Education must not trample on differences

Pope Francis met with the academic community of the Pontifical Gregorian University on Tuesday, 5 November, on the occasion of the Dies Academicus. He told those present, “Education was a privilege, a condition that has not yet changed”. He also spoke of the need for “a university that has the smell of the people, that does not trample on differences because of illusions of a unity that is just homogeneity”. At the end of the audience, a number of students received awards. The Holy Father then met privately with a group of Jesuits.

“Less lecterns, more tables without a hierarchy”. “Disarmed” words, perspectives and thought. A “living” doctrine not “imprisoned in a museum”, and a style of teaching that is an “act of mercy” and aware of the risks of artificial intelligence. A “theology of hope” when “the world is on fire” and when “the insanity of war covers all hope with the shadow of death”. Yes to vision, awareness, poetry, imagination and especially, humour; absolute no to ideologies, to “arid intellectualism” and “perverse narcissism”. And an even stronger no to a “Coca-cola spirituality” and to the “‘Coca-Cola-zation’ of research and teaching”. Pope Francis shared these ideas at the Pontifical Gregorian University, originally the Roman College, founded by Ignatius of Loyola. The occasion was Dies Academicus but also the consolidation of the Collegium Maximum, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute merged into a single university in accordance with the new guidelines outlined in the General Statutes in force since last 19 May, themselves the result of a 2019 chirograph from Pope Francis.

Nearly five minutes of applause welcomed the Pontiff to the university atrium, where he delivered a long lecture full of warnings and recommendations, anecdotes and neologisms, quotes from the Iliad, Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky, from Saint Basil, Saint Francis Xavier, Saint John Henry Newman and Saint Thomas More, but also from Father Arrupe and Father Kolvenbach. The entire academic community was present, as were three cardinals: Gianfranco Ghirlanda, Luis Ladaria Ferrer and José Tolentino de Mendonça.

The first to speak was Father Arturo Sosa, Vice Grand Chancellor of the Gregorian and Superior General of the Society of Jesus. He stressed that “scientific research in the various fields of science, philosophy and theology lead to a deeper comprehension of creation and contribute to opening new paths to the faith, which is committed to transforming human society to make it more just, more solidary and more respectful of creation”.

The university rector, Father Mark Lewis, highlighted that the Gregorian’s mission is still “to provide a solid intellectual formation to future ministers of the Church”, with special attention to human dignity, “a social dimension of the faith”, care for our common home, “openness” to science and culture, ecumenical dialogue and relations with other religions, “all in an international and intercultural environment that reflects our Church today”. Fr Lewis also spoke of the university’s new structure, saying that it is yet another example of their “recognition of the new contexts and concrete needs of the modern Church”.

Pope Francis’ reflection took off from the incorporation of the Biblical and Oriental Institutes to the Gregorian. He said he was “sad” to see that the opportunity to recover the name Saint Ignatius wanted for the institute — Roman College — was not taken. He said that “would have allowed [the university] to unite with the original intentions”. He added that he hopes something might still be done. The Pope then stressed that he had welcomed the project “trusting that it was not simply a matter of administrative restructuring”, but rather “a revitalization of the mission the Bishops of Rome over the years have continued to entrust to the Society of Jesus”. He added that it is impossible to continue in this direction if guided “by efficiency without vision”, limited “to incorporations, suspension and closures, neglecting instead all that is happening in the world and the Church”.

“When one walks while only worrying about not tripping, one ends up crashing into something”, he said. “But have you ever asked yourselves where you are going and why you are doing the things you are doing?”, he asked, adding, “It is necessary to know where one is going, not losing sight of the horizon that unites each person’s path towards the current and ultimate goal”.

Coining a new term, the Pope said, “In a university, vision and knowledge of the goal prevent the Coca-Cola-zation of research and teaching which would lead to a spiritual Coca-Cola-zation”. He said that unfortunately, there are many “disciples of Coca-cola Spirituality”.

Speaking then about mission, the Pope said “it is the Lord who inspires and sustains it”. It isn’t therefore a matter of “taking his place with our demands which make God’s project bureaucratic, overbearing, rigid and without warmth, often superimposing agendas and ambitions on the plans of Providence”.

“This is a place where the mission must be expressed through formative action, but putting one’s heart into it”, he explained. “To educate is above all to care for people, and is therefore a discrete, precious and delicate act of charity. Otherwise, formative action becomes arid intellectualism or perverse narcissism, a real spiritual lust where others exist merely as applauding spectators, boxes to be filled with the ego of the one who teaches”, he said.

