Last Updated: Tuesday - 07/13/2010

Catholic school trustees must act as spiritual guides – Motiuk

Bishop David Motiuk

EDMONTON - Being a school trustee is a sacred call to service, Bishop David Motiuk told members of the Alberta Catholic School Trustees' Association.

"Your trusteeship is a sacred task entrusted to you by God to ensure that Catholic education is, in turn, a gift to all our Catholic families," said the bishop of the Edmonton Ukrainian Eparchy.

"That means you have been given the task to be spiritual guides of students, parents and the community in which you serve."

Motiuk was the keynote speaker at the 2009 annual ACSTA convention. Some 200 trustees, superintendents, administrators and guests attended the event at the Westin Hotel Nov. 20-22.

Motiuk gave two talks at the convention, both on the role of the trustee.

In his opening address, he described trusteeship as "a vocation and a sacred trust given to us by God."

The vocation of trustee, like all vocations, is a call to holiness, he said. "We were created in the image and likeness of God and our call is to become holy; this is our vocation.

"In other words, we are partakers of the divine nature (of God) and that's the aim of our Christian life."

In practical terms, trustees are called to be spiritual guides of those whom they serve, the bishop said in his second presentation.

Trustees, he said, are also called to be "intercessors, counsellors, mediators and sponsors."

That is in addition to their role as politicians, goal setters, policy-makers, planners, communicators, information receivers and disseminators, advocates of education and role models.

"Our vocation as Catholic school trustees is to ensure that everyone has an opportunity and access to Catholic education," Motiuk said. "We are called to empower, to facilitate and to promote our faith."

Catholic education is not about one religion class that we teach on a Thursday afternoon by way of an option for those who don't have anything else to do with their time as students, the bishop said. "Catholic education is something that is permeated in everything that we do, everything that we are."

A Catholic school is not a duplicate of a public school.

"Our schools are indeed unique and distinct because that's where faith encounters our students and our parents and we are called to nurture that," the bishop said.

"We are called to remind (them) that Christ is constantly the centre of our schools and that faith permeates everything that we do in our curriculum."

Trustees must also ensure that students are seen as individuals, not numbers, and that they are offered the unique opportunity to study in a learning environment permeated by the Gospel values of truth, justice and love, Motiuk said.

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