Oscar Romero Award Mass for Catholic Schools
To conclude Romero Week this year, Mass will be celebrated by Archbishop Wilson on Tuesday 28 March at 12.30 pm in St George's Cathedral, Southwark. The Oscar Romero Awards for 2023 will also be bestowed upon schools during the service.
The Oscar Romero Award offers a framework that supports Catholic schools to recognise and celebrate what they do to promote Catholic Social Teaching (CST) and challenges them to weave CST into the culture and ethos of the school through strategic planning, curriculum development and practical choices.
The work of the Oscar Romero Awards particularly advances the key Christian teaching of love of God and neighbour through key CST principles:
- Dignity of the human person – do the policies and strategic decisions that school takes promote the value and worth of each person – both pupils and staff - as a child of God.
- Option for the poor – do schools make extra effort to support pupils who are ‘poor’ in broadest sense of the term. This can be those who are educationally poor but also those who are materially poor.
- The common good – how schools are places of equity for all. How does the school promote diversity and inclusion among staff and pupils, and enable each to achieve their best – to experience a full life?
- Solidarity – the framework asks schools how they are standing up for others who are ‘othered’ and left behind? Importantly for us, it is not just about pupils but also members of staff and the wider community.
- Care for creation – in the practical strand, we ask how the school is promoting the care of creation in its strategic, curriculum and practical ways.
- Dignity of work and participation – the framework asks how school leaders are enabling all their staff to fulfil their potential by treating them with dignity and respect.
- Peace – the award asks how schools are promoting reconciliation, forgiveness and understanding between members of its community as well as in other communities.
The Oscar Romero Award is fully supported by Archbishop John Wilson and the Archdiocese of Southwark. If you are interested in finding out more for your school, click the link below:
Photograph above: the Romero Awards 2022, courtesy of Marcin Mazur