The Pope then told the “interesting story” of a professor who one morning found his lecture hall empty, realizing this only after arriving at the podium. Outside there was a sign that read: “Lecture hall occupied by immeasurable Ego. No open seats”. It was a prank by the students. “When there is no heart, it is obvious”, the Pope noted.

In his address, the Holy Father also recalled another inscription on the door of a modest house in Rome where, in the mid 1500s, 15 Jesuit students had established themselves. It read: “A school of grammar, humanity and Christian doctrine, free”. It was a time when “education was a privilege, a condition that has not yet changed, and which makes relevant Father Lorenzo Milani’s words about the school, a ‘hospital that heals the healthy and repels the sick’. But by losing the poor, the school would be lost”, affirmed the Pope. That inscription today is “an invitation to humanize the knowledge of the faith, and to light and reanimate the spark of grace in the human being, safeguarding interdisciplinariness in research and teaching”.

As a passing thought, the Holy Father asked those present if they are applying Evangelii Gaudium. “Are you taking into consideration artificial intelligence’s impact on teaching, on research? No algorithm will be able to substitute poetry, irony or love; and students need to discover the power of creativity, to see inspiration begin to grow, to get in touch with their own emotions, to know how to express their own feelings”.

The Pope insisted on his invitation to foster gratuitousness “in relationships, in methods and in objectives”, because “gratuitousness is what makes everyone servants without masters. Servants of one another, all recognizing each person’s dignity, no one excluded”, he said. Gratuitousness “opens us to surprises from God who is mercy, freeing freedom from yearnings”. And gratuitousness makes “virtuous the wise and the teachers” and educates “without manipulating or binding to oneself”, he said. He also spoke of the need for “a university that has the smell of the people, that does not trample on differences because of illusions of a unity that is just homogeneity”, a university “that does not fear virtuous contamination or the imagination that revives what is dying”.

The Holy Father then turned to today’s challenges, focusing first on war. “The world is on fire, the insanity of war covers all hope with the shadow of death. What can we do? What can we expect?”, he asked. “The promise of salvation is wounded; this word ‘salvation’ cannot be a hostage of those who feed illusions”, reducing salvation with “bloodying victories while our words seem devoid of the trust of the Lord who saves”.

“Let us disarm our words; gentle words, please! We need to recover the path of an incarnate theology”, he said.

The Bishop of Rome said that at the Gregorian, the kind of wisdom that must be generated “cannot come from abstract ideas conceived only at a desk”, but must “see and feel the major challenges of history”. They must originate from “contact with the life of the people and with the symbols of cultures, by listening to the hidden questions and to the cry that rises from the suffering flesh of the poor”. This flesh must be touched, with “the courage to walk through mud and get one’s hands dirty”. The Pope said, “Now is the time for everyone to be humble, to acknowledge not knowing, to need others, especially those who don’t think as I do”.

He called for “less lecterns” and “more tables without a hierarchy, side-by-side, all beggars for knowledge, touching the wounds of history”. In this way, the Pontiff said, “the Gospel will be able to transform the heart and respond to life’s questions”. To do this however, “it is necessary to transform the academic space into a home for the heart”.

Laying down weapons, putting others on the same level, to look them in the eyes, t0 be disarmed, “to disarm thoughts, to disarm words, disarm perspectives and then to be on the same level, to look each other in the eyes”. He explained that there can be no dialogue from top to bottom in order for it to be an act of mercy.

The Pope then invited those gathered to a constant, honest and profound discernment which seeks unity and never works for things that separate us from Christ’s love or from the unity of the Church. He insisted that we must not limit ourselves to the words and norms of doctrine. “The way in which we use doctrine often reduces it to being without time, imprisoned in a museum”, when instead, he explained, “it is alive”.

Pope Francis also insisted on using dialogue to build bridges, and he called for a “diakonia of culture at the service of the continuous restructuring of the fragments of every epochal change”. He also stressed the importance of prayer, which is fundamental for every mission. And he quoted Saint Thomas More: “Lord, give me good digestion and something to digest”. The Pope confided that he has repeated this prayer for more than 40 years, “and it does me good!”, he assured. He also encouraged those gathered not to lose their sense of humour. “A woman, a man, without a sense of humour is not human”, he said.

He concluded by urging students not to lose themselves in “intellectualistic labyrinths” or in accumulating knowledge, but rather, to continue onward with a taste for wit. The Pope then presented some of the students with academic awards for the university’s three missions. Before departing, the Holy Father met privately with a group of Jesuits.

Salvatore Cernuzio