Aug 20, 2026 · 35 min · 10 segments
This episode explores the development and early implementation of the new Religious Education Curriculum across MACS. Bringing together the curriculum's writers and key contributors, the discussion…
Kath EngebretsonGuest
Carl HodeGuest
Danny JaberHostJames O'BrienGuest
Catherine, I'm going to start with you as kind of the lead surrounding this RE curriculum development.
It's actually been 18 years since we had a new religious education curriculum in this Archdiocese that was approved by the Archbishop.
So over the course of Catholic education in this Archdiocese, if we look back over the history, We'll see that there are waves of different kinds of methodologies, beginning with First Settlement, a rote learning methodology.
Then into the 60s, 1960s, the Australian bishops combined to promote a series of textbooks called My Way to God, which were used all over Australian Catholic schools.
Then into the 60s with the Second Vatican Council, a new sort of understanding or recognition of something called natural revelation, which pointed to human experience as being a place where God meets people.
And so we had for a long time a methodology called a life experience approach, which began with the students' experience and moved from there into knowledge about the church and tradition itself.
Then in the middle 90s, with the new Archbishop, we began to develop an Archdiocesan series of religious education textbooks, and that's still very much in existence and still going, the To Know, Worship and Love, which is used all across Australia.
Then, of course, 2008, there was developed a curriculum around that called Coming to Know, Worship and Love.
But in general, we face a situation where there's no real coherence or no real commonality around the way the subject is taught.
So it really is high time that we have a new Archbishop-directed religious education curriculum.
Catherine, I'm going to start with you as kind of the lead surrounding this RE curriculum development.
It's actually been 18 years since we had a new religious education curriculum in this Archdiocese that was approved by the Archbishop.
So over the course of Catholic education in this Archdiocese, if we look back over the history, We'll see that there are waves of different kinds of methodologies, beginning with First Settlement, a rote learning methodology.
Then into the 60s, 1960s, the Australian bishops combined to promote a series of textbooks called My Way to God, which were used all over Australian Catholic schools.
Then into the 60s with the Second Vatican Council, a new sort of understanding or recognition of something called natural revelation, which pointed to human experience as being a place where God meets people.
And so we had for a long time a methodology called a life experience approach, which began with the students' experience and moved from there into knowledge about the church and tradition itself.
Then in the middle 90s, with the new Archbishop, we began to develop an Archdiocesan series of religious education textbooks, and that's still very much in existence and still going, the To Know, Worship and Love, which is used all across Australia.
Then, of course, 2008, there was developed a curriculum around that called Coming to Know, Worship and Love.
But in general, we face a situation where there's no real coherence or no real commonality around the way the subject is taught.
So it really is high time that we have a new Archbishop-directed religious education curriculum.
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