Pope urges university staff and
students to pursue integral education
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| Students and teachers of Rome's LUMSA university take photos of Pope Francis (AFP) |
Pope Francis on Thursday greets staff and students of Rome’s
Catholic LUMSA University as the institute celebrates 80 years from its
foundation, and urges them to pursue integral education in a fragmented world
full of contradictions.
By Linda Bordoni
The LUMSA (Libera Università degli Studi Maria Ss. Assunta
di Roma), Rome’s second oldest University, was founded by the Venerable Luigia
Tincani, who dedicated her life to creating initiatives for education and the
apostolate in schools, with the help of Pope Pius XII.
Greeting teachers, students and staff in the Vatican, Pope
Francis recalled the fact that the university was founded in 1939 in response
to a need that is still urgent today: training educators.
He underscored the need to place that mission in the context
of the change of epoch that we are currently experiencing and noted that the
very term, "university", designates a community, but also an idea of
convergence of knowledge, in the search to provide truth and meaning to
dialogue between all men and women in the world.
Nurturing a culture of encounter and solidarity
He said it is a high task to be aware and worthy of, and he
invited those present to commit themselves to projects of sharing and service,
“in order to make our city of Rome grow in the sense of belonging to a common
homeland”.
“Working with projects, even small ones, that encourage
encounter and solidarity, we can regain a sense of trust in life together,” he
said.
Pope Francis noted that a university gives formation “which
starts from the person and reaches the person” and said that in the case of a
Catholic university, “where the adjective Catholic does not
introduce a distinction, but rather a surplus of exemplariness.”
Four points
He reflected on four points, indicating the
responsibilities and aims of a Catholic institute of higher learning.
First he highlighted the need for community saying that “The
university community always works for the future, but does so with a strong
awareness of its roots and a realistic perception of the present”.
Second, he spoke of the institution’s missionary
responsibility before the world saying that the formation it offers must
include curricular knowledge but also space for the integral formation of the
person.
Thirdly he stressed a “social responsibility” saying that
the university is called to activate virtuous circuits of integral development
with the living forces of society.
“We need the courage to get involved. Open our offices - in
Palermo, Taranto, and Rome - to the old and new realities of poverty,” he said.
In his fourth and final point, Pope Francis said there is an
inter-university responsibility and he noted that Europe, that has been the
cradle of universities, must retrieve its meaning by continuing to work in the
university system at all levels and in particular with Catholic universities so
that a fruitful climate of cooperation, exchange and mutual help may be
created.
The Pope concluded his address encouraging students,
teachers, and leaders of the university community to open their hearts and
minds, and to never be content with an “apparently hegemonic thinking” in a
world in which diversity is conflict.
“I recall,” he said, “the motto of the University: In
fide et humanitate. That et means integral education, in a
globalized and fragmented world, full of contradictions, which requires so much
work together. A serious, creative, artisanal work, that passes through the
mind, the heart, and the hands”.
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