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Your
Eminences,
Venerable
Brothers
in
the Episcopate,
Academic
Authorities,
Dear
Students,
1.
With great joy I welcome you today on the occasion of
the solemn celebration of the 375th anniversary of the
Urban College, and the 40th anniversary of the
establishment of the Pontifical Urban University. I
greet Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe and thank him for his
cordial address on your behalf.
I
greet the Magnificent Rector of the University, the
Cardinals, the Bishops, the Academic Authorities, the
professors, the participants in the International
Congress, and the students of the college and
university, who bring to our meeting their warm
enthusiasm.
Urban
University
has
had a missionary goal
from
the outset
2.
My memorable predecessor, Bl. John XXIII, on the very
threshold of the Second Vatican Council, bestowed the
title of «university» on the Urban College. In recent
years multitudes of young people – seminarians,
priests, religious and lay people
– have received a spiritual and cultural
formation which has enabled them to be ready to live
their faith in a solid way, bearing witness even in
situations of hardship. Some of them have certainly
joined the ranks of the «witnesses of the faith», who
died during the last century, and whom we commemorated
in the moving prayer at the Colosseum during the Jubilee
Year.
Founded
as a college by Pope Urban VIII with the Bull Immortalis
Dei Filius, your university, which took his name, from
its inception, has had a missionary goal. The concern of
Pope Urban was justly that of emancipating the Church
from the colonial powers. Indeed, the Church had to
guarantee the freedom of evangelization in the recently
discovered lands, and in countries, such as China, where
Christianity had been proclaimed in the distant past.
The
characteristic of universality
is
necessary to overcome
violence,
terrorism and war
3.
If those were difficult times, we cannot say that our
own are easy. Certainly, you know it very well who come
from areas where war, disease, and poverty mow down
multitudes of victims every day. More necessary than
ever before is an academic institution like yours that
knows how to pass on philosophical, theological,
historical and juridical knowledge within the cultures
of peoples who are so widely different.
As
I had the occasion to say during my first visit of 1980,
your university expresses the universal character that
is typical of the Catholic Church. Whoever studies here
must bring with him a sensitivity that is open to the
values of other cultures, comparing them with the
evangelical message. Today 90 institutes all over the
world are affiliated with your university, testifying in
this way to the truly «catholic» openness that defines
it, I want to send them special greeting: Always
cultivate in your hearts and in your academic research
this universal character, so valuable in our divided
world that so much exalts the special feature of an
individual, group, race or nation, sometimes, to the
point of injuring the obligation of solidarity.
Violence,
terrorism, and war only build new walls between peoples.
Your university is a training ground of universality, in
which it must be possible to breathe that sense of
profound communion that defined the early Christian
community (cf. Acts 4:32).
Study
the world religions and
world
cultures so you can make
dialogue
a part of evangelization
4.
Last year, we solemnly observed in common the 10th
anniversary of the Encyclical Redemptoris Missio. This
document should be a programme of study and of life. In
it I spoke of the mission that is still just beginning
after 2,000 years of Christian life (n. 30). The mission
is an obligation that continues today: this is the
spirit that should animate your spiritual and academic
life.
Today
in a special way, this spirit must include the
developing careful study of the cultures of the peoples
of the world and of the great world religions. Without
ceasing to affirm the force of the evangelical message,
today in our divided world, it is an important role for
Christians to be persons of dialogue who oppose the
clash of civilizations that sometimes seems inevitable.
For
this reason, looking toward the future, my wish would be
that the Urban University be distinguished among the
Roman universities for the special attention it shows to
the cultures of the peoples and the great world
religions, starting with Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism,
and, consequently, would carefully examine the problem
of interreligious dialogue with its theological,
Christological and ecelesiological implications. I know
already that you are intensely engaged in this area of
research, collaborating with the Congregation for the
Evangelization of Peoples and the Pontifical Council for
Interreligious Dialogue, in the spirit of the Encyclical
Redemptoris Missio.
The
integral formation of holy,
learned
priests, religious
and
laity
5.
Finally, I urge you not to forget that the goal of the
Urban College, from whom you were born as a university,
is the integral formation of its students. The Church of
the third millennium needs priests, religious and laity
who are holy and learned. «It is not a matter of
inventing a “new programme”» as I wrote in Novo
Millennio ineunte: «the programme already exists: it is
the plan found in the Gospel and in the living Tradition,
it is the same as ever. Ultimately, it has its centre in
Christ himself, who is to be known, loved and imitated,
so that in him we may live the life of the Trinity, and
with him transform history until its fulfilment in the
heavenly Jerusalem» (n. 29).
This
plan applies to all, and also to you, teachers and
students of the Pontifical Urban University, the Urban
College and the colleges that depend on the Congregation
for the Evangelization of Peoples. May the Lord be the
heart of your study and of your lives, so that you will
be impelled by that love for the Gospel which took the
earliest witnesses to the far ends of the earth.
As
I wish you an abundantly fruitful Jubilee Year for you
and all who are close to you with their friendship and
support, I entrust you to the protection of the Virgin
Mary, Seat of Wisdom, and cordially bless you all. |
