Rev. Dr. Stan Chu Ilo

Professor of Catholic Studies
DePaul University

The Promise and Praxis of Catholic Education: Hope for a Wounded and Divided World?

The questions that this paper will answer are: What does hope look like for a world that is wounded and divided? What are the possible contributions of Catholic education to the construction of the praxis of hope for the world? What has emerged in the post-pandemic world is greater violence, wars, nationalism, intolerance, extremism, populism, narrow construction of identity, social hierarchies, and a dysfunctional value system all of which fuel division, injustice, poverty, and tension among nations and peoples. The prevailing conditions create moral, social, spiritual, and all sorts of injuries for many people everywhere. The nature of national and global politics even within religious institutions and the contestations for power and the ‘economies that kill’ (as Pope Francis describes the global economy) have created a fractured world. This disorienting politics of winner takes all continues to inflict painful existential wounds on so many people, especially minoritized people and those who inhabit the existential peripheries of life. In the second part of my paper, I will make a case for hope not simply as a promise but rather as a praxis and performance that emerges through series of conversion processes that a critical and integral Catholic education can bring about in individuals, cultures, churches, and nations through the transformation of worldviews, mindsets, behaviors, relationships, and daily choices. Using stories of people at the existential peripheries of life and drawing from my research on diversity, equity, and inclusive education in Catholic education carried out in Canada, Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya, I will paint a portrait of how Catholic education could bring about the reinvention of love through social friendship. Catholic education provides the capacious space and the accepting environment for what Pope Francis constantly refers to as a culture of encounter or what Africans refer to in different languages as Ubuntu—a welcoming and open relational space where everyone can participate in the bond of life through a supportive and empowering community. It is through the invention or reinvention of love that Catholic education can potentiate the praxis of hope through healing, reconciliation, social justice, restorative justice, and pragmatic solidarity. The collective effort for a global ethics, to create conditions for human and cosmic flourishing and for promoting the common good will not emerge through wishful thinking, prayers for divine intervention, or intellectual retrenchment or receding into the safety of one’s group or personal haven. It will require a deepening of the Catholic intellectual traditions, and a movement away from culture wars, identity politics, and closed narratives of human nature, cultures, ecclesial or religious distinctness and virtuosity. Catholic education will be presented as diverse traditions of over 2000 years that have mediated to cultures and peoples, diverse ways of knowing and encountering love and otherness through the emptying of the self and the rejection of all forms of idols that block the human and communal gaze within the imprisoning walls of the self, group, religion, race, nation, and other forms of social hierarchies and economies of scale. Recovering or rather reinventing this promise, will be a demonstration of the praxis of hope for a wounded and broken world.

Biography

Stan Chu Ilo is a Catholic priest from Awgu diocese, Nigeria; and Research Professor of World Christianity, African Studies and Global Health at the Center for World Catholicism and Intercultural Theology at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois (USA). He is also an Honorary Professor of Religion and Theology at Durham University, Durham, England, and Visiting Research Scholar at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Nigeria. He is the Coordinating Servant of the Pan-African Catholic Theology and Pastoral Network (PACTPAN). He is the winner of the 2017 Afro-Global Award for Global Leadership Impact in recognition of his work as the founder of the Canadian Samaritans for Africa that implemented more than 42 women empowerment and community support projects in 6 African countries. He is one of the editors and Board Member of Concilium, International Journal of Theology and serves on the editorial boards of numerous other journals including, the Journal of Global Catholicism, and the Journal of African Christian Biography and Journal Christian Ethics.
 
He currently serves on the senior advisory board of Templeton Religious Trust grant project on global spiritual formation for religious leaders. He is the principal convener of the Pan-African Catholic Congress, the third edition of which is taking place in Abidjan from August 4-10, 2025. He is the author or editor of 17 books including the forthcoming, Where is God in Africa? A Theology of Suffering and Smiling (with Orbis Books, 2025), Journeying Together in Hope for a Synodal Church in Africa (2024), Daily Walk with Jesus: African Biblical Reflections 365 for a Good Christian Life (2023) Someone Beautiful to God (2020), Wealth, Health and Hope in African Christian Religion (2018), Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and the Spirit in the World (2019)Handbook of African Catholicism (Orbis, 2022), Ecological Ethics for Cosmic Flourishing (Cascade, 2022); Under the Palaver Tree: Post-Vatican II African Ecclesiology (2023);  A Poor and Merciful Church (2019), Church and Development in Africa (2014); The Church as Salt and Light (2011).