The International Safeguarding Meeting of the Order of the Pious Schools begins
Around forty Safeguarding leads from all the Demarcations of the Order are gathered these days in Madrid for an international Safeguarding meeting under the motto: We Listen, We Prevent, We Care.
The aim is to lay the foundations of a culture of the Order focused on moving beyond improvised or individual responses in order to build “something deeper: a way of working and living together that is shared in responsibility, structured in practice, and sustained in commitment”.
On this first day the participants introduced themselves. Fr Jorge Iván Ruiz, Provincial of Bethany, which is hosting the meeting, welcomed the attendees. Father General Carles Gil also offered words of encouragement, and Fr József Urbán, coordinator of the Safeguarding Team, introduced the day’s work.
Father Carles Gil set out several keys that will be explored throughout this week and made explicit the core lines of the Order in this regard. Fr Carles urged those present to work to build a culture of safeguarding “together”. It is not enough to say “safe spaces”; rather, “we must build environments where people can grow integrally, with Piarist identity”. It is not only a demand of justice: “it is a condition for being able to carry out our mission”. In this sense, safeguarding cannot be seen as an administrative burden, “but as an essential dimension of our Piarist vocation”, and a responsibility that binds us all—one from which no one can be left behind.
Humility, then, is the key word. As the Father General indicates, “we are not a community of saints, but of men and women who want to follow Christ in truth”. Therefore, what affects society “also affects us”. It is not about looking back in fear, “but looking ahead with responsibility”, he explained in his address. “Transparency does not destroy us; it purifies us.”
Fr József Urbán, coordinator of the Order’s Safeguarding Team, emphasised in his presentation that safeguarding is not a matter of procedures or methods, “but of culture: of how we inhabit our mission, how we live together, how we relate to the people entrusted to us”. For this reason, Urbán recalled the paradigm shift: in situations of vulnerability we should not look for culprits, but approach them from our responsibility as Piarist educators. “This is what safeguarding means for us: to educate as an act of justice and love, to protect as an act of faith and hope,” he explained. He framed the meeting around three axes: “not only to understand vulnerability, but to transform the culture that produces it; not only to react to harm, but to cultivate responsibility; and not only to avoid failure, but to build trust”.
In addition, during the morning, Mayra Medina—member of the Order’s General Team for Safeguarding—presented the Order’s Framework Document and offered the Piarist historical context, as well as sharing the first working guidelines around Safeguarding. In the afternoon, through group dynamics, participants were able to share the situation in each of their contexts and begin to prioritise common lines across different sensibilities.
