POLISH UNIVERSITY CONFERS DOCTORATE ON POPE JOHN PAUL

VATICAN CITY, FEB 17, 2004 (VIS) - Twenty representatives of the University of Opole, Poland, who are in Rome to celebrate the tenth anniversary of its founding, were welcomed by the Pope today upon whom they conferred an honoris causa doctorate. The Pope recalled that ten years ago he consented to the institution of the Theology Faculty within the structure of a state university, knowing that "the birth of this athenaeum was very important for Opole."

"I thank God," he said, "for the fact that the University cooperates with the Church in the work of integration of society in Opole. . If we speak of integration of society, we do not mean this in the sense of the canceling of differences, of the unification of the way of thinking, of forgetting history - often marked by events that created divisions - but rather as a continuing search for those values that are common among men, that have different roots, a different story and, as a result, their own vision of the world and references to the societies they are living in."

"Today," the Holy Father stressed, "we speak of the Christian roots of Europe. If one sign of these are the cathedrals, the works of art, music and literature, they in a certain sense speak in silence. Universities, however, can speak out loud. . Yes, this voice might not be received by those who have been deafened by the ideology of the secularism of our continent but this does not release men of science . from the duty of giving witness . to that science and knowledge which grew in the fertile terrain of Christianity."
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