Pope Francis says "If the word "university" derives from "universe", that is to say the "set of all things", the adjective "Catholic" strengthens and inspires it." FULL TEXT

SPEECH OF THE HOLY FATHER FRANCIS

TO PARTICIPANTS IN THE CONFERENCE PROMOTED BY

"ORGANIZACIÓN DE UNIVERSIDADES CATÓLICAS DE AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE"

Clementine Hall on Thursday, May 4, 2023

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Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!

I greet Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, and I thank him for his courteous words. I greet the President of ODUCAL, Ing. Rodolfo Gallo Cornejo, the Vice-Presidents of the Andean, Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sub-Regions and the Southern Cone.

And I greet you members of the Organization who are in Rome to commemorate the 70th anniversary of its creation.

You have come united by the collaborative and fraternal spirit that characterizes the organization and you come together, on this particular occasion, to enrich the ties and strengthen the network starting from work in communion.

ODUCAL, founded in Chile by Archbishop Alfredo Silva Santiago, Archbishop of the Diocese of Concepción, with the support of other universities, is made up of 115 universities, which currently represents 1,500,000 students, more than 110,000 teachers and more than 5,000 programs academics of different levels. It is the largest organization within the International Federation of Catholic Universities (the FIUC). This ensures that the Organization enjoys solidity in its academic work and, at the same time, has in its hands a great responsibility, both for the present and for the future of Latin America. One of ODUCAL's objectives is rightly to «contribute to the formulation of public policies relating to education, both in national and above all supranational contexts».

In this sense, and looking at the reality of our Latin America, «poverty and inequality are a scourge that is deepening rather than shrinking. The pandemic and its consequences, the aggravated global context in the political, economic and military spheres, as well as ideological polarization, seem to close the doors to development efforts and yearnings for liberation. The current crisis is not only an opportunity to see the exhaustion of economic systems and models, but it also pushes us to overcome prejudicial solutions such as those that fuel patterns of ideological, emotional, political, gender and cultural exclusion polarization» [ 1]. In any case, let us not be frightened by "chaos", since it is precisely from there that God draws his most beautiful and creative works.

If the word "university" derives from "universe", that is to say the "set of all things", the adjective "Catholic" strengthens and inspires it. In fact, "Catholic" means "according to the whole", "starting from the whole". And here there is a kind of reference to harmony, right? Your task is to help form Catholic minds capable of observing not only the object of their interest. An extremely precise and focused gaze can become fixed, fixed and exclusive. It has the accuracy of a radar, but it loses sight. Instead being "Catholic" means having a panoramic vision of the mystery of Christ and of the world, of the mystery of man and woman. We need minds, hearts, hands up to the panorama of reality, not the narrowness of ideologies. I will give an example of a Catholic gaze, referring to the beginning of Gaudium et spes, the Constitution dedicated by the Second Vatican Council to the Church in the contemporary world. Affirming that "the joys and hopes, the sadnesses and anguishes of today's men, especially the poor and all those who suffer, are also the joys and hopes, the sadnesses and anguishes of Christ's disciples" (n 1), Gaudium et spes speaks to us about human life “catholicly”, not selectively. He is interested in the whole existential condition and not just in one part - the happy one or the painful one -, because the glory of God dwells in all of them. and even sometimes one's own, numbing joy), it's just short-winded euphoria. It doesn't heal wounds, this joy doesn't heal, but it covers them and the covered wounds become infected. On the contrary, if attention to one's own pain and that of others exhausts the energies of hope, it becomes the excuse to avoid risk, from the courage to invest again in life, even if it has disappointed us. Pain turns into a pretext for despising the daily bread of consolation, which the Lord does not let go even on the hardest day. You are university students, men and women with broad views, so be "Catholic"! In this sense of the term, no sectarian "Catholics". You are Catholics and for this reason, because you are Catholics, you are university students!

I am convinced that the catholicity of the mind, of the heart and of the hands, promoted by your Universities and by your Association, can make a decisive contribution to the healing of the very painful wounds which offend our beloved Latin America today, where the rich are getting richer and the poor ever poorer. Feed the fire lit by God in Latin America, feed it like this. And the Global Educational Pact, which I entrusted to the then Congregation for Catholic Education and now to the new Dicastery for Culture and Education, will also help you in this. I learned with joy that many Universities coordinated by your Association and the Association itself vigorously promote ideas and projects inspired by the Global Education Pact. Please continue. I believe that the Compact - not only educational, but also cultural - contributes significantly to what is called the "third mission" of the university. It's good that universities have missions. A Catholic university must be missionary, that is, with the doors open to the outside, given that the mission is the inspiration, the drive, the effort and the reward of the whole Church. Perhaps the university's mission is to train social poets, men and women who, by learning the grammar and vocabulary of humanity well, have the spark, the spark that allows them to imagine the unedited. Don't forget this expression: forming social poets. By studying the language, which has a very long history, their panoramic soul makes them explorers of the future. Perhaps the university's mission is to prepare social choreographers, men and women who see a dance in the people, a dance where everyone contributes to the grace of total movement and no one is excluded. Social choreographers, it's bold to say that, but that's the point. And if I were now to translate the word "mission" in an academic context, I would use the word "research". The seeker has a missionary mind and heart. He is not satisfied with what he has, he goes looking for it. The missionary knows the joy of the gospel and can't wait for others to taste it. Therefore, he leaves the homeland of his beliefs and his habits, going to unexplored places. He knows the Gospel, but he doesn't know what fruit it will bear in that foreign land. It is precisely the tension between knowing and not knowing that pushes him forward and protects him from the presumption of knowing everything. He knows, and he is surprised by how much he will know. Therefore the missionary loves reciprocity: he teaches and learns, convinced that everyone has something to teach. Thus the researcher, if he is not willing to go out and learn, will give up who knows what wonderful knowledge, mutilating his own intelligence. It is very sad to meet intellectuals, men and women of great intelligence, but with mutilated intelligence. May your universities, as individual academic institutions and as a network of Catholic universities, become research centers appreciated throughout the world. Even so they will form missionary minds.

Brothers and sisters, I thank you for what you do. Go on! Go on! Our Lady accompany you. I bless you from my heart and ask you please to pray for me. Thank you.

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[1] CISAV, América Latina: Diagnósticos y desafíos, Dossier Estudios Latinoamericanos, febrero 2023, p. 23.

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L'Osservatore Romano, edizione quotidiana n. 103 del 5 maggio 2023, p. 12.

Source: Vatican.va with Screenshot