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POPE-UNIVERSITY Oct-23-2006 (380 words) With photos. xxxi
Pope urges university students to help heal culture, identity crisis
By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI urged university students to help heal "the crises of culture and identity" by searching for truth and meaning in their studies and their lives.
Inaugurating the academic year in Rome, where university classes begin in October, Pope Benedict visited Pontifical Lateran University Oct. 21 and met students and professors from all the city's pontifical universities after an Oct. 23 Mass.
In speeches to both groups, the pope said education should hone a student's thirst for truth and for meaning, especially when his or her studies are taking place at a Vatican-chartered university.
When the student bodies and staffs are combined, the pontifical universities in Rome make up a group of about 15,000 people from all over the world.
In his Oct. 23 speech in St. Peter's Basilica, the pope reminded the group of "the priority importance of one's spiritual life and the need, alongside cultural growth, for a balanced human maturation and a deep ascetic and religious formation."
The pope said that studying theology and other subjects in preparation to serve the church "presupposes an education in silence and contemplation because it is necessary to be able to hear with one's heart the God who speaks."
In his Oct. 21 speech at Lateran University, where he dedicated the remodeled library and an auditorium bearing his name, Pope Benedict said pontifical universities must challenge students to look for more than just new experiences.
Students, he said, want help responding to questions about the meaning of their own lives and about human existence.
"Overvaluing 'doing,' obscuring 'being' will not help restore the fundamental balance needed to give one's existence a solid foundation and a valid goal," he said.
Catholic universities, he said, must help students aspire to know and love God and to follow him by obeying his commandments.
Pope Benedict pointed to the fable of Icarus who flew with wings held together with wax; although his father warned him to stay close, Icarus tried to soar higher and higher, but the sun melted the wax, the wings fell apart and Icarus plunged to his death.
Seeking "absolute freedom," Icarus found only a great crash and death, the pope said.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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