Brazil. Father Claret would have been delighted to be there. Twenty one Claretians, from the Congregation and Lay, coming from China, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and various places of Brazil, gathered to share the experience of education at a distance (EAD), to think together about the interchange of knowledge, experiences and mutual consultancy and to create a congregational net of this modality of teaching-learning with a Claretian hint.
We feel that we are in a session, classical and new at the same time, of the San Miguel Academy that Fr. Claret promoted with so much enthusiasm and creativity. The Claretian University Centre (CEUCLAR) of Batatais, in the State of São Paulo, with its modern and reputable campus that offers 63 careers, received us. From March 30 to April 4, we had the opportunity of knowing also the great work which the Centre of Distance Education (CEAD), of Santiago de Chile and the Centre of Philosophical and Theological Studies (CEFYT) of Cordoba, in Argentina, have been consolidating in relation to the biblical and theological formation. We got to know the Claretian University Foundation (FUCLA), which was born three years ago in the mission of Chocó (Colombia), as a ripe fruit of the 100 years that the Congregation has been present in that country.
Two persons were especially meaningful in this event, convoked by the Claretian Interprovincial Confederation of Latin America (CICLA): One was Fr. Francisco Carín, from the community of Beijing (China) who, within that challenging experience of Asia, with impact responses like the Claretian Publications, wants to discover the possible ways to the evangelization in the net, in an absolutely particular socio-political context and in the vast Chinese subcontinent. The other was the Claretian Bishop Gaspar Quintana, always fraternal, who in the Claretian novelty looks for the elements to strengthen the knowledge and the faith of the people of his diocese of Copiapó in the north of Chile.
A documented conference of Fr. Alfredo Melani, from Argentina, made us see that the EAD is in the most genuine line of evangelization by all possible means and in the congregational mandate of response to the most urgent, opportune and efficient. We shared the progress of the various higher education centres that offer the on-line modality with vanguard proposals: “the social panamasonic inclusion,” “the university of the poor,” “the democratization of the higher learning,” “the global knowledge within reach of the click,” “shared mission with no limits through the TICs.”
To the design of this Claretian net of higher education are convoked the valuable educational experience and the learned knowledge of the institutes of Theology of Consecrated Life of Madrid, Rome, Bangalore (India) and Manila (Philippines), who could not be present in Batatais this time, but are outstanding references of these bold routes of evangelization in the world of knowledge.
At the end of this new version of the Academy started by Fr. Claret, the participants defined the creation of a virtual net which will make possible the interchange of programs, the circularity of contents and the consolidation of the Claretian nature in higher education.
