ABSTRACT
The major principles influencing the theoretical bases of Catholic education are clearly delineated in the key document of the Second Vatican Council on the subject, Gravissimum Educationis, although, not surprisingly, it encapsulated little not already manifest in Pius XI’s encyclical letter of some thirty-five years earlier, Divini Illius Magistri.1 Essentially it is argued that the Church’s commitment to education is an exemplification of the Divine mandate ‘to announce the mystery of salvation and to renew all things in Christ’ (Flannery, 1975, p. 726). Within this theological principle lies the essence of the meaning and purpose of Catholic schooling-the conservation and the transmission of Divine Teaching and transcendental values, the commitment to the missionary imperative of the propagation of the good news of the gospel in and through transformation of human lives in daily service.
