Pope’s Rosary for Africa

(October 12, 2009) The formation of young intellectuals and scientific and cultural collaboration among universities is needed in order to animate an integral human development in Africa and in other continents, said Pope Benedict XVI to young university students on Saturday evening. He made the remark at the end of a special Rosary he convoked in the Vatican on Saturday ‘for and with Africa.’ He was joined in by some 240 fathers of the ongoing African Synod as well as young university students of Rome. The event was linked live via satellite with young university students in 9 cities of Africa. Speaking at the end of the Rosary, the Holy Father addressed the university students of Rome and Africa in several languages, urging them to be workers of intellectual charity in the Church and in society, in order to meet the great challenges of contemporary history. He encouraged them to be sincere and impassioned seekers of truth, building academic communities of high intellectual levels where it is possible to exercise and relish the open and broad rationality that leads to the encounter with God. He invited the students to know how to create bridges of scientific and cultural collaboration among various universities particularly in Africa. The Pope particularly called on African students to live the time of their studies as a preparation to carry out a service of cultural animation in their home countries. “May you always be uncompromising witnesses and active promoters of justice, reconciliation and peace,” the Pope told the university students in English.