SVD
Generalate

For Divine Word Missionaries, education has long been acknowledged as a legitimate mode of missionary engagement alongside traditional parish-based sacramental ministry. St. Arnold Janssen, an educator himself, once wrote: “We can no longer save the world with sermons and liturgy alone.” (Janssen to Becher, St. Gabriel’s, 30 April 1894) Our constitutions refer to the reality that schools, colleges, and universities are privileged places for engaging in missionary activity: “Our presence in an education institution aims at making it a place of evangelization where the word of God can be heard and its liberating power experienced in one’s personal and social life…” (109.3). The same directory further stipulates that SVD educational institutions should be accessible to the poor. Until now, it seems that education ministry has developed rather independently in many provinces. Capitulars, educators, and administrators have discerned that the moment is ripe—or rather, overdue—for a comprehensive and collaborative approach among the PRMs and the Zones. What might this look like?

Verbo Divino Global Education

Beginning to articulate a particularly SVD approach to education will require both fidelity and creativity: drawing upon the richness of Divine Word Missionary heritage and synodal listening to already existing creative applications of that heritage in varied contexts. Verbo Divino Global Education should naturally draw upon the missiological paradigm of Prophetic Dialogue, wherein we preferentially engage with those who are poor and marginalized, with people of various cultures and ethnicities, with followers of other faith traditions, and with faith seekers and secular society. Such an approach will also incorporate aspects of the Characteristic Dimensions into curricular and co-curricular programs. In this way, educators and administrators intentionally provide programmatic opportunities for hearing and acting upon Gospel and Biblical values, engaging in various ecumenical and interreligious mission animation projects, communicating faith-filled personal narratives of solidarity and salvation, and awareness of local and global issues of justice, peace, and integrity of creation with an eye toward Catholic Social Teaching.

Finally, a more comprehensive approach to SVD education ministry needs to be flexible enough that it can be contextualized within the unique opportunities and challenges of the social, cultural, and political realities of the PRM / Zone. The scope and emphasis of Verbo Divino Global Education will legitimately look different at the granular levels of curricula and programs. Our constitutions stipulate: “We must take into account the existing condition in any given country when deciding to what extent and in what manner we should be involved in the apostolate of education.” (109.3) By way of example, recent visits by the Assistant Generalate Secretary for Education this year to Japan (April) and to India (August) begin to illustrate how Verbo Divino Global Education operates within primarily non-Christian contexts.

Japan Province: Hominis Dignitati

Out of a total population of 123 million, most people are ethnic Japanese (97.5%) with a small but growing number of migrant workers from Brazil, Peru, the Philippines, Vietnam, and other countries. About 48.6% of Japanese identify as Shinto, 46.4 % as Buddhist, and 1.1% as Christian, of whom some 430,000 are Catholic (or about 0.34% of the total population of Japan). Religious practice is not generally connected with daily life or participation in regular religious activity, however, but with the observance of traditional customs and significant rites of passage.

Education ministry is a high priority for the SVD in the Japan Province, as reflected in the number of institutions and confreres dedicated to this apostolate. The Nanzan School Corporation is an umbrella organization that has administrative oversight of Nanzan University, eight senior and junior high schools in Nanzan, Seto, and Fujisawa, a primary school and two kindergartens. Each entity is led by an SVD as president or principal, although it is a challenge to adequately staff institutions with qualified confreres for teaching, research, and administration roles appropriate for Catholic institutions with an SVD missionary identity and orientation. Some 15,000 students attend SVD educational institutions in Japan.

The motto for Nanzan University and schools of the Nanzan School Corporation is Hominis Dignitati, that is, “for the dignity of all human beings.” Given the predominantly non-Christian context in Japan, this orientation emphasizes that the purpose of Nanzan education at all levels is “… to foster awareness of, and readiness to promote, human dignity in all walks of life.” Further, our institutions provide an education based on the Christian worldview with “… the conviction that God has endowed each and every human bring with inviolable dignity, irrespective of religion, moral, or other qualities.”