The Pontifical Academy for Life has issued a statement calling attention to the damage that the Covid lockdown has done to children’s education.

(The Vatican statement attributes the damage to the Covid epidemic, but the text makes it clear that the problems arises from the lockdown rather than directly from the disease, which usually does not affect children.

“The psychosocial stress that children are subjected to, as a result of the pandemic, has resulted in distress and illnesses that have widely differing consequences based on age and social and environmental conditions,” the statement reads. The Pontifical Academy stresses the importance of education, and warns that the closing of schools has been a serious setback for young people. The Vatican statement calls for reopening schools as soon as possible.

In a curious phrase, an apparent recognition of the boom in home-schooling, the statement says that “families emerge as ‘network nodes’ on the path of formation and accompaniment.”