Romana

Since their creation in the Middle Ages, the Church has viewed universities as a privileged vehicle for the pursuit and communication of truth. Today, this continues to be the purpose of the university, which is reflected in two events in the Church’s life echoed in this issue of Romana: the declaration of St. John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church and, more modestly, the opening of the cause of canonization for Ruth Pakaluk, a supernumerary of Opus Dei.

The figure of Newman is inseparable from Oxford and its university. And it was at Harvard University, whose one-word motto is precisely Veritas, that Ruth Pakaluk sought and found the truth.

It is difficult to overstate the importance for the Church in a changing world of universities that sincerely seek the truth, with permanent points of reference that give meaning to the evolution of ideas and ways of life. At the opening of the academic year at the Lateran University on November 14 (with words that are also included in this issue of Romana), the Pope said: “every university is a place of study, research, formation, relationships and connections with the reality of which it is a part.”

In Kenya, a few weeks earlier, Strathmore University, a corporate work of Opus Dei, brought together several hundred entrepreneurs committed to the development of the African continent. This is another great university mission. Or perhaps it is the same mission, since development, as St. Paul VI said many years ago, is the new name for peace (cf. Populorum Progressio, March 26, 1967, nos. 76 and 87). And a peace worthy of the name cannot be based on deception or injustice, but only on truth.