Letter for the Start of the 2025-2026 School and Sports Year

Palermo, August 29, 2025

To the entire Gonzaga Campus community

(students, parents, non-teaching staff,

members of Ignatian groups and associations)

Dear families, dear students, educators of the Gonzaga Campus,

with great joy and deep gratitude, I welcome you to the beginning of a new school year.

The beginning of each year is always a precious time, full of expectations, dreams, and projects. It is a time when the energies of our entire educational community are set in motion once again. And this year, more than ever, we feel challenged by a historical moment that asks us to be witnesses and builders of hope.

1. Theme of the year: "To build a world of peace"

The Pastoral Ministry of the Network of Jesuit Schools proposes for this school year a theme that is more relevant than ever: "To build a world of peace."

We live in a historical context marked by too many wars, divisions, and injustices that unfortunately do not spare even children. Faced with all this, as educators, parents, and citizens, we cannot remain indifferent. Peace is not a distant dream, nor a word to be spoken once a year. It is a daily choice, an educational task.

School is the first place to learn peace, starting with our language: among the desks, in the hallways, in relationships between peers, in respect for teachers, in the way conflicts are addressed, in the beauty of dialogue. Here we learn to listen, to understand, to build bridges. Peace is educated, it is not born on its own.

Pope Francis has repeatedly urged us to cultivate peace in the hearts of young people and to be "artisans of peace," forcefully recalling the magisterium of the popes who preceded him. Already Pope Leo XIII, at the end of the 19th century, warned against the divisions and injustices that undermine civil coexistence, and invited us to seek solutions based on respect for human dignity, dialogue, and social justice. And Pope Leo XIV began his pontificate invoking a "disarming and disarmed peace" that is first and foremost a gift from God.

We commit ourselves, as the Gonzaga community, to live this school year by "disarming" ourselves to embrace the logic of a peace that arises from looking at the other, from caring for the common good, and from educating the heart.

2. The canonization of two young former Jesuit students

An event of great importance will accompany our start of the school year. On September 7, 2025, in Rome, two extraordinary young people will be canonized: Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis.

Both were former students of Jesuit schools, and today the Church recognizes them as models of contemporary holiness.

Pier Giorgio Frassati, a young man from Turin in the early twentieth century, a former student of the Sociale in Turin, was able to live a deep faith combined with great attention to the poor, the least, and the sick. They called him "the man of the beatitudes." Carlo Acutis, a boy of our time, a former student of the Leone XIII in Milan, where his professors still remember him for his kindness, for his lively curiosity and attention to the weakest, for his passion for the Eucharist. In his simplicity, he is increasingly becoming a point of reference for many young people who are looking for meaning in their lives.

Those who wish to participate in the Holy Mass in St. Peter's Square can request a pass by writing as soon as possible to: cinardo.emiosalvatore@gonzagapalermo.it or to miklos.claudiujani@gonzagapalarmo.it

The pass request must be made by Tuesday, September 2.

We have a certain number of passes reserved for Jesuit schools. Furthermore, a small

group is organizing to go to Rome (if you want, you can also contact Fr. Claudiu or Prof. Emio Cinardo for this) and I myself will be among the concelebrants of the Mass. It will be an opportunity to feel part of the living universal Church and to be inspired by the testimony of two young people who have been able to embody the Gospel with courage and authenticity in their time.

3. The 300th anniversary of the canonization of Saint Luigi Gonzaga

2025 will also be a special year for us: in fact, it marks the 300th anniversary of the canonization of another young saint, Saint Luigi Gonzaga, to whom our school is dedicated.

For his young age, Saint Luigi, who lived in the sixteenth century, was proclaimed the patron saint of youth: he embodies that youthful spirit that demands radicalism and does not stop at compromises: radicalism in following Christ, renouncing riches and honors; radicalism in serving the sick during an epidemic of plague, even at the cost of losing his life at only 23 years old.

His figure, together with that of Piergiorgio and Carlo, continues to speak to us today, especially to young people: it reminds us that holiness is possible, that one can live with authenticity, that true greatness lies in serving. During the year, the Gonzaga Campus will propose moments of reflection, celebrations, cultural and educational initiatives to better understand his life and let ourselves be guided by his example.

We must let ourselves be challenged and perhaps "converted" by these figures of young holiness to look with hope at the present and the future.

4. The challenge of artificial intelligence

Thus we prepare for a new school year that presents us with many challenges as always. Among them, in addition to the absurdity of the wars that surround us and that require our attention as educators, is that of artificial intelligence. In a time marked by rapid digital transformations, it is essential that the school questions itself, updates itself, and renews its teaching practices to consciously accompany young people. As a community of educators, we have decided to put it at the center of the restart days of our school community. From September 1st, all the teachers of the campus will participate in an intensive training on Artificial Intelligence and the educational challenges of technologies.

I think it is good that everyone knows about this time of preparation for the new school year by the teachers. It is always experienced as a precious time of waiting in which we prepare everything in the best way to welcome our students, the most precious gift entrusted to us. We always ask ourselves how to accompany them to inhabit the world that awaits them in an authentic and critical way, carrying within us the complexity of reality and the joy of educating. May Carlo Acutis, who will be the patron saint of the Internet, help us to reflect and prepare ourselves on the educational challenges of technologies.

