Romana

From September 3 to 10 the World Meeting of University Professors was convoked under the theme “The university for a new humanism.” The program of the meeting included 59 international congresses which took place principally in Italy, the Holy Land and Lebanon, and which concluded in Rome on September 10 with a solemn Eucharistic concelebration in St. Peter’s Square presided over by Pope John Paul II.

Bishops from various countries directed catechetical sessions on the themes of the congresses. The Prelate of Opus Dei, Bishop Javier Echevarría, was invited to the catechesis on the 7th, within the framework of the congress on “The Humanization of Care in the Age of Advanced Technology” organized by the Campus Bio-Medico University of Rome, together with other European universities.

In his intervention, Bishop Echevarría referred to the work of the university professor as a continuous service to truth and to the person. “The university was born in the heart of the Christian tradition... to promote the search for truth,” the Prelate of Opus Dei pointed out, and its fruits “have forged our civilization with its light and shadows.” He stressed the crucial role of professors in the formation of the young generations and encouraged them not to be mere “dispensers of information, but true teachers.” The teacher “not only transmits knowledge,” the Prelate noted, “but molds mature personalities, guides them towards the fullness of truth, leads them to the threshold of the mystery of Christ, before which each person freely makes his or her own decision.”^[2]

^[2] See the full intervention on page 245.