The Catholic Dialogue School - by Lieven Boeve (Hardcover)

About the Book

Based on diligent theological work and practical experience, Boeve explores how Catholic schools can reconfigure their identity in an increasingly secular and pluralised world.

Book Synopsis

Based on diligent theological work and practical experience, Boeve explores how Catholic schools can reconfigure their identity in an increasingly secular and pluralised world.

At a time when Christian values education has lost its plausibility and effectiveness, this work examines how a wider 'Catholic dialogue school' project would welcome the plurality of beliefs among its staff and students, actively facilitate dialogue between them, and introduce the Christian voice into this dialogue in a contemporary and challenging way.

This book offers chapters on the theological background of the project and its social relevance. With empirical evidence and case studies from across the world, Boeve dextrously analyses the practical implication of these Catholic dialogue schools. The processes of secularisation and pluralisation have changed school demographics and this has affected the construction of both individual and collective identities. In response to this changed context, this work shows how the 'Catholic dialogue school' project actively engages with such identity construction.

The book concludes by considering whether recent Church teaching supports this project and how it can strengthen the position of Catholic education in discussions about its legitimacy in contexts of (soft) secularism and shrinking educational freedom.

Review Quotes

Because of Lieven Boeve's guidin...

In this book, Lieven Boeve masterfully bridges theory and practice, offering an innovative framework for Catholic education in our post-Christian, pluralistic society. Drawing from his unique journey as both theologian and educational leader, Boeve presents a compelling vision where Catholic identity and respect for diversity don't merely coexist but mutually enrich and challenge one another. His innovative vision on the Catholic School provides a culturally plausible and theologically legitimate response to contemporary challenges, offering Catholic schools a renewed sense of purpose and direction.

What makes this book exceptional is how the author integrates cutting-edge theological insights with practical implementation strategies, making this work invaluable for school leaders, teachers, and policymakers alike. The book convincingly demonstrates how Catholic education remains relevant by engaging meaningfully with plurality rather than retreating from it. Through this dynamic approach, Lieven Boeve legitimizes Catholic education in a forward-thinking way to church authorities, government officials, and society at large.

This groundbreaking work represents not just theoretical reflections but tested approaches from its author's decade leading Catholic education in Flanders. Now returning fully to academia, he offers profound reflections that will inspire anyone committed to the future of Catholic education in our diverse world.
Didier Pollefeyt, KU Leuven, Belgium

The publication of Boeve's 'The Catholic Dialogue School' will be warmly welcomed by advocates of Catholic education around the globe. Catholic schools are a global phenomenon, with the Catholic Church continuing to be the biggest single provider of schools around the world. This book by Boeve is in effect a gift to them, because it offers a way framing and justifying Catholic education and the presence of so many Catholic schools in highly positive terms. Boeve draws fruitfully from the theology of dialogue as championed by Edward Schillebeeckx and encapsulated by Vatican II's Gaudium et Spes, to demonstrate something unique and valuable about Catholic schools. They are, when at their best, hubs not for social division or an autonomy hindering education, but instead places of genuine dialogue. As such they foster social cohesion and enhance the sort of education parents might want for their children, as they grow up in a multi-cultural and multifaith world which is characterised by multiple world-views.

This volume sees Lieven Boeve adopt a biographical narrative as he casts an expert eye over his decade long work as the Director of Catholic Education in parts of Belgium (Flanders and Brussels). He is widely recognised as the first academic theologian to hold this sort of post in any part of the world. Since taking up this role, Boeve has gained wide international recognition because he embodied the challenge of bringing the practical reality of Catholic education into a creative relationship with systematic theology. He made the theology of dialogue central and demonstrated how it provides a theologically rich way of drawing out the relationship between Catholic education and its theological underpinnings. Boeve reflects on where he was successful in establishing the Catholic dialogue school, and in this provides pattern or model that others could emulate. He also reveals where the potential weaknesses might lie.

This volume will help the reader journey with Boeve over the last decade and gain a fuller grasp of the potential of the Catholic Dialogue School, and this way of underpinning the theology of Catholic education with contemporary systematic theology. It is a volume which deserves to be careful read and analysised because it brings both Catholic education and Catholic theology into positive and much needed alignment.
Sean Whittle, St Mary's University, UK

About the Author

Lieven Boeve is Professor of Fundamental Theology at KU Leuven, Belgium.