Pope calls Rome’s Jesuit-run university to ‘self-criticism’
November 06, 2024
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CWN Editor's Note: Pope Francis visited the Pontifical Gregorian University on November 5 and called for “self-criticism.”
“Not infrequently we have seen students from Jesuit centers of education acquire a certain academic, scientific, even technical excellence, yet they do not seem to have assimilated its spirit,” he said, referring to St. Ignatius of Loyola’s spirituality.
“We need 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,” he added, as warned against universities becoming akin to “hospitals that care for the healthy and push away the ill. Schools without the poor lose out.”
The Pontiff made his visit to celebrate the recent incorporation of the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical Oriental Institute into the university. Originally known as the Roman College, the Pontifical Gregorian University was founded by St. Ignatius, the founder of the Society of Jesus, in 1551; it now has 2,952 students from 121 nations.
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