Sophia Education Ministries (Sophia) is a Pontifical Public Juridic Person (PPJP) established by the ANZ Province of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (Society) to stand in the shoes of the Society in the carriage of the tradition of Sacred Heart Education in Australia and New Zealand.
The emphasis on the role of the laity at Vatican II was the stimulus for the change in the ANZ Province of the Society with lay people joining the Society in partnership in the Mission of education in the Church beginning in the 1970s.
In addition, the congregational reality of diminishing numbers of RSCJ in the ANZ Province led the Society, from 2013 to undertake discernment to develop the model of a PPJP. This culminated in a Petition to the Holy See in May 2016 and the approval that was granted in November 2016.
Sophia was granted canonical status as a PPJP by the Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life on 21 November 2016 and the civil entity was incorporated under the Corporations Act in 2017.
The accountability once exercised by the Society in relation to the Schools was transferred to, and accepted by, the Trustees (Directors) of Sophia on 1 November 2018.
In February 2019 the ownership of the three Australian Schools was transferred to Sophia.