After a recent spate of incidents on our college campuses where students are seeking "safe spaces" where they can be free of talk they find offensive or with ideas they do not agree with, I found this quote from Pope Benedict XVI reminding us of the ultimate reason we educate ourselves. It speaks as well to universities asking them to realize their ultimate function and objective.
From an address given at a Seminar of the
Congregation for Catholic Education:
The basic question today, as in the past, remains the
anthropological question: What is man? From where does he come? Where must he
go? How must he go? In other words, it is a matter of clarifying the conception
of the human being on which new projects are based. And you are rightly asking
yourselves which human being, which image of man, does the university intend to
serve: an individual withdrawn into the defense of his own interests, a single
perspective of interests, a materialistic perspective, or a person who is open
to solidarity with others in search for the true meaning of existence, which
must be a common meaning that transcends the individual?
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