Faith and Character Formation in Catholic Schools - A view from England and Wales

Contemporary Catholic education faces a double challenge to be robust in terms of academic achievement and fecund in terms of fostering the life of faith and character development of pupils under its aegis. In this article, the author maps the salient features of three areas of this contested terrain: Religious education, character formation and faith transmission. Whatever their particular merits, he argues that all three emphases are to be seen as complementary rather than contradictory. Indeed, only by attending to all three aspects can schools be said to offer an authentically Catholic education.