“Pape Léon” chanted, repeated applause, then “Long live the Pope, long live the Pope.” This is how the students of La Sapienza University of Rome, the largest university in Europe, welcomed the sovereign pontiff in “their” university.
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And the Prévôt addresses the crowd of young people: “My visit is intended to be a sign of a new educational alliance between the Church in Rome and your prestigious university, which was born and raised within the Church.”
Previous relations of the popes with La Sapienza
The last visit of a pope to the Sapienza University of Rome dates back to John Paul II, who visited the university in 1991 and again in 2003 to confer an honorary degree.
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI should have inaugurated the academic year, but he was forced to abandon his visit following protests from some professors and students, an event which remained as a symbolic wound in relations between the Church and the university founded in 1303 by a pope himself, Boniface VIII.
The speech in the Aula Magna: “be peacemakers”.
As soon as he entered the Aula Magna, Pope Leo XIV was greeted with very long applause, with students and teachers standing up.
In a speech lasting about three-quarters of an hour, the pope encouraged young people to “do not give in to resignation, transforming agitation into prophecy”. And he added: “be artisans of true peace: a disarming and disarming peace, humble and persevering, working for harmony between peoples and for the protection of the Earth”.
“What is happening in Ukraine, Gaza and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iran, describes the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.” For the sovereign pontiff, “It is therefore necessary to be vigilant regarding the development and application of artificial intelligence in the military and civilian domains, so that they do not devalue human choices and do not aggravate the tragic nature of conflicts.”
He adds: “Last year, the growth in military spending in the world, and in particular in Europe, was enormous: do not call “defense” a rearmament that increases tensions and insecurity, impoverishes investments in education and health, denies confidence in diplomacy and enriches elites who do not care about the common good.
“Your university is characterized by a center of excellence in various disciplines and, at the same time, by its commitment to the right to study, including for the most deprived, people with disabilities, prisoners and those who have fled war zones. For example, I greatly appreciate the fact that the Diocese of Rome and Sapienza University have signed an agreement to open a university humanitarian corridor from the Gaza Strip. An aspect also highlighted by Rector Polimeni, in her introductory speech.
The appeal of Pope Francis and the concern of young people
“A “common front of commitment” concerns “ecology”. As Pope Francis said in the encyclical Laudato s_i’, “there is a very consistent scientific consensus indicating that we are in the presence of a worrying warming of the climate system_”. More than a decade has passed since then and, beyond good intentions and certain efforts in this direction, the situation does not seem to have improved.
“From the hustle and bustle” young people, the Pope says that“there is also a sad face: we must not hide the fact that many young people are sick. For everyone, there are difficult seasons; some may have the impression that they never end. Today, it depends more and more on the blackmail of expectations and the pressure to perform. It is the omnipresent lie of a distorted system that reduces people to figures, exasperating competitiveness and abandoning us to spirals of anxiety.
“It is precisely this spiritual malaise of many young people, continued the Pope, which reminds us that we are not the sum of what we have, nor a matter assembled at random from a silent cosmos. We are a desire, not an algorithm!”
Who seeks the truth, seeks God
In any case, it was a real ovation that greeted Pope Leo upon his arrival at the “Divina Sapienza” university chapel, the first moment of his visit to La Sapienza University. The Pope was welcomed there by the chaplain Don Gabriele Vecchione and, of course, by the Rector Antonella Polimeni and the Academic Senate.
“I wanted to start this visit here, in the chapel, because it is above all a pastoral visit, to get to know the university,” at-il déclaré. “He who seeks, who studies, who seeks the truth and who, ultimately, seeks God, will encounter and find God in the beauty of creation, in so many forms that God wanted to put into his forms.”
The pontiff then drove down University Avenue in a golf cart, to the applause of students and the choruses of “Long live the Pope.”
