Vatican official urges universities to present Christ-based vision of man

Vatican City, Jan 19, 2012 / 01:57 pm MT (CNA).-

The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Cardinal Antonio Canizares, recently recalled that Catholic universities have the duty to present a vision of man based on Christ.

The cardinal made his comments at the end of the Pope’s Jan. 18 general audience which he attended with a delegation from the University of Avila, Spain.  The group presented the conclusions of the first world congress of Catholic universities, which took place in Avila Aug. 12-14, 2011.

In statements to L’Osservatore Romano, the Spanish cardinal recalled that “Catholic universities today more than ever have the duty to present a vision of man that reflects the truth of Christ.”

Cardinal Canizares, who served as Bishop of Avila from 1992-96, said that it was then-Cardinal Ratzinger who encouraged him to found the University of Avila under the patronage of St. Teresa.

During his trip to Spain in August 2011 for World Youth Day, Pope Benedict XVI met with a group of university professors and reminded them that universities should embody “an ideal which must not be attenuated or compromised, whether by ideologies closed to reasoned dialogue or by truckling to a purely utilitarian and economic conception which would view man solely as a consumer.”

Speaking at the monastery of El Escorial, the Pope recalled his own years teaching and encouraged professors to overcome the idea that “the mission of a university professor nowadays is exclusively that of forming competent and efficient professionals capable of satisfying the demand for labor at any given time.”