PONTIFICAL URBAN UNIVERSITY: SENSITIVITY TO DIFFERENT CULTURES

VATICAN CITY, NOV 29, 2002 (VIS) - Today in the Paul VI Hall the Holy Father received participants in a congress promoted by the Pontifical Urban University which is celebrating both the 40th anniversary of the institution of this university and the 375 years of history of the Urban College.

John Paul II recalled at the beginning of his speech that Pope Urban VIII founded the present university as a "'Collegium', which from the beginning had a missionary purpose." He said that Urban VIII was worried about "freeing the Church from colonial powers. It was necessary to ensure the freedom of evangelization in recently discovered lands and in those countries where Christianity was preached long ago, such as China."

Students at the Pontifical Urban University, he continued, "must be sensitive to the values of diverse cultures, placing them in the context of the Gospel message. Ninety institutions all over the world are today affiliated with your university, bearing witness in this way to the truly 'catholic' openness that characterizes it."

The Pope emphasized that "violence, terrorism, and war only construct new walls among people. Your university is a center of universality where the sense of deep communion, which characterized the primitive community, must be felt."

"The mission," he added, "is a commitment which continues today: this is the spirit that must energize your spiritual and academic life. ... For this reason, looking toward the future, it is to be hoped that the Pontifical Urban University distinguish itself among the Roman athenaeums precisely for its particular attention to the cultures of peoples and the great world religions, beginning with Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and as a result, that it consider with attention the problem of inter-religious dialogue with its theological, christological and ecclesiological implications."

The Holy Father concluded by urging students not to forget that the purpose of a university is "the integral formation of its students. The Church of the third millennium needs priests, religious, and lay people who are holy and learned."

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