Mission Statement
The USCCB Department of Education assists the bishops in their pastoral mission of teaching and promoting catechesis and education as a life-long process of total Catholic education that has, at its heart, evangelization.
The department staffs the USCCB Committee on Education and its related committees and implements their directives and recommendations.
The department works collaboratively with other USCCB secretariats and departments, as well as with national, state, and local organizations that participate in the service of the Church's educational and catechetical ministries. The department represents the interests of the Church's educational and catechetical ministries with national, state, and local agencies that affect these ministries.
- To provide leadership in collaboration with national and professional Catholic organizations for the betterment of Catholic educational institutions and for the promotion of ongoing faith formation for youth, young adults, and adults through catechesis and related ministries.
- To foster maximum participation of parents, teachers, and students served by Catholic educational institutions in programs of federal assistance, to represent the Catholic voice in the educational community of this country, to encourage the continued Catholic identity of institutions of higher education, and to provide guidance on issues of public policy.
- To support the catechetical ministry of the Church in the United States by developing guidelines for the creation of doctrinally sound textbooks and by providing for their implementation.
- To provide leadership for actualizing the vital role of parents, as primary educators, and pastors in the enterprise of Catholic education.
- To engage in ecumenical and interreligious dialogue and cooperation.