The novelties of the Gonzaga Campus for the year 2025–2026

Alongside the spiritual and value dimensions, the new year brings with it important structural and organizational innovations, which strengthen our commitment to offering a complete and innovative educational experience. In this circular I can only provide an overview: it will take other circulars from the undersigned or the coordinators to go into detail about these and other innovations that we have prepared for the new school year.

1. The new Nursery of the Gonzaga Campus

As partly already announced, starting from September, the Gonzaga will have the joy of welcoming the little ones: in fact, for the first time it will open its doors to children from 6 months of age, with

the inauguration of the new Nursery School.

It is an important step, which marks the extension of our educational project from the earliest childhood. The environments have been completely redeveloped, designed to ensure safety, sensory stimulation and affective care. In these difficult times we want to welcome them, the little ones, in a climate of trust and beauty, which accompanies families in the delicate task of raising their children. Let us always remember that by helping the little ones grow, we also grow as parents and as educators, precisely because a school like ours is not only made up of efficient services but of a community project that puts children and then young people at the center, so that together we can build a better world.

2. The new Liceo of Human Sciences

The educational offer of the Italian school is also enriched with the launch of the new Liceo of Human Sciences, which seemed to us a high school address capable of taking up the Jesuit humanistic tradition in comparison with today's social challenges. We are convinced that it is a high school that looks to the future, where the dimension of care will remain essential even in the face of increasingly rapid technological changes, and that it can speak to young people who wish to understand the human being in its complexity and prepare for professions related to the educational, social and psychological world.

3. The reopening of the Casina Whitaker

After a long and careful restoration, the Casina Whitaker is ready to reopen. The internal and external spaces, completely renovated, will once again house the offices of the Campus's management, administration and secretariat. It will also be a valuable space for the afternoon activities of high school students. A historic place that comes back to life, at the service of the community.

4. The sporting dimension within the campus

Our Sports Association continues to grow and enriches the educational offer of the Gonzaga Campus.

We strongly believe in this synergy between sport and school and we are trying to make these aspects increasingly synergistic in view of the integral formation of children and young people. To an already wide offer (soccer, basketball, minibasket, tennis, volleyball, ju jitsu, kickboxing, multisport, artistic skating, artistic gymnastics), this year also adds classical and contemporary dance. It is a discipline that unites body, mind and artistic expression, and that further enriches the possibility for our students to discover and cultivate their passions.

At the same time, the work of renovating sports infrastructures also continues:

you will find the surface of two new five-a-side football pitches redone, to offer ever greater safe and functional spaces.

5. Palermo Calcio Academy

A project that we care a lot about, which we have been working on for some time and which has materialized this summer is the establishment of the Palermo Calcio Academy at the Gonzaga Campus. This is a project that, in continuity with the importance given to sport as a precious tool for the education of the new generations and with the opening of the Scientific Sports High School a few years ago, provides a residential place for the athletes of Palermo calcio who can find at Gonzaga a place of significant growth precisely in the synergy between sports commitments, school and human formation.

For this reason, a floor of the Community of Fathers has been used as a guesthouse to accommodate the young athletes of Palermo Calcio, offering them a serene, well-kept and stimulating environment.

6. Civil Service: 100 young people at the service of young people

Also this year we will welcome, in the coming weeks, the young people of the civil service of the network "Il Gonzaga con i giovani in Sicilia". As the leader of the network, we strongly believe in the potential of young people for the growth of this land and we believe that this project puts into circulation beautiful energies that are helpful to many realities and also to the young people who do it. This year there are 100 young people in Civil Service, involved in social and educational activities in Palermo, Catania and Messina. 35 of them will be inserted within the Italian School, the International School and the Sports Association, bringing skills, creativity and desire to make a difference. We welcome them with joy and openness.

Information in view of the resumption of the school year

Starting from Monday, September 1st, through the electronic register, you will receive the specific communications of each complex with all the logistical and didactic indications for the first days of school.

Let me give here only some very general information.

First of all, I remind you that the secretarial and administrative offices are already open to the public, from Monday to Friday, during the following hours: 8:00 - 9:30 and 12:00 - 13:30 and are ready again this year to support you in a serene resumption of school activities.

Moving on to the school, I inform you that from this year, all the didactic activities of both the Italian school and the international school will start 10 minutes earlier than last year. A simple but important choice, to improve the management of time and promote greater harmony in the rhythms of learning and in the logistics of the Campus.

• The International School Palermo will begin on Monday, September 08, full time, with the canteen service included.

• The Italian school will begin as specified below:

• Kindergarten: Monday, September 08. Start of full time from Monday, September 15.

• Primary: Monday, September 15 for the first grades; Wednesday, September 17 for the remaining grades (from

second to fifth). Full time from Monday, September 22.

• Middle School: Monday, September 15, 2025. Start of full time Monday, September 22.

• High Schools: Monday, September 15, 2025.

To all of you, dear families, students, educators, operators and friends of the Gonzaga Campus, may my sincere wishes reach you for a year rich in life, peace, growth and beauty. Together, we can continue to build an educational environment capable of generating the future.

Happy school year to all!

With affection and esteem

Fr. Vitangelo Carlo Maria Denora SJ

General Director Gonzaga Campus