Joseph Calasanz
Joseph Calasanz , also known as Joseph Calasanctius and Josephus a Matre Dei, was a Spanish Catholic priest, educator and the founder of the Pious Schools, which provided free education to poor boys. For this purpose he founded the religious order that ran them, commonly known as the Piarists. He became a close friend of the renowned astronomer Galileo Galilei. Joseph is honored as a saint by the Catholic Church, following his 1767 papal canonisation.
Early biography
Calasanz was born in Peralta de Calasanz in the Kingdom of Aragon, on September 11, 1557, the youngest in a family of eight children, and the second son. His parents were Pedro de Calasanz y de Mur, an and town mayor, and Pedro's wife María Gastón y de Sala. Joseph had two sisters, Marta and Cristina. In his youth, he was nearly two meters tall. His parents gave him a good education at home and then at the elementary school of Peralta. In 1569, he was sent for classical studies to a college in Estadilla run by the friars of the Trinitarian Order. While there, at the age of 14, he determined that he wanted to become a priest. In this, however, he met with no support from his parents.For his higher studies, Calasanz took up philosophy and law at the University of Lleida, where he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws cum laude. He then began theology studies at the University of Valencia and at the Complutense University, which at the time was still located at its original site in Alcalá de Henares.
Joseph's mother and brother having died, his father wanted him to marry and carry on the family. But a sickness in 1582 soon brought Joseph to the brink of the grave, which caused his father to relent. When he recovered, the Bishop of Urgel, Hugo Ambrosio de Moncada, ordained him as a priest on December 17, 1583.
During his ecclesiastical career in Spain, Calasanz held various offices in his native region. He began his ministry in the diocese of Albarracín, where Bishop Gaspar Juan de la Figuera appointed him his theologian, confessor, synodal examiner, and procurator. When the bishop was transferred to Lerida, Calasanz followed him to the new diocese. During that period, he spent several years in La Seu d'Urgell. As secretary of the cathedral chapter, Calasanz had broad administrative responsibilities. In Claverol, a distant village to the northeast of Lerida, he established a foundation that distributed food to the poor.
In October 1585, Bishop de la Figuera was sent as apostolic visitor to the Abbey of Montserrat and Calasanz accompanied him as his secretary. The bishop died the following year and Calasanz left, though urgently requested to remain. He hurried to Peralta de Calasanz to attend the death of his father. He was then called by the Bishop of Urgel to act as vicar general for the district of Tremp.
In Rome
In 1592, at 35, Calasanz moved to Rome. He hoped to further his ecclesiastical career and secure some kind of benefice. He lived there for most of his remaining 56 years. In Rome, Calasanz found a protector in Cardinal Marcoantonio Colonna, who chose him as his theologian and, once he had learned to express himself in Italian, entrusted him with the spiritual direction of his household. The city of Rome offered many opportunities for works of charity, especially for the instruction of neglected and homeless children, many of whom had lost their parents. Joseph joined the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine and gathered boys from the streets for religious instruction and other schooling. However, this initiative was not well received by teachers at the school. Being poorly paid, they refused to accept the additional labor without remuneration.The pastor of the Church of Santa Dorotea in Trastevere, Anthony Brendani, offered Joseph two rooms just off of the parish sacristy and promised assistance in teaching, and when two other priests promised similar help, Calasanz, in 1597, opened what was thought to be the first free public school in Europe.
On Christmas Day in 1598, the Tiber flooded its banks to historic levels, reaching an additional depth of nearly 20 m above its normal level. The devastation was widespread. Hundreds of the already poor families who lived along the river's banks were left homeless and without food. The death toll was estimated at about 2,000. Calasanz threw himself into the response, joining a religious fraternity dedicated to helping the poor, and began to help in the cleaning up and recovery of the city. In 1600, he opened his “Pious School” in the center of Rome and soon there were extensions, in response to growing demands for enrollment from students.
Pope Clement VIII began making an annual contribution and many others gave their financial support to the work so that in a short time Calasanz had about 1,000 children under his charge. In 1602, he rented a house near Sant'Andrea della Valle, commenced a community life with his assistants, and laid the foundation of the Order of the Pious Schools or Piarists. In 1610, Calasanz wrote the Documentum Princeps in which he laid out the fundamental principles of his educational philosophy. The text was accompanied by regulations for teachers and for pupils.
