Cardinal Grocholewski addresses European University Congress

(Vatican Radio) Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski told  the European Congress for University Pastoral Work that in the education process “it is not sufficient simply to hand on knowledge and ability, but it is necessary to form the new generation so that it wants and knows how to use its knowledge and abilities to build good and not do evil”.

The Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education was speaking on Thursday at the event held at the Lødż University of Technology.

Cardinal Grocholewski said the need for appropriate formation of university students is one of the five priorities in university pastoral work.

He told the participants “knowledge and skills are not enough to guarantee the true progress of humanity, because their dishonest use leads to a terrible decline of the human person, in the direction of the most primitive barbarities”, but there is a need for “a proportional development of the moral life and of ethics”.

Cardinal Grocholewski identified the second point of university pastoral work in the current moral relativism.

“Relativism is so dangerous, because it in fact renders the true formation of the human person impossible,” he explained. “

If there are no objective moral norms, there is also no credible, clear reference point at all by which to form people, and that leads to confusion and disorientation. Instead university pastoral work, starting from the principles of natural law, proposes clear moral norms, capable of forming people in an integral manner, that is both humanly and spiritually, and also, as a consequence, professionally, too”.

The Cardinal went on to say that once it has been established that the recognition of objective moral values enables ethical relativism to be overcome, the third point is the “realisation of love”, as “the highest expression of university pastoral work”.

According to Cardinal Grocholewski “university pastoral work is inserted precisely into this activation of the most powerful force for good, which is love. In fact, the more it is the expression of this love, the more creative and effective it will be with a view to the true progress of humanity”.

The fourth point is the promotion of culture. The Cardinal invited those in charge at a national level for university pastoral work to look after that synthesis between faith and culture so dear to Saint John Paul II.

Cardinal Grocholewski recalled in fact how “culture is a means and not an end in itself; a means to reach an integral humanism, the good of every person and of all people”.

With the fifth point he showed the way to reach an integral humanism “only by showing Christ, leading people to Christ, do we reveal to them the most appropriate path to reach the fullness of humanity, to purify and enrich every culture”. In this sense, said Cardinal Grocholewski, “university pastoral work becomes a total commitment in the work of evangelisation”.