La Sapienza

Benedict XVI: the papacy and the university

Pope Benedict XVI

Contents - Mar 2008 - Buy a copy now Editorial: Man-made global warming: new religion? - Michael Gilchrist Tribute: B.A. Santamaria: ten years on - Cardinal George Pell News: The Church Around the World Man-made climate change: another great hoax? - Peter Finlayson Recovering the sacred in modern church architecture - Moyra Doorly 40 Years On: Vatican II at its mid-life crisis - Br Barry Coldrey Easter: The Sacred Triduum in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite (1962 Missal) Crescat amor: What is the nature and purpose of theology? - Fr John O'Neill PP La Sapienza: Benedict XVI: the papacy and the university - Pope Benedict XVI Vocations: The priesthood: a special relationship with Christ - Fr Pat Stratford Vocations: Signs of hope in US diocese Letters: Christ's Church - Frank Mobbs Letters: Married clergy - Frank Bellet Letters: Canadian Lectionary - Matt Walton Letters: Language - Kevin McManus Letters: Liturgical abuses - Dennis Macdonald Letters: Response - Richard Stokes Letters: Homosexual 'marriage' - Arnold Jago Letters: Altar rails - Corinne O'Loughlin Letters: 'Re-ordered' churches - Brian Tooley Letters: Abortion laws - Robert Prinzen-Wood Letters: From India - Fr. A. Joseph Poetry: Time-Warp - Bruce Dawe Books: GOD AND CAESAR: Religion, Politics, and Society, by Cardinal George Pell - Catherine Sheehan (reviewer) Books: SEARCHING FOR AND MAINTAINING PEACE, by Father Jacques Philippe - Tim Cannon (reviewer) Books: JOURNEY OF A FAITH COMMUNITY, compiled by Tom Johnstone - James E. Scarlett (reviewer) DVD: NO TURNING BACK: Confessions of a Catholic priest, by Fr D. Calloway - Fr Martin Durham (reviewer) Books: Books available from AD2000 Books Reflection: Benedict XVI on Lent: 'authentic conversion to the love of Christ' - Pope Benedict XVI

The following are extracts from the address that Benedict XVI was scheduled to give during a visit to Rome's Universitˆ degli Studi 'La Sapienza' on 17 January 2008, and cancelled because of the threat of a demonstration against the Pope by a small group of students and faculty.

What can and should the pope say in meeting with his city's university? Reflecting on this question, it has seemed to me that it includes two more questions, the clarification of which should by itself lead to the answer. It is necessary, in fact, to ask: What is the nature and mission of the papacy? And again: What is the nature and mission of the university?

The pope is, first of all, the bishop of Rome, and as such, in virtue of apostolic succession from the Apostle Peter, he has episcopal authority in regard to the entire Catholic Church.

The word 'bishop' - episkopos -, which in its immediate meaning refers to 'supervision', already in the New Testament was fused together with the biblical concept of the shepherd: he is the one who, from an elevated point of observation, surveys the whole landscape, making sure to keep the flock together and on the right path.

This description of the bishop's role directs the view first of all to within the community of believers. The bishop - the shepherd - is the man who takes care of this community, the one who keeps it united by keeping it on the path toward God, which Jesus points out through the Christian faith - and he does not only point this out: he himself is the way for us.

But this community that the bishop cares for as large or small as it may be - lives in the world; its conditions, its journey, its example, and its words inevitably influence the rest of the human community in its entirety. The larger it is, the more its good condition or eventual decline will impact all of humanity.

The pope then speaks as the representative of a believing community, in which throughout the centuries of its existence a specific life wisdom has matured; he speaks as the representative of a community that holds within itself a treasury of ethical understanding and experience, which is important for all of humanity. In this sense, he speaks as the representative of a form of ethical reasoning.

But now we must ask ourselves: What is the university? What is its purpose? It is a huge question which I can only answer once again in almost telegraphic style by making just a few observations.

I believe that it can be said that the true intimate origin of the university lies in man's craving for knowledge. He wants to know what everything around him is. In this sense the Socratic questioning is the impulse that gave birth to the Western university.

The university could, indeed had to be born within the Christian world and the Christian faith. We must take another step. Man wants to know; he wants the truth. But the truth means more than knowledge. The purpose of knowing the truth is to know what is good.

This is also the sense of Socrates' way of questioning: What good thing makes us true? Truth makes us good and goodness is true. This optimism dwells in the Christian faith because it was allowed to see the Logos, the creative Reason that, in God's incarnation, revealed itself as that which is Good, as Goodness itself.

Modern universities

In modern times knowledge has become more multi-faceted, especially in the two broad fields that now prevail in universities. First of all, there are the natural sciences which have developed on the basis of experimentation and subject matters' supposed rationality. Secondly, there are the social sciences and the humanities in which man has tried to understand himself by looking at his own history and uncovering his own nature.

The danger faced by the Western world, just to mention the latter, is that mankind, given its great knowledge and power, might give up on the question of the truth. At the same time this means that reason in the end may bow to the pressures of partisan interests and instrumental value, forced to acknowledge the latter as the ultimate standard.

From the point of view of the academic world this means that there is a danger that philosophy, feeling incapable of fulfilling its task, might degenerate into positivism, a danger that theology and the message it has for reason might be confined to the private sphere of a group more or less big.

If however reason, concerned about its supposed purity, fails to hear the great message that comes from the Christian faith and the understanding it brings, it will dry up like a tree with roots cut off from the water that gives it life. It will lose the courage needed to find the truth and thus become small rather than great.

Applied to our European culture this means that if it wants to constitute itself on the basis of its arguments and whatever appears to it to be convincing, with concerns about its own secular nature, it will cut itself off from its life-sustaining roots, and in doing so will not become more reasonable and pure but will instead become undone and fragmented.

And so let me go back to the initial point. What does the Pope have to do or say in a university? He certainly should not try to impose in an authoritarian manner his faith on others, which can only be freely offered. Beyond his ministry as Pastor of the Church and on the basis of the intrinsic nature of this pastoral ministry, it is his task to keep alive man's responsiveness to the truth.

Similarly he must again and always invite reason to seek out truth, goodness and God, and on this path urge it to see the useful lights that emerged during the history of the Christian faith and perceive Jesus Christ as the light that illuminates history and helps find the way towards the future.

Reprinted from AD2000 Vol 21 No 2 (March 2008), p. 11