On September 15, 1616, the first public and free school in Frascati was started up on Calasanz's initiative. One year later, on March 6, 1617, Pope Paul V approved Calasanz's group as the Pauline Congregation of the Poor of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, the first religious institute dedicated essentially to teaching, by his brief "Ad ea per quae." On March 25, 1617, he and his fourteen assistants received the Piarist habit and became the first members of the new congregation. The habits were paid for by the Cardinal Protector Justiniani, who with his own hands invested Joseph Calasanz in the chapel of his palace. They were the very first priests to have as their primary ministry teaching in elementary schools. Emphasising love, not fear, St. Joseph wrote: "if from the very earliest years, a child is instructed in both religion and letters, it can be reasonably hoped that his life will be happy."
While residing in Rome, Joseph endeavored to visit the seven principal churches of that city almost every evening, and also to honor the tombs of the Roman martyrs. During one of the city's many outbreaks of plague, a holy rivalry existed between him and St. Camillus in aiding the sick and in personally carrying away for burial the bodies of those who had been stricken. On account of his heroic patience and fortitude in the midst of trouble and persecution, he was called a marvel of Christian courage, a second Job. During the following years, Calasanz established Pious Schools in various parts of Europe.
In October 1628 he was a guest of the Conti di Segni family in Poli and there, too, he established the Pious Schools. After convincing the pope of the need to approve a religious order with solemn vows dedicated exclusively to the education of youth, the congregation was raised to that status on November 18, 1621, by a papal brief of Pope Gregory XV, under the name of Ordo Clericorum Regularium Pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum. The modern abbreviation "Sch. P." following the name of the Piarist stands for Scholarum Piarum, Latin for "of the Pious Schools". The Order's Constitutions were approved by Gregory XV 1621, and the order was granted all the privileges of the mendicant orders, Calasanz being recognised as superior general. The Order of the Pious Schools was thus the last of the religious Orders of solemn vows approved by the Church. The Piarists, as do many religious, profess vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. In addition, according to the wishes of St. Joseph, members of the Order also profess a fourth vow to dedicate their lives to the education of youth.
Educational ideas
The concept of free education for the poor was not exclusive to Calasanz. In the Duchy of Lorraine, a similar project was being undertaken simultaneously by the Augustinians Peter Fourier and Alix Le Clerc, whose educational heritage was carried to New France. As recognised by Ludwig von Pastor, Calasanz was the founder of the first free public school in modern Europe. In both cases, it was a revolutionary initiative, a radical break with the class privileges that kept the masses marginalised and in poverty. In the history of education, Calasanz is an educator of the poor, offering education free of charge to all classes of society, without discrimination.Calasanz displayed the same moral courage, in his attitude to victims of the Inquisition, such as Galileo and Campanella, and in the acceptance of Jewish children in his schools, where they were treated with the same respect as other pupils. Similarly, Protestant pupils were enrolled in his schools in Germany. So great and universal was Calasanz's prestige that he was even asked by the Ottoman Empire to set up schools there, a request which he could not, to his regret, fulfill, due to a lack of teachers. He organised and systematised a method of educating primary school pupils through progressive levels or cycles, a system of vocational training, and a system of public secondary education.
In an era when no one else was interested in public education, Calasanz managed to set up schools with a highly complex structure. He was concerned with physical education and hygiene. He addressed the subject in various documents and requested school directors to monitor children's health.
Calasanz taught his students to read both in Latin and in the vernacular. While maintaining the study of Latin, he was a strong defender of vernacular languages, and had textbooks, including those used for teaching Latin, written in the vernacular. In that respect he was more advanced than his contemporaries.
Calasanz placed great emphasis on the teaching of mathematics. Training in mathematics and science was considered very important in his Pious Schools, both for pupils and teachers. But Calasanz's main concern was undoubtedly the moral and Christian education of his students. As both priest and educator, he considered education to be the best way of changing society. All his writing is imbued with his Christian ideals, and the constitutions and regulations of the Pious Schools were based on the same spirit. Calasanz created an ideal image of a Christian teacher and used it to train the teachers who worked with him.
Calasanz wrote a version of the prayer "The Crown of Twelve Stars," and he established continuous prayer in all his schools. Calasanz was the first educator to advocate the preventive method: it is better to anticipate mischievous behaviour than to punish it. This method was later developed by John Bosco, the founder of the Salesian schools. In terms of discipline, and contrary to the prevailing philosophy of his own and subsequent eras, Calasanz favored the mildest punishment possible. While believing that punishment was necessary in certain cases, he always preached moderation, love and kindness as the basis of any discipline.