Meeting with the University World in Kinshasa (4 May 1980)
ShareOn Sunday, 4 May 1980, the Holy Father addressed university students and professors in Kinshasa, whom he warned about the dangers of materialism.
Mr. Rector,
Distinguished Professors,
Dear Students,
1. I am deeply touched by the words of welcome that have just been addressed to me, and I thank you warmly for them. Is there any need to tell you how happy I am to be able to make contact this evening with the African university world? In the homage of which I am the object on your part, I see not only the honor rendered to the first Pastor of the Catholic Church; I also perceive the expression of gratitude towards the Church, for the role it has played throughout history and still plays in the promotion of knowledge and science.
2. Historically, the Church was at the origin of the universities.
For centuries, she developed there a conception of the world in which the knowledge of the time was situated in the broader vision of a world created by God and redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ. Thus, many of his sons devoted themselves to teaching and research to initiate generations of students to the various degrees of knowledge in a total vision of man, integrating in particular the consideration of the ultimate reasons for his existence.
However, the very idea of a university, universal by definition in its project, does not imply that it is situated in any way outside the realities of the country in which it is established. On the contrary, history shows how universities have been instruments of formation and dissemination of a culture specific to their country, contributing powerfully to forging awareness of national identity. In this way, the university naturally forms part of the cultural heritage of a people.
In this sense, one could say that it belongs to the people.
This way of seeing the university in its essential aim, the widest possible knowledge, and in its concrete rooting within a nation, is of very great importance. It demonstrates in particular the legitimacy of the plurality of cultures, recognized by the Second Vatican Council [ 1], and it makes it possible to discern the criteria of authentic cultural pluralism, linked to the way in which each people walks towards the only truth. It also shows that a university faithful to the ideal of total truth about man cannot do without, even under the pretext of realism or the autonomy of science, the study of the higher realities of ethics, metaphysics and religion. It is from this angle that the Church has taken a particular interest in the world of culture, and has made important contributions to it. For her, the divine revelation on man, on the meaning of his life and of his effort for the construction of the world, is essential for a complete knowledge of man and for progress to be always totally human. This is the goal of the Church's missionary activity. Lumen Gentium [2 ].
3. The University in Kinshasa takes its place in a remarkable way in this historic collaboration between the Church and the world of culture. The centenary of the evangelization of Zaire indeed coincides with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the country's National University.
How not to congratulate ourselves together on the foresight of those who founded this University?
It manifests well the place that the cultural and spiritual promotion of man holds in evangelization. It is proof that the Church, and particularly the prestigious Catholic University of Louvain, had seen the truth and had confidence in the future of your people and your country! Even now, the importance of the Catholic community in your country leads us to hope that the University there will remain open to trusting relations with the Church!
Moreover, in paying homage today, in front of you, to the National University of Zaire and to the Zairian university community, I do so by also looking towards the African university world as a whole: it plays and it will always play more a leading, irreplaceable and essential role, so that your continent fully develops all the promises it holds for itself and for the whole world.
4. You will allow, I am sure, a former university professor, who devoted many long and happy years to university education in his native land, to talk to you for a few moments about what I consider to be the two essential objectives of any complete and authentic university education: science and conscience, in other words access to knowledge and the formation of conscience, as is clearly expressed in the very motto of the National University of Zaire: Scientia splendet et conscientia .
The primary role of a university is the teaching of knowledge and scientific research. From this vast field, I will only address one point here: who says science says truth. There would therefore be no true academic spirit where there was not the joy of seeking and knowing, inspired by an ardent love of truth. This search for truth makes scientific knowledge great, as I recalled on November 10 speaking to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences: “Pure science is a good, worthy of being loved, because it is knowledge and therefore perfection of man in his intelligence. Even before its technical applications, it must be honored for itself, as an integral part of culture. Fundamental science is a universal good, which every people must be able to cultivate in full freedom from any form of international servitude or intellectual colonialism”[ 3 ].
Those who dedicate their lives to science can therefore feel legitimate pride, and also those who, like you, students, can spend several years of their lives training in a scientific discipline, because nothing is more beautiful, despite the work, and the trouble that it requires, to be able to devote oneself to the search for the truth about nature and about man.
5.How not to draw your attention here briefly to the love of the truth about man? The human sciences hold, as I have already underlined several times, an ever greater place in our knowledge. They are essential to achieve a harmonious organization of life in common in a world where exchanges are becoming ever more numerous and more complex. But at the same time, it is only in a very particular sense, radically different from the usual sense, that one can speak of "sciences" of man, precisely because there is a truth of man which transcends any attempt at reduction to any particular aspect. In this field, a truly complete researcher cannot disregard, in the elaboration of knowledge as in its applications, spiritual and moral realities which are essential to human existence, nor of the values derived therefrom. For the fundamental truth is that human life has a meaning, on which depends the value of personal existence as a right conception of life in society.
