Founder

Saint Joseph Calasanz, founder of the first Christian public school and of the Piarist Fathers, was born in Spain in 1557. Nine years after his ordination as a priest, he went to Rome, where he was struck by the misery of the youth in the poorest suburb of the city. He heard the voice of God calling him: "Joseph, give yourself for the poor. Teach these children and take care of them".

 

Calasanz, feeling pity upon the poor and abandon children living in Rome, founded in Santa Dorotea Church the "first public and free tuition school in Europe". His educational goal was expressed in his motto "Piety and Learning", that can be translated into "faith and culture". He called his work " Pious Schools".

 

The main point of his educational ideas was the respect for the personality of each child and looking at them as images of Christ. Through the Pious Schools, he tried to serve the physical and spiritual needs of the yoth commended to him. Calasanz became a friend of Galileo, the great scientist, and in the education of youth, he gave great importance to sciences and mathematics, as well as to humanities. In order to continue his educational work, he founded the Order of the Pious Schools, a Religious Order whose members, known as Piarists, profess four vows: poverty, chastity, obedience and dedication to the education of the youth.

 

The dream of Saint Joseph Calasanz of educating every child, his schools for the poor, his support to the sciences of Galileo, and his life of sanctity in the service of children and youth, carried with them the opposition of many among the governing classes in society and in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Nevertheless, Calasanz always showed an examplary attitude facing thre problems. He died in Rome, August 25, 1648, convinced that his Order and his dream would not die. And it was like that.

 

He was declared a saint in 1767, and the Pope Pius XII declared him, in 1948, "celestial patron of all the Christian popular schools". Recently, Pope John Paul affirmed that Saint Joseph Calasanz took as a model Christ, and he tried to transmit to the youth, besides the profane sciences, the wisdom of the Gospel, teaching them to grasp the loving harmony of God. The Church celebrates his feast on August 25.

 

© Curia Generalizia dei Padri Scolopi