d) The Pelagian solution. This basically appears as a form of restorationism. In dealing with the Church’s problems, a purely disciplinary solution is sought, through the restoration of outdated manners and forms which, even on the cultural level, are no longer meaningful. In Latin America it is usually to be found in small groups, in some new religious congregations, in exaggerated tendencies toward doctrinal or disciplinary “safety”. Basically it is static, although it is capable of inversion, in a process of regression. It seeks to “recover” the lost past.
