Ireland: Schools, Parishes and Families to celebrate Catholic Schools Week 2020

Catholic Schools Week 2020 will be celebrated from Sunday 26 January - Sunday 1 February on the theme 'Catholic Schools: Living in Harmony with God's Creation'. During Catholic Schools Week families, parishes and schools, North and South, are invited to participate in a week of celebration of Catholic schools and on their contribution to the common good of our society.

Commenting on this year's theme Father Paul Connell, Secretary of the Bishops' Council for Education, said: "The theme for Catholic Schools Week this year encourages us to see that we all have a responsibility to care for the earth, not just for our own future, but for the future of every one of God's creatures. In 2015, Pope Francis' wrote his encyclical Laudato Si', which was the basis of Catholic Schools Week in 2017. This year, we re-echo the messages of that encyclical.

"In Laudato Si' Pope Francis has very clearly delivered the message to people all over the world about the need for all of us to care for our common home. Pope Francis challenges us to look at our lifestyles. He asks for justice and equality, as it is clear that climate change is creating a huge amount of suffering and impacting the poorest of the poor in our world; the very people who did least to cause this situation. The hope of Catholic Schools Week 2020 is that we realise how powerful each and every one of us is and that even the smallest changes can have the biggest impact."

On each of the five school days of CSW2020 there will be an audio thought for the day made available on www.catholicbishops.ie. Kate Liffey, National Director for Catechetics with the Irish Catholic Bishops' Conference, will voice each of the five audio pieces and expand on each of the daily themes for CSW2020 which are:

· Monday: Living in Harmony with God

· Tuesday: Living in Harmony with our Neighbours

· Wednesday: Living in Harmony with all Generations

· Thursday: Living in Harmony with the Earth

· Friday: Living in Harmony in our Catholic School

User friendly resources for schools, parish and families are available to download from
www.catholicbishops.ie/2020/01/02/catholic-schools-living-in-harmony-with-gods-creation/

Schools are invited to share their Catholic Schools Week stories using the hashtags #CSW2020 and #CatholicSchoolsWeek2020.

For media contact: Catholic Communications Office Maynooth: Martin Long +353 (0) 86 172 7678 and Brenda Drumm +353 (0) 87 310 4444.