TRUTH WITH INTELLECTUAL HONESTY, RESPECT FOR REVELATION

VATICAN CITY, MAY 29, 1999 (VIS) - The students, faculty and administrators of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross, entrusted to the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei, were received today by the Holy Father, who highlighted the university's objective of "seeking and promoting the truth with intellectual honesty and respect for Revelation."

In his address, the Pope highlighted the school's Faculty of Institutional Social Communications, "whose duty it is to form in a specific way people who are able to collaborate with bishops, episcopal conferences and other ecclesial institutions in transmitting correct information about the Church through the media."

He also underscored "the insertion into your university of the Superior Institute of Religious Sciences" which "offers the opportunity of an academic and ecclesial formation for those entrusted with teaching religion in schools, catecheses in parishes and other types of apostolate."

The Holy Father noted that the university's crest "features a Greek cross whose arms end in arrowheads" next to which "one reads the words 'Iesus Christus, Deus Homo'. What a meaningful synthesis of the orientation of teaching activity and research! The Cross is the supreme revelation of the mystery of the Word Incarnate, 'perfectus Deus, perfectus homo'."

John Paul II affirmed that, "in these times ... of a widespread mistrust in the capacity of reason to reach the truth, I thought it timely to publish the recent Encyclical 'Fides et Ratio'" which, "like 'Veritatis Splendor', ... represents an efficacious orientation for the work of all who devote themselves to the study of theology, religious sciences and philosophy. It is in Christ, God and Man, that the perfect harmony between nature and grace shines."

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