Search for truth is part of nature of Catholic university, says president of Italian bishops

Dec 6, 2007 / 13:37 pm

The Archbishop of Genoa and president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, said this week the “passionate search for truth” is part of the nature of the Catholic university.

During a Mass for the opening of the 2007-2008 academic year at the Sacro Cuore Catholic University in Rome, Cardinal Bagnasco stressed that “man cannot live on bread alone,” but that he must seek the truth “from the world that surrounds him,” and especially he must “seek the truth within himself.  He needs to know his origins and his destiny.  Only this knowledge will lead to wisdom and only this awareness will guide him to create culture in a singular and social manner.”

To not seek out such metaphysical truth is to lack any reference point, the cardinal continued.  Every choice is reduced to what is immediate, which is “quickly consumed in order to move on to something else, and then something else after.  Everything becomes the same and becomes insignificant.  If there is nothing worth dying for, then there is nothing worth living for,” the cardinal said.

He noted that young people instinctively sense this and that they seek the truth. He also addressed professors and reminded them they are “teachers of life.”  “Within our daily tasks, God asks us to do not only the best, but also all that it is within our reach to seek out, build up and resolve,” he added.

Only then will human dignity, freedom and intelligence overflow, he said, and man will realize that understanding comes “not only through reason and intelligence but through everything that we are and we have.”