Welcome to The Canadian Forum on Theology and Education

Formerly High School Forum (1979-2007)

After twenty-one years of High School Forum welcome to our first Canadian Forum on Theology and Education.

First a brief explanation about the title change. In recent years, as more people, often not secondary school religious education teachers, have expressed interest in attending our annual three day conference at St. Jerome’s it became obvious that to allow and even encourage administrators to permit persons to attend then the title needed to be inclusive. Hopefully the new title – like James Joyce’s description of Catholicism as “Here comes everybody” – will meet that need. Also as one regular attendee at our previous forums stated, “The new title better reflects what we are about.”  

Catholic Schools : Education for Discipleship

Catholic schools exist for more than achieving good scores on provincial EQAO tests. At a time when Catholic school boards and Catholic schools are under greater scrutiny than at any time in recent memory it is perhaps appropriate that Forum invites us to examine that which makes us, to borrow a phrase from OECTA’s past, “Schools with a difference”.

Fr. John Dear and Fr. Roy Bourgeois will help us understand and invite us to recommit ourselves to the teaching of the Galillean who told us the kingdom is here amongst us and will be more visible as we exhibit the kindness, care, compassion, forgiveness that led Jesus to Calvary.

Let us not kid ourselves, the following of Jesus brings with it misunderstanding and persecution, often from those who should be most supportive. As Phil Berrigan said, “If you want to be a disciple of Jesus, you had better look good on wood”.

Photos of John and Roy courtesy of Linda Panetta at:
www.opticalrealities.org