The challenges of Catholic education: evidence from the responses to the Instrumentum Laboris ‘Educating today and tomorrow’

This article is based on the analysis of the responses to the questionnaires submitted for the Instrumentum Laboris ‘Educating today and tomorrow. A renewing passion’ and sets out to offer a synthesis of the main challenges facing Catholic education around the world, key criticalities as well as more positive aspects and the strategic and operational areas foreseen for the future. The questionnaires were analysed using a mixed quantitative and qualitative method, supported by the use of a semantic language analysis software (T-LAB). The results of the study led to the conclusion that many of the challenges outlined by the Instrumentum Laboris can be traced to a single matrix: to make an integral model of youth education sustainable, preserving the institutional identity of Catholic schools and universities as educational communities of evangelisation.