Back in the early-to-mid sixties, the vision for Catholic Education was developing magnificently. The campuses of Trinity and All Saints (pictured above) in Leeds, Newman College in Birmingham, and Strawberry Hill in Twickenham, and others, were being built or redeveloped.
The vision was that young people, aspiring to be formed in the heart of the Church, and possibly become teachers of the same Catholic vision, would enter into an integral formation of spirituality, faith and life, intellectual development, the formation of skills and abilities, living as Catholic men and women in separate formation houses, and finally being commissioned by a bishop of the Catholic Church to be agents of Christ in the various fields of employment, would enable the development of Catholic faith and life in this era.
That was the plan in 1966. When the doors opened to the first new students, the plan had already been set aside in favour of an accommodation with the secular vision that was developing in that decade.
What I describe is, no doubt, an over simplification of what actually took place. However, I state it in these simple terms because that vision, and that strategy, is needed today.
