| Saturday morning, 9 May 2009, after his visit to Mount Nebo, the
Holy Father blessed the foundation stone of Madaba University of the
Latin Patriarchate. The Pope commended the Kingdom of Jordan for giving
priority to "extending and improving education," to prepare students to
"to serve the wider community and raise its living standards."
Dear Brother Bishops,
Dear friends,
It is for me a great joy to bless this foundation stone of the
University of Madaba. I thank His Beatitude Archbishop Fouad Twal, Latin
Patriarch of Jerusalem, for his kind words of welcome. I wish to extend
a special greeting of recognition to His Beatitude, Emeritus Patriarch
Michel Sabbah, to whose initiative and efforts, together with those of
Bishop Salim Sayegh, this new institution owes so much. I also greet the
civil authorities, the Bishops, priests, religious and faithful and all
who accompany us for this important ceremony.
The Kingdom of Jordan has rightly given priority to the task of
extending and improving education. I am aware that in this noble mission
Her Majesty Queen Rania is especially active and her commitment is an
inspiration to many. As I pay tribute to the efforts of so many people
of good will committed to education, I note with satisfaction the
competent and expert participation of Christian institutions, especially
Catholic and Orthodox, in this overall effort. It is against this
background that the Catholic Church, with the support of the Jordanian
authorities, has sought to further university education in this country
and elsewhere. This present initiative also responds to the request of
many families who, pleased with the formation received in schools run by
religious authorities, are demanding an analogous option at the
university level.
I commend the promoters of this new institution for their courageous
confidence in good education as a stepping-stone for personal
development and for peace and progress in the region. In this context
the University of Madaba will surely keep in mind three important
objectives. By developing the talents and noble attitudes of successive
generations of students, it will prepare them to serve the wider
community and raise its living standards. By transmitting knowledge and
instilling in students a love of truth, it will greatly enhance their
adherence to sound values and their personal freedom. Finally, this same
intellectual formation will sharpen their critical skills, dispel
ignorance and prejudice, and assist in breaking the spell cast by
ideologies old and new. The result of this process will be a university
that is not only a platform for consolidating adherence to truth and to
the values of a given culture, but a place of understanding and
dialogue. While assimilating their own heritage, young Jordanians and
other students from the region will be led to a deeper knowledge of
human cultural achievements, will be enriched by other viewpoints, and
formed in comprehension, tolerance and peace.
This "broader" education is what one expects from institutions of higher
learning and from their cultural milieu, be it secular or religious. In
fact, belief in God does not suppress the search for truth; on the
contrary it encourages it. Saint Paul exhorted the early Christians to
open their minds to "all that is true, all that is noble, all that is
good and pure, all that we love and honor, all that is considered
excellent or worthy of praise" (Phil 4:8). Religion, of course, like
science and technology, philosophy and all expressions of our search for
truth, can be corrupted. Religion is disfigured when pressed into the
service of ignorance or prejudice, contempt, violence and abuse. In this
case we see not only a perversion of religion but also a corruption of
human freedom, a narrowing and blindness of the mind. Clearly, such an
outcome is not inevitable. Indeed, when we promote education, we
proclaim our confidence in the gift of freedom. The human heart can be
hardened by the limits of its environment, by interests and passions.
But every person is also called to wisdom and integrity, to the basic
and all-important choice of good over evil, truth over dishonesty, and
can be assisted in this task.
The call to moral integrity is perceived by the genuinely religious
person, since the God of truth and love and beauty cannot be served in
any other way. Mature belief in God serves greatly to guide the
acquisition and proper application of knowledge. Science and technology
offer extraordinary benefits to society and have greatly improved the
quality of life of many human beings. Undoubtedly this is one of the
hopes of those who are promoting this University, whose motto is
Sapientia et Scientia. At the same time the sciences have their
limitations. They cannot answer all the questions about man and his
existence. Indeed the human person, his place and purpose in the
universe cannot be contained within the confines of science. "Humanity’s
intellectual nature finds its perfection ultimately in wisdom, which
gently draws the human mind to seek and to love what is true and good"
(cf. Gaudium et Spes, 15). The use of scientific knowledge needs the
guiding light of ethical wisdom. Such is the wisdom that inspired the
Hippocratic Oath, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the
Geneva Convention and other laudable international codes of conduct.
Hence religious and ethical wisdom, by answering questions of meaning
and value, play a central role in professional formation. And
consequently, those universities where the quest for truth goes hand in
hand with the search for what is good and noble, offer an indispensable
service to society.
With these thoughts in mind, I encourage in a special way the Christian
students of Jordan and the neighboring regions, to dedicate themselves
responsibly to a proper professional and moral formation. You are called
to be builders of a just and peaceful society composed of peoples of
various religious and ethnic backgrounds. These realities – I wish to
stress once more – must lead, not to division, but to mutual enrichment.
The mission and the vocation of the University of Madaba is precisely to
help you participate more fully in this noble task.
Dear friends, I wish to renew my congratulations to the Latin
Patriarchate of Jerusalem and my encouragement to all who have taken
this project to heart, together with those who are already engaged in
the educational apostolate in this nation. May the Lord bless you and
sustain you. I pray that your dreams may soon come true, that you may
see generations of qualified men and women Christian, Muslim and of
other religions, taking their place in society, equipped with
professional skills, knowledgeable in their field, and educated in the
values of wisdom, integrity, tolerance and peace. Upon you and upon all
the future students and staff of this University and their families, I
invoke Almighty God’s abundant blessings!
Distributed by:
The Holy See Press Office
9 May 2009
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