The University of Sense project is designed, according to its website, “ to educate in the ultimate responsibility of every human being: to listen to what surrounds us - to listen to the other, to the earth, to life - to give to each moment an original response - that of a new story, that of a new culture. To educate on the possibility of jumping into the open, to fulfill the call of life: the unfolding of its mystery that offers us meaning. Sense that each one names unique and, therefore, that each one embodies beauty.”
Among presenters in the project are the writer Luisa Valanzuela and the philosopher Darío Sztajnszrajber, who have publicly spoken in favor of abortion, and a priest, Fr. Hugo Mujica, who has lamented that Pope Francis has not lived up to expectations of liberalizing sacramental discipline in the Church.
At the end of September, the Catholic University of Valencia in Spain agreed to be the official headquarters of the University of Sense.
The University of Sense is one part of a very broad Scholas Occurentes network.
According to its website, Scholas Occurrentes has offices in Argentina, Chile, Vatican City, Colombia, Spain, the United States, Haiti, Japan, Italy, Mexico, Mozambique, Panama, Paraguay, Portugal and Romania. Its presence extends to a “network in 190 countries, integrating more than 400,000 educational centers and reaching more than one million children and young people around the world,” the website says.
The Scholas Occurrentes board of trustees consists of José María del Corral as president, the Argentine member of the Vatican curia Bishop Marcelo Sánchez Sorondo as vice president, Enrique Adolfo Palmeyro as secretary, and Marta Simoncelli as vice secretary.
The support of Pope Francis has allowed Scholas Occurrentes , despite its short existence, to enter into agreements and receive donations from large companies and high-level public institutions.
In each of its public financial statements for 2016, 2017, and 2018 there is an agreement with Football Club Barcelona, Lionel Messi's team, valued each year at 30,000 euros. In the 2019 economic report, the 30,000 euros from FC Barcelona were recorded as a donation. Another Spanish sports team, Club Atlético de Madrid, donated 460,000 euros in 2017.
In the organization’s 2015 financial statement, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences is recorded to have made a donation of about 324,000 euros.
In 2019 the organization also registered an agreement with the Ministry of Education of Haiti, for 323,951 euros. In the same year, it also received a donation from the Air Europa airline for about 735,000 euros,
Scholas also has an agreement of almost one million euros with Origen Worldwide, a marketing and communication company based in Madrid, Spain.
Other public and private organizations with which Scholas has entered into agreements or received donations include Paul David Hewson, the singer and vocalist of the rock band U2 known as Bono; the Santander Bank; the Government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires; PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's leading consulting firms; Disney Worldwide; the Mexican Agency for international cooperation for development; the Office of the First Lady of the Dominican Republic; the Inter-American Development Bank; Mercedes Benz Argentina; Microsoft and the San Pablo CEU University Foundation.
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According to reports not included in the officially published financial statements, Scholas Occurrentes has used millions to pay unspecified fees, and hundreds of thousands to support its offices and the travel of its workers.
According to the document entitled “Fundación Scholas Ocurrentes - Scholas Consolidado (USD): Scholas Argentina. Statement of income and expenses from Jan 2016 to Dec 2016," the organization spent in that year, only in the Argentine headquarters, almost $5.2 million dollars in "professional fees " and another million in "temporary fees."
The document also indicates that more than $448,000 were used for "salaries and social charges."
In “office rentals”, Scholas Occurrentes spent more than $324,000 that year. Another $300,000 went to mobile telephone expenses.
As total income, “gross profit”, the pontifical foundation registered that year in its Argentine headquarters more than $12 million.
In its "Abbreviated Report as of December 31, 2017", which is not published on the group’s website, Scholas Occurrentes indicates that it allocated 903 thousand euros to "travel expenses" in 2016 and more than 912 thousand euros in 2017.