A Catholic institution of higher education is not merely a university with a “distinguished adjective in its name,” Pope Francis said, rather it bears a commitment to teaching and acting in service of others and in line with the Gospels.
“Today’s globalisation entails a risk for education, namely a process of reducing certain programs to serve political and economic interests,” he told participants at symposium sponsored by UNISERVITATE, a global organisation promoting service-learning in Catholic higher education.
The pope stressed during the 9 November meeting that education should “produce fruits of peace, justice and mutual acceptance among all peoples and expand its positive effects in ever closer forms of cooperation,” which he added “can foster interreligious dialogue and care for our common home.”
Educational programs should “bring students into contact with the realities around them, so that, starting from experience, they learn to change the world not for their own benefit, but in a spirit of service,” Pope Francis said.
More than 200 people from 56 Catholic institutions of higher education participated in the 7-8 November symposium in Rome on the theme “Transforming Higher Education from Within.”
UNISERVITATE is active across 26 countries and engages more than 400,000 students and 40,000 educators worldwide in service-learning projects.