Faith, study and the young” “

“I encourage you, dear brothers, to ensure that your educational course be constantly sustained by the search for God”. “You too, who form part of the university world, must make your contribution” to the “process of European integration. It is indispensable that contemporary Europe safeguard its heritage of values”, ‘promoted, conciliated and consolidated’ “by Christianity”.With this appeal made by John Paul II , during the eucharistic celebration in St.Peter’s basilica, the European meeting of the nastional delegates of the university ministry ended in Rome on 11 December. The meeting had been promoted by the Council of the Episcopal Conferences of Europe (CCEE) and by the diocesan office for university apostolate. Over forty participants sent by the various Episcopal Conferences attended the conference, including six bishops, delegates for the spiritual and pastoral care of the universities in their own countries. At the end of the celebration, at which 10,000 university students were also present, the HolyFather handed over the icon of the “Sedes Sapientiae” to the Irish delegation: the icon will pilgrimage through the university towns of the country which will assume the Presidency of the European Union on 1st January. A Europe young and with a thousand faces. The “contribution that the universities and also the Church operating within them can make to the construction of the ‘common European home’ which we all trust may be founded on the genuine humanistic values of peace and be open to the perspective of the person’s transcendent vocation, is significant”, stressed the general secretary of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Msgr. Giuseppe Betori, in the message he sent to the conference. The theme of the conference was: “Towards European integration: the role of the international mobility of university students”. What emerged from it, through the testimonies of the national delegates for university ministry, was a “young Europe with a thousand faces” that requires diversified responses to its own questions, but that is at the same time a challenge and a resource. “Saying ‘Europe’ must be equivalent to saying ‘openness’. Ours must be a ‘open and welcoming continent’ in which not only economic but also social and cultural forms of cooperation are promoted”: recalling this passsage from the post-synodal apostolic exhortation “Ecclesia in Europa”, Peter Fleetwood, CCEE representative, affirmed the need for “the Church that is in Europe” to be “authentic witnesses of Christ” in “every concrete situation”, and in particular “towards those who come from a different reality”. The numbers of student mobility. In October 2002 the fact that one million students have now benefited from the Erasmus programme was celebrated. According to the figures of the European Commission, the university institutions participating in the mobility programme begun in 1987 are now over 1,800 in 30 nations; the countries most present in the experience are Spain (in the academic year 2001-02, 17,000 Spanish students left the country to study abroad, over 18,000 came from abroad to study), France (18,000 both leaving and arriving), Germany (respectively 15,000 and 16,000), Italy (14,000 and 10,000). Student mobility however is not just based on Erasmus: a strategic role in mobility is also played by the presence of youth coming from the third world, “who must be made conscious of their own responsibility as strategic protagonists for the development of their countries of origin”, said the secretary of the Pontificial Council for the pastoral care of people on the move, Archbishop Agostino Marchetto. Voices from Europe. “In 2002 the Catholic Asademic Service for Foreigners (KAAD) in Germany granted 600 scholarships to students coming from Africa, Asia, Latin America and eastern Europe; there are 167,000 foreign students in Germany, 10% of the total”, explained Msgr. Werner Guballa, bishop delegate of the German Episcopal Conference. He is convinced that “the intercultural and interreligious dialogue made possible by foreign students, their forming a bridge with the other Churches” are “indispensable for our Church”. “The evangelization of man and at the same time of culture” is the aim of the university apostolate in Poland and “to respond to this challenge, the new statute of this ministry is in the process of being drafted”, said the bishop delegate of the Polish Episcopal Conference, Msgr. Marek Jedraszewski. “Alcohol and drugs are the serious risks to which many young people are exposed in Ireland when they suddenly find themselves having to handle a freedom they have never experienced before on university campuses”: that is the testimony of Msgr. John Magee, bishop delegate of the Irish Bishops’ Conference who also stressed the emergency of suicides among the young: “a phenomenon unhappily widespread in Irish university life which has a very strong impact on the environment”. Hence the importance of “university chaplains being close to the families and to other students”. More generally, the university ministry in Ireland is called to tackle the challenge of “a society ever more focused on competitiveness and efficiency, and of widespread hostility to immigrants”. These are problems that need to be addressed, he said by “a permanent formation of chaplains” and the “promotion of a territorial network of university and parish communities”. “Only after the collapse of the Communist regime in Slovakia did the university ministry become systematic and regular and is still searching for the best ways and methods for the mission of the Church in the academic environment” said Msgr. Tomas Gali, bishop delegate of the Slovak Episcopal Conference. “The first university pastoral Centre was inaugurated in Bratislava in 1997; currently there are three centres headed by the various chaplaincies present in the country’s universities”. In the view of Everard de Jong, bishop delegate of the Dutch Bishops’ Conference, “in a secularized country like Holland it is paradoxically the foreign Catholic students from the developing countries that are re-evangelizing our own students, who by the time they reach university have completely lost their faith”. “In Cyprus there do not exist chaplaincies within the university; our young grow up in the Greek Orthodox environment and the whole systemof education is contrary to the Catholic Church”: the denunication is made by Father George Houry, of the Maronite archdiocese of Cyprus. Hence the need for the Maronite Church (5,000 faithful out of 750,000 inhabitants of the island) to promote occasions for meetings with students: “Apart from Sunday Mass we organise cultural activities, evangelical groups and other similar meetings”. A website has recently been created, dedicated to the young: www.neoitisarchepiskopis.org. The 39 victims of the fire that devastated a college in Moscow that provided accommodation to students from Asiatic, African and Latin-American countries on 24 November, were commemorated by Father Ismael Barros, who provides assistance to foreign Catholic university students in the Russian capital; “each year – he explains – there are over one thousand of them and the number of priests is insufficient to cope”. We have a project of hospitality to foreign students – he explains – that provides, among other things, for the possibility of psychological support to overcome the shock caused by the impact with the religion, language, culture and climate of Russia for which they are utterly unprepared”. For the most part, explains Father Ismael, “the young who come to study in our country believe that they will be able to stay in Europe and thus find a job which will enable them to support themselves. The reality, unfortunately, is very different”. That’s why they need to “be properly informed and prepared before they leave home; we could help them subsequently in the phase of integration”. Also important is the link “with the parish communities from which they come”. Ignace Peckstadt, Orthodox archpriest of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, heads the mixed community of St. Andrew the Apostle at Ghent (Belgium), seat of a prestigious state university. “We celebrate the rites in the various languages because the liturgy – declares the priest is the one place of true communion”.