MADRID, Spain, AUG. 19, 2011 (Zenit.org).- Benedict XVI reflected on being a young professor in the wake of World War II in Germany when he addressed a gathering of professors in Madrid as part of the events of World Youth Day.
The 26th youth day is under way in Madrid through Sunday.
Addressing the group of professors at Madrid’s Basilica of the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, the Pope said it reminded him “of my own first steps as a professor at the University of Bonn.”
“At the time,” he remarked, “the wounds of war were still deeply felt and we had many material needs; these were compensated by our passion for an exciting activity, our interaction with colleagues of different disciplines and our desire to respond to the deepest and most basic concerns of our students.”
He said the experience of “Universitas,” which he described as “professors and students who together seek the truth in all fields of knowledge,” aided him in understanding the “importance, and even the definition, of the University.”
“At times,” the Pontiff continued, “one has the idea that the mission of a university professor nowadays is exclusively that of forming competent and efficient professionals capable of satisfying the demand for labor at any given time. One also hears it said that the only thing that matters at the present moment is pure technical ability.
“This sort of utilitarian approach to education is in fact becoming more widespread, even at the university level, promoted especially by sectors outside the University.
“All the same, you who, like myself, have had an experience of the University, and now are members of the teaching staff, surely are looking for something more lofty and capable of embracing the full measure of what it is to be human.”
Benedict XVI said that “when mere utility and pure pragmatism become the principal criteria, much is lost and the results can be tragic: from the abuses associated with a science which acknowledges no limits beyond itself, to the political totalitarianism which easily arises when one eliminates any higher reference than the mere calculus of power. The authentic idea of the University, on the other hand, is precisely what saves us from this reductionist and curtailed vision of humanity.”
“In truth,” he added, “the University has always been, and is always called to be, the ‘house’ where one seeks the truth proper to the human person. Consequently it was not by accident that the Church promoted the universities, for Christian faith speaks to us of Christ as the Word through whom all things were made and of men and women as made in the image and likeness of God.”
An honor, responsibility
The Pope said the University “embodies an ideal which must not be attenuated or compromised, whether by ideologies closed to reasoned dialogue or by truckling to a purely utilitarian and economic conception which would view man solely as a consumer.”
He then called on professors to take on the “honor and responsibility of transmitting the ideal of the University: an ideal which you have received from your predecessors, many of whom were humble followers of the Gospel and, as such, became spiritual giants.”
“We should feel ourselves their successors, in a time quite different from their own, yet one in which the essential human questions continue to challenge and stimulate us,” the Holy Father stated. “With them, we realize that we are a link in that chain of men and women committed to teaching the faith and making it credible to human reason.
“And we do this not simply by our teaching, but by the way we live our faith and embody it, just as the Word took flesh and dwelt among us. Young people need authentic teachers: persons open to the fullness of truth in the various branches of knowledge, persons who listen to and experience in own hearts that interdisciplinary dialogue; persons who, above all, are convinced of our human capacity to advance along the path of truth.”
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On ZENIT’s Web page:
Full text: www.zenit.org/article-33232?l=english
