Supporting the pastoral, spiritual and human formation at the heart of Benedictine education.
Education of the whole person
Benedictine education forms the whole person: intellectually, spiritually, morally, practically, and communally.
That means schools need more than classrooms and exam results. They need time and space for prayer, reflection, mentoring, community, service, and belonging.
The Foundation supports the programmes and places that help Benedictine schools remain Benedictine in practice, not just in name.
Mentorship in Chile
At Colegio San Lorenzo in Santiago, Chile, the Foundation gave a grant to support Tutoría, a mentorship programme based on lectio divina.
The school is run by the Manhueques, a Benedictine lay community, and serves a deprived suburb of Santiago. It struggles to fund pastoral activities because neither government nor corporate sponsors usually support this kind of work.
That grant changed the nature of the lesson. Students can now conduct experiments, not simply read descriptions of them.
Pilgrimage and belonging in Ormskirk
In the UK, the Foundation supported a pupil from St Bede’s Catholic High School, Ormskirk to take part in the school’s annual pilgrimage to Lourdes.
The grant opened to a young person to an experience that would otherwise have been unavailable: prayer, service, community, and the chance to be part of something larger than oneself.
Clean water is not a side issue. It is part of the infrastructure that allows children to learn.
Chapels, retreats and school life
A chapel is not an optional extra in a Benedictine school. It is one of the places where the school’s values become visible: prayer, silence, community, service and the formation of the whole person.
The Foundation has supported the enhancement of chapel provision at St Benedict’s Catholic School, Bury St Edmunds, a Catholic state school whose ethos is rooted in Benedictine values.
As more Benedictine schools are led by lay staff, formation matters in new ways. Schools need support for chaplaincy, retreats, leadership development and the passing on of Benedictine values to the next generation of teachers and pupils.
What your gift can fund
Give to formation
A gift to formation helps schools educate not only for achievement, but for wisdom, service, prayer and community.