Valentina di Giorgio
(ZENIT News / Vatican City, 14.09.2023).- Pope Francis has effected an important change in one of Rome’s Universities that depends on the Holy See: the Pontifical Urban University. Thus states the Decree with which the Pontiff appointed a new Rector for that House of Studies. Two paragraphs of the Decree justify this change:
“Realizing the need to adapt the service and function of the Urban University to the needs of the present time, called to contribute to the missionary action of the Church in need of growth in the interpretation of the revealed Word and in the understanding of the truth, also through academic, cultural and scientific activity, to form those that are called to cooperate in the proclamation of the Gospel, the deepening of the life of faith and government in the territories of the first evangelization (cf. Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, Articles 61-63);
Considering what the Most Eminent Grand Chancellor has told me about the urgency to revise the structure of the University and conform it to the Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudiumthe Statutes and other normative dispositions that govern the life of the Faculties and Institutes, as well as arrange the adaptation of the administrative organization to the current regulations for Organisms of the Holy See.”
Pope Francis appointed Vincenzo Buonomo as his Delegate and conferred on him the authority and powers of Rector “so that he takes the necessary measures for the Urban University to ensure a qualified contribution to theological research and other disciplines, an increasingly more fruitful formation of the new generations, and authoritative teaching capable of giving answers to the Church and to the contemporary world.”
According to the Decree, “The Delegate will exercise his mandate in agreement with the Grand Chancellor and the Superiors of the Section for the First Evangelization and the New Particular Churches of the Dicastery for Evangelization, informing me directly on matters of greater importance.” And this because that University depends on the Dicastery for Evangelization.
The Pope appointed Professor Vincenzo Buonomo Rector of the Pontifical Urban University in June of 2018. He left this office last August when the Pope appointed him General Counsellor of Vatican City State.
