Our Award
Our Award provides a framework that encourages Catholic schools to recognise and celebrate what they already do to promote CST, and challenges them to weave CST intrinsically into the culture and ethos of the school – including in strategic planning, curriculum development, and practical choices.
“The Church's social teaching proposes principles for reflection; it provides criteria for judgment; it gives guidelines for action.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 2423)
“Our efforts at education will be inadequate and ineffectual unless we strive to promote a new way of thinking about human beings, life, society, and our relationship with nature.” (Laudato Si 215)
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Emulating St Oscar Romero, how are schools embodying the key Christian principles that guide us in living out our love of God and neighbour?
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Dignity of the human person – do the policies and practice in schools promote the equal value and worth of each person – created by God in his image and loved by him?
“The origin of social life is therefore found in the human person, and society cannot refuse to recognize its active and responsible subject; every expression of society must be directed towards the human person.” (Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church 106)
St Oscar Romero said, ‘Each one of you has to be God’s microphone. Each one of you has to be a messenger, a prophet. …Let us not hide the talent that God gave us on the day of our baptism and let us truly live the beauty and responsibility of being a prophetic people.’
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Option for the poor – How are schools implementing the gospel mandate to care for the those who are disadvantaged, vulnerable or in any kind of need, locally as well as globally?
"Each individual Christian and every community is called to be an instrument of God for the liberation and promotion of the poor, and for enabling them to be fully a part of society". (Evangelii Gaudium 187)
St Oscar Romero said, “Many would like the poor to keep on saying it is God’s will for them to live that way. But it is not God’s will for some to have everything and others to have nothing. That cannot be of God.”
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​The common good – is established when people work together equitably so that all benefit. How are schools enabling pupils and staff to flourish and develop their full potential?
"Our love for others, for who they are, moves us to seek the best for their lives. Only by cultivating this way of relating to one another will we make possible a social friendship that excludes no one and a fraternity that is open to all." (Fratelli Tutti 94)
St Oscar Romero said, “God wants to save us in a people. He does not want to save us in isolation. … A people is a community of persons where all cooperate for the common good.”
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Solidarity – how are schools promoting integral human development, understanding that the good of every person is linked to the good of all, and is cultural, economic, political, social, and spiritual.
“Solidarity finds concrete expression in service, which can take a variety of forms in an effort to care for others. And service in great part means “caring for vulnerability, for the vulnerable members of our families, our society, our people”. (Fratelli Tutti 115)
St Oscar Romero said, ‘The ones who have a voice must speak for those who are voiceless.’
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Subsidiarity - is the principle that decisions should always be taken at the lowest possible level or closest to where they have their effect. How are schools promoting participation and engagement by pupils and staff in the life of the school?
"We should not expect everything from those who govern us, for that would be childish. We have the space we need for co-responsibility in creating and putting into place new processes and changes. Let us take an active part in renewing and supporting our troubled societies." (Fratelli Tutti 77)
St Oscar Romero said, ‘Whoever out of love for God gives oneself to the service of others will live, like the grain of wheat that dies, but only apparently… Only in undoing itself does it produce the harvest."
Stewardship of creation – how is the school promoting integral ecology, that is, the interconnectedness between humanity and the natural world, which impels us to protect the Earth, our common home, for the wellbeing of all.
“Because all creatures are connected, each must be cherished with love and respect, for all of us as living creatures are dependent on one another.” (Laudato Si 42)
St Oscar Romero said, “Aspire not to have more, but to be more.”
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Dignity of work – are schools enabling all their staff to enjoy their work and utilise their skills, by treating them with dignity and respect, and providing just wages, development opportunities, and good working environments?
“More than ever, work is work with others and work for others: it is a matter of doing something for someone else. Work becomes ever more fruitful and productive to the extent that people become more knowledge able of the productive potentialities of the earth and more profoundly cognizant of the needs of those for whom their work is done”. (Centesimus Annus 31)
St Oscar Romero said, ‘There are not two categories of people. There are not some who were born to have everything and leave others with nothing and a majority that has nothing and can’t enjoy the happiness that God has created for all. God wants a Christian society, one in which we share the good things that God has given for all of us.’
Peace – how are schools promoting reconciliation and forgiveness, and targeting unconscious bias in their own community, as well as cultivating an awareness that a culture of global non-violence needs to begin with each person?
"Peace is not merely the absence of war, nor can it be reduced solely to the maintenance of a balance of power between enemies. Rather it is founded on a correct understanding of the human person and requires the establishment of an order based on justice and charity." (Compendium of Social Doctrine 494)
St Oscar Romero said, "Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all.
Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty."
Rights and responsibilities - How are schools promoting not only the human rights of every person to the basic necessities that are required to live a decent life, but also the responsibility of everyone to respect the rights of others?
Everyone “has the right to life, to bodily integrity, and to the means suitable for the proper development of life” (Pacem in Terris 11)
St Oscar Romero said, “When we struggle for human rights, for freedom, for dignity, when we feel that it is a ministry of the church to concern itself for those who are hungry, for those who have no schools, for those who are deprived, we are not departing from God’s promise…The church knows it is saving the world when it undertakes to speak also of such things."