“The international vocation is natural for Catholicism”, and universities must help to counter the “divorce from Christianity” in Europe; they must do so through “research and teaching that recall the Christian heritage, in reaction to the strong cultural currents that are leading in the opposite direction: to secularisation and de-christianization”, said Cardinal Camillo Ruini, vicar of the Pope for the diocese of Rome, on recently inaugurating the European University of Rome of the Legionaries of Christ. “The international vocation is natural for Catholicism, also and specifically in the university field”, continued Ruini, according to whom “the Christian faith is capable of being embodied in the most diverse cultures to communicate to them its own life blood of truth and to foster everything contained in them that is true, good and beautiful”. In response to the “divorce from Christianity that has unfortunately taken place in many European cultural contexts”, Ruini recalled the “very challenging but also inspiring” words pronounced at Subiaco (near Rome) by the then Cardinal Ratzinger just a few days before his election as successor of Peter, when he urged that “we have a need for men who keep their gaze fixed on God”. “The international dimension added the cardinal is also very important in relation to the current shape of Europe, to whose process of unification the university institutions are also contributing, according to the well-known ‘Bologna process'”. “The task of building a common home for the new generations he concluded – demands responsibility, partnership and a consciousness of the values we need to transmit”.
