Education should form conscience, not merely transmit information

SIVAGANGAI, Tamil Nadu (Indian Catholic News) — The bishop of Sivagangai in southern India said Catholic education must form conscience, not merely transmit information, warning that digital culture is creating a generation less resilient, reflective and socially responsible.

Bishop Lourdu Anandam of Sivagangai said today’s youth face unprecedented challenges because screens increasingly shape how they think, relate and understand the world.

“Never before has a generation lived so connected and yet so lonely; so informed and yet so unreflective; so expressive and yet so inwardly fragile,” he wrote in a pastoral reflection titled Youth Between Screens and Society: A Pastoral Reflection on the Formation of Young Minds in Our Time.

“The modern screen whether cinema, mobile phone, social media, or digital entertainment has become the invisible classroom, the silent preacher, the emotional architect, and the cultural dictator of our age,” Bishop Anandam pointed out.

He said young people are “continuously fed not with wisdom but with stimulation; not with truth but with impressions; not with discernment but with emotional triggers.”

According to the bishop, many now experience reality “through screens,” leading to diminished resilience in facing “hardship, sacrifice, discipline, patience, rejection, and responsibility.”

Bishop Anandam also warned that digital culture encourages “appearance over character, reaction over reflection, popularity over integrity,” creating a generation that “often seeks escape rather than endurance, sensation rather than substance, visibility rather than virtue.”

Quoting St. Paul, he wrote: “Do not conform yourselves to this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”

Education must shape conscience

Bishop Anandam questioned whether educational institutions are adequately preparing young people for responsible citizenship and moral leadership.

“What kind of education are we giving our young people?” he asked. “Have our schools and colleges merely prepared them for examinations and employment while neglecting character, social consciousness, civic responsibility, and moral courage?”

He added: “Have we trained them to compete but not to care? To consume but not to contribute? To achieve but not to serve?”

Calling for a broader vision of education, Bishop Anandam wrote: “True education is not merely the transmission of information. It is the formation of conscience. Education must produce young men and women who can think deeply, love generously, act courageously, and stand responsibly within society.”

He cited Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Christus Vivit (Christ is Alive!), quoting the late pope’s warning that “Young people need to develop their critical thinking in relation to the seductive and invasive offerings of consumer society.”

He also quoted Francis as saying: “The digital world can expose you to the risk of self-absorption, isolation and empty pleasure.”

Church called to form responsible citizens

The bishop said the Church cannot remain passive while young minds are shaped by “digital forces, commercial interests, and ideological manipulation.”

“Our dioceses, parishes, youth movements, schools, and colleges must become centres of integral human formation,” Bishop Anandam wrote.

“The mission of the Church is not only sacramental administration but also the formation of socially responsible citizens rooted in faith, culture, language, and moral values.”

Bishop Anandam urged Catholic institutions to cultivate “critical thinking, ethical responsibility, civic consciousness, dialogue, ecological sensitivity, and concern for the common good.”

Parish youth groups, he said, “cannot remain mere organizers of celebrations and events; they must become centres of leadership, prayer, social awareness, and intellectual formation.”

The reflection concludes with an appeal for families, schools and Church institutions to work together so young people become “not victims of digital manipulation, but witnesses of truth,” “not passive consumers of culture, but creators of a just and compassionate society,” and “not followers of trends, but disciples of Christ.”

Read the bishop’s reflection.