6.These brief considerations on the love of truth, which I would like to be able to develop at length in dialogue with you, will have already shown you what I mean when speaking of the role of the university and your studies for the formation of consciousness. . The university has first of all, of course, a pedagogical role of training its students, so that they are able to reach the level of knowledge required and later to exercise their profession effectively in the world where they will be called. to work. But beyond the various types of knowledge that it is its function to transmit, the university cannot ignore another duty either: that of allowing and facilitating the insertion of knowledge in a broader, fundamental context. , in a fully human conception of existence. Over there,
7. Dear friends, professors and students, I would like to be able to say personally to each one of you and to each one of those whom you represent, all the student world, the world of culture and science in Zaire and in Africa, all my encouragement to fully accept their responsibilities. They are heavy; they ask for the best of you, because the aim of the university is not first of all to seek titles, diplomas, or lucrative positions: it has an important role for the formation of man and the service from the country. This is why it involves great demands vis-à-vis the work to be done, vis-à-vis oneself and vis-à-vis society.
If all university research requires real freedom, without which it cannot exist, it also requires on the part of academics hard work, the qualities of objectivity, method and discipline, in short, competence. This, which you know well, opens onto the other two aspects. One of the characteristics of university work and of the intellectual world is that, perhaps more than anywhere else, everyone finds himself constantly referred to his own responsibility in the direction he gives to his work. On this last point, I am happy to reaffirm to you the greatness of your role and to encourage you to face it with all your soul. You don't just work for yourself, for your promotion. You participate, by the very fact that you are academics, in a search for the truth about man, to a search for its good, with the concern of cooperating in the development of nature for a true service of man, in the promotion of the cultural and spiritual values of humanity. Concretely, this participation in the good of humanity is achieved through the services that you render and that you will be called upon to render to your country: to the physical and moral health of your fellow citizens, to the economic and social well-being of your nation . For the privileged education offered to you by the community is not given to you primarily for your personal gain. Tomorrow, it is the entire community, with its material and spiritual needs, which will have the right to turn to you, which will need you. You will know how to be sensitive to the calls of your fellow citizens. Difficult but exhilarating task, worthy of the feeling, which you possess so strongly,
8. The perspectives that I am only sketching before you this evening, dear friends, imply as a fundamental reality that ethics, morals, spiritual realities, are perceived as constituent elements of the integral man, understood also both in his personal life and in the role he has to play in society, and therefore as essential elements of any society. Primacy of truth and primacy of man, far from opposing each other, unite and coordinate harmoniously for a mind concerned with reaching and respecting reality in all its magnitude.
It also follows that, just as there is an erroneous way of conceiving technical progress by making it the whole of man, by making it serve everything for the satisfaction of his most superficial desires falsely identified with success and to happiness there is also an erroneous way of conceiving the progress of our thought on the truth of man. In this area, as you can see, progress is made by deepening, by integration. Errors are corrected, but they have always been errors, while there is no truth about man, about the meaning of his personal and community life, which can be “surpassed” or become error. This is important for you who, in a changing society,
9. It is in function, in fact, of the truth of man that materialism, in all its forms, must be rejected, because it is always a source of enslavement: either enslavement to a soulless search for material goods , or much worse enslavement of man, body and soul, to atheistic ideologies, always, ultimately, enslavement of man to man. This is why the Catholic Church has wanted to recognize and solemnly proclaim the right to religious freedom in the loyal pursuit of spiritual and religious values; this is also why she prays that all men will find, in fidelity to the religious sense that God has placed in their hearts, the path to all truth.
10. I would like to add here a brief word for the special intention of my brothers and sisters in our Lord Jesus Christ. You believe in the Gospel message, you want to live by it. For us, the Lord Jesus Christ is our way, our truth, and our life[ 4 ]. I have already developed, particularly in the first encyclical, “Redemptor Hominis”, which I addressed to the world at the beginning of my pontifical ministry, and also in my message of last January 1 on “truth forces peace”, how, for us Christians, Christ our Lord, by his incarnation, that is to say, by the reality of our humanity which he took for our salvation, revealed to us the most total truth there is about man, about ourselves, about our existence. He is. in all truth, the road of man, yours. This is why evangelization, which responds to an order from the Lord, also finds its place in your collaboration for the future of your people, because it is collaboration in faith in divine projects for the world and for humanity, and ultimately collaboration in the history of salvation.
11. At a time when the centenary of the proclamation of the Word of God is being celebrated in Zaire, and at a time when a new African world is being formed at the service of a richer humanity for Africa, you are called to participate in it. fully while at the same time being witnesses of Christ in your academic and professional life.
Give proof of your competence, of your African wisdom, but at the same time be men and women who bear witness to your Christian conception of the world and of man. May your whole life be for those around you, and beyond for your whole country, an announcement of the truth about man renewed in Christ, a message of salvation in the risen Lord. I am counting on you, Catholic scholars, dear sons and dear daughters, I am counting on your faithful commitment to the service of your country, of the Church, of all humanity, and I thank you for it.
12. Dear friends, professors, students, at the beginning of its existence, your university had the motto: “Lumen requirunt lumine”: in its light, they seek light! I wish that your studies, your researches, your wisdom are for you all; a path to the supreme Light, the God of truth, whom I pray to bless you.
[ 1 ] Cf. Gaudium et Spes , n.53.
[ 2 ] Cf. Lumen Gentium , n.17.
[ 3 ] See AAS 71 (1979), 1462 n. 2.
[ 4 ] Cf. Jn 4, 6.
© Copyright 1980 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
Copyright © Dicastero per la Comunicazione - Libreria Editrice Vaticana
