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This academic year, we as a university continue to ponder the meaning and consequences of being born from the heart of the Church. In the last newsletter, we focused in particular on the person- centered aspect of a Catholic university. Motivated by this reality, Catholic International University seeks to address the deepest human aspirations by offering insight and understanding, as well as reasons for our hope, through personal and relational online education.
In this column, I would like to invite you to reflect on another important aspect of being person-centered: our mission and desire to bring people together with a universal “Catholic” heart. Such a heart seeks unity in diversity with a “common dedication to the truth, [and] a common vision of the dignity of the human person” (ECE, 21). As a community, we are called to perform works of love anchored in the message and person of Jesus Christ, the source of our unity. In the Gospels, when teaching and interacting with others, Jesus listens before responding. As demonstrated in His exchanges with Martha, He respects individuals’ freedom. This dynamic manifests again in His conversation with the rich young man. In both of these examples and in multiple exchanges with the Pharisees and members of the Sanhedrin, He calls upon a person’s responsibility. In every case, He offers His love and continuously invites each person to an encounter, but never imposes Himself.
God wants the risk and the adventure of our freedom because we cannot love without it. In the words of St. Josemaria Escriva, “He has wanted a history that is a true history, composed of authentic decisions; and not a fiction or a game. Each man has to experience his personal autonomy, with what this entails of chance, trial and error, and sometimes uncertainty.” Thus, a consequence of being a person-centered university with a universal heart is a commitment to love and respect each person. This commitment entails a deep respect for freedom of conscience and the workings of Providence. Again, St. Josemaria: “God, who gave us the security of the revealed truth of our Catholic faith, has chosen to not reveal for us the meaning of all human events and realities.” As a university, we seek to serve each person with loyalty while also encouraging one another to seek the Truth in full freedom and responsibility. We share the richness of our faith while respecting differences in matters of opinion.
In order to be respectful of different opinions, it is necessary to be open to dialogue. With is mind, it is not surprising that John Paul II makes twenty-two references to the importance of dialogue in the life of the university in Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In doing so, he highlights the reality that authentic knowledge and human development will inevitably become stagnant in a university that lacks this type of freedom. More specifically, the pope describes a Catholic university as “a place of research, where scholars scrutinize reality with the methods proper to each academic discipline, and so contribute to the treasury of human knowledge. …Moreover, the various disciplines are brought into dialogue for their mutual enhancement.” (ECE, 15)
Forced uniformity, or sameness, is foreign to a sincerely Catholic community, and thus to our university. Following in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we instead wish to foster in our community a deep respect for the freedom of each of its members and those we engage outside it, while at the same time encouraging each person to fully embrace his or her responsibilities. This method of engaging others strengthens openness, dialogue, and trust. It encourages proactive collaboration across the arts and sciences, while also unleashing the richness of a genuine unity in diversity.
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