Contextualizing authority for the religion teacher

Catholic schoolteachers face the pedagogical dilemma between remaining faithful to the doctrinal requirements of Catholic Church teaching while also respecting their professional responsibility to promote autonomous, critical thinking and consider the pastoral needs of their students. Although in practice many Catholic educators achieve a sensitive rapprochement, this article proposes that in addition to the current prevailing theoretical terms of their teaching and learning climate Catholic educators would benefit from the articulation of a conceptually clarified pedagogical context that appropriately enables them to justify theological dissent as a means of satisfying students' moral, political, and intellectual needs.