ABSTRACT

In this chapter, Richard Pring reflects on themes which have permeated the work of Gerald Grace in relation to Catholic Education Studies. These reflections begin by locating Grace’s work against the context of Vatican II and the various documents which emerged from the Congregation for Catholic Education. The chapter then moves on to describing the wider sociopolitical context against which this Catholic vision for education exists, in particular the secular paradigm which dominates. It is in this context that market forces have come to have a deeply distorting effect on education. It is this difficult situation that Grace’s work has repeatedly drawn attention to. In the final part of the chapter, Pring argues that Catholic education has an important role to play in pointing beyond this secular context, towards the sacred or numinous and spiritual in the world.