After a two-day Symposium with lectures, presentations and scholarly discussions, Pope Francis will welcome all participants to a private audience on the morning of Saturday, 9th November.
Since the inception of Uniservitate, the Argentine Pope has promoted the development of this global network. He has supported the efforts of the Dicastery for Education and Culture of the Holy See through, led by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça and his team.
In the II Symposium held online in 2021 due to the restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic, the Holy Father encouraged organizers and participants to ‘continue to work so that Catholic educational institutions strengthen their identity and mission, with outgoing projects that do not remain purely academic, but educate the heads, hearts and hands of their graduates in solidarity and fraternity’. He did so through a message signed by the Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, in which he also asked, especially in this time of pandemic, ‘relations and collaboration between the different institutions to be fostered, creating a culture of dialogue that can provide answers to the profound challenges of our society, breaking down the individualism, sectarianism and rejection that grip it’.
The following year, at the end of the first Global Symposium held in Rome, the Pope met with the students who won the inaugural Uniservitate Award. It was a warm and joyful moment, following a papal audience in St. Peter’s Square, which will remain forever in the hearts of all those who participated. Then Pope Francis also sent greetings to the participants of the III Symposium through a telegram signed by Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Secretary of State of the Holy See, on his behalf. In his message, he thanked ‘the initiative aimed at reflecting on the formation of the new generations’ and encouraged Uniservitate ‘to rediscover fraternity and cooperation between the various academic communities, as the best ways to face the challenges and urgencies of today.’
During the IV Uniservitate Global Symposium held last November in Manila (Philippines), the Pope surprised everyone with a handwritten message. He thanked everyone for the work done at the Symposium and stressed once again the value of promoting through service-learning that head, heart and hands speak the same ‘language’. ‘In this way, educators will be able to form —and not simply inform— those entrusted to their care, so that all can learn to think in harmony with what they feel and do; to feel in harmony with what they think and do; and do it in harmony with what they feel and think. Such an integral approach to education calls for creative interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary methods to assist young people to be leaders and protagonists in building a better future for society as a whole,’ he said. He also stated that ‘one cannot overlook’ the importance of the spiritual dimension in education, one of the core principles of Uniservitate.
Last January, two months after that message, Francis personally expressed his satisfaction with the work of Uniservitate to Maria Rosa Tapia, the coordinator of this programme, and Enrique Ochoa, the executive director of CLAYSS. When they greeted him in Rome, at the conclusion of the rectors’ meeting organized by the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU), Tapia and Ochoa presented him with one of Uniservitate publications. Francis then expressed: “You are working very well”.
These gestures and words reinforced the engagement and enhances the hope of leaving the upcoming the meeting with the Holy Father comforted. This meeting is scheduled for Saturday, 9th November, at 9.30 a.m., in the Clementine Hall, which will provide a great opportunity to give the long-awaited embrace.