Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – Study is a “Providential opportunity to advance on the path of faith”: these were the words of the Holy Father Benedict XVI in one of the many encounters he has held with university students, the privileged audience of the Pope and the entire Church, as they incarnate the “hope” that becomes evamgelization and zeal for the mission. From this “thirst for hope” of the youth, comes an encounter now being prepared in Rome, set to begin July 9, when 1,500 students from European universities will meet to reflect on themes like “the youth and hope in Europe” and “the youth and intellectual charity.”
The workshops will begin with a Mass presided by Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues, Secretary of the Congregation for Catholic Education, in the Basilica of Saint John Lateran, followed by the official inauguration of the First European Meeting of University Students. The meeting is beeing organized by the Office for University Pastoral Care of the Vicariate of Rome and promoted by the CCEE, the Consilium Conferentiarum Episcoporum Europae, the Ministry of Education, University and Research, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From July 6-8, youth will be lodged at the city universities of Milan, Padua, Venice, Bologna, Pisa, Florence, Perugia, and others, for encounters with the chaplaincy and an introduction to university life in Italy, led by the National CEI Office for Education, Schools, and Universities.
“The European Meeting of University Students is a very important moment for analyzing the Christian presence on university campuses throughout the continent,” says Msgr. Lorenzo Leuzzi, Director of the Office for University Pastoral Care of the Vicariate of Rome. “And this presence should be noted as a form of intellectual charity. A new synthesis between the Gospel and culture is needed to help the culture to gear itself towards an elaboration that is capable of guaranteeing the true dignity of the human person. The university students should become promoters of cultural laboratories in their own campuses, where they carry out a much-needed interdisciplinary dialogue in order to find the right responses to contemporary society.”
One of the high points of the meeting will be the pilgrimage to the World Youth Day Cross, which will take place on July 10, at 9pm, starting from the Economy Department at Tor Vergata and ending in Piazzale Giovanni Paolo II, the site of the WYD in the Jubilee Year 200, where the Cross will be taken for the occasion. (The Cross is normally on display in the San Lorenzo Youth Center in the Vatican.)
“I am really excited and I am preparing for the event with prayer, along with my Campus Ministry group at the university,” says Thomas, a 23-year-old from Berlin, future architect. “This will be the first time I visit the Pope's city. Our group has 15 students and we have decided to prepare ourselves for this important moment of cultural reflection and pilgrimage with a weekly catechesis at our university here in Germany.” The central event of the Meeting will be on July 11, at 9:30am, with a Mass presided by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican Secretary of State, in St. Peter's Basilica. The Mass will be followed by an audience with the Holy Father Benedict XVI, scheduled to begin at 12 noon. (DV) (Agenzia Fides 17/6/2009)
