Today the Church celebrates the figure of Saint Joseph Calasanz, a Spanish priest who lived between the 16th and 17th centuries, whose name is inextricably linked to the birth of the modern public school. Upon arriving in Rome, the future saint was deeply struck by the material and moral misery, but above all by the ignorance in which the children of the Trastevere district lived. Faced with this dramatic degradation, Calasanz did not stand by and watch: in 1597 he made a decision destined to mark the history of Europe, opening the first public, Catholic, and totally free school on the continent. Convinced that education was the most effective tool for social and spiritual redemption for the weakest, he dedicated all his energy to this mission, founding the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, known as the Piarists. His pedagogical intuition was ahead of its time, placing culture within the reach of the marginalized and rescuing them from delinquency and exploitation. Today, in remembering the patron saint of Christian public schools, we celebrate a pioneer who understood that investing in the education of youth means building solid foundations for a future of justice and human dignity.
