Europe and Africa closer” “

10,000 at Owerri, 7,000 at Nairobi, 5,000 at Abidjan: these are the “numbers” of African university students who recited the Rosary with the Pope, thanks to satellite link-ups with African university campuses. Last Saturday, 11 March, African students were thus able to join with their European brethren in “celebrating” BENEDICT XVI , in his first meeting with the university students of our continent. The culminating moment of the 4th European Day of University Students was the prayer to Mary, “Sedes Sapientiae”, that the Pope and the some 25,000 youth who thronged the Paul VI Hall in the Vatican recited in satellite link ups with Dublin, Freiburg, Madrid, Munich, Sofia, Salamanca, St. Petersburg, Abidjan (Ivory Coast), Atananarivo (Madagascar), Nairobi (Kenya) and Owerri (Nigeria). The theme chosen for the Day, promoted by the catechesis and university section of the CCEE (Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences), together with the office for university apostolate of the Vicariate of Rome, was “Christian humanism, the way for new cooperation between Europe and Africa”. “Europe – Monsignor Lorenzo Leuzzi, head of the office for university apostolate of the Vicariate of Rome, told SIR – has a great responsibility not only toward herself but also toward the other continents: she cannot rediscover her own Christian roots without gaining awareness of her wider responsibilities for the present and for the future”. There is therefore a need, Msgr. Leuzzi underlined, for Europe to “avoid any self-isolation by rediscovering her own identity in a universal perspective, also through “partnership” between Europe and Africa “not only in the field of cooperation, but also of development”. BRIDGES OF BROTHERHO0D. “This Marian vigil, dear to Pope John Paul II, throws bridges of brotherhood between the university youth of Europe, and this evening it prolongs them to the interior of the great African continent, so that communion between the new generations may grow and the civilization of love may spread”, said Benedict XVI to the university students. In the words of the Pope, the Day of University Students on 11 March was “a fine sign of the communion of the Catholic Church”. Addressing the young at the end of the prayer of the Rosary, Benedict XVI extended “a particularly affectionate embrace” to the thousands of African students linked by satellite, and, beyond them, “to all the beloved peoples of Africa”. THE “TRUTH” OF LOVE AND “CHRISTIAN WISDOM”. Presenting his first encyclical to representatives of the 25,000 students present in the Paul VI Hall, Benedict XVI wished “symbolically” to present it “to all the university students of Europe and Africa, with the hope that the fundamental truth of Christian life – God is love – would illuminate the path of each of you and be irradiated through your witness to your fellow-students”. For “this truth about God’s love, origin, meaning and end of the universe and of history, was revealed by Jesus Christ, by word and by life, and above all in his Pasch of death and resurrection”, and “is at the basis of the Christian wisdom that, like leaven, is able to add its ferment to each human culture, so that it may express the best of itself and cooperate in the growth of a more just and peaceful world”. Another event that the Pope reminded youth about is the next World Youth Day, which will be celebrated on Palm Sunday (9 April) on the theme: “Your word is a lamp to me and a light to my path” and which will have as its prologue the traditional meeting of youth with the Holy Father in St. Peter’s Square on the afternoon of 6 April. TOWARD A “NEW” AND “OLD” UNIVERSITY. Ever since the first adventurous student exchanges began in 1987, almost 1,400,000 male and female students have been able to gain firsthand experience of what it means to be a “European citizen”, thanks to student mobility schemes like Erasmus, recalled IAN FIGEL, European Commissioner for education, training, culture and multilingualism, who sent students a message to mark the Second European Day of University Students. Thanks to the movement of reforms begun by the “Bologna process”, he added, “it will become easier for each of you to choose to study and conduct research wherever your interests lead you without having to worry about national frontiers. From this point of view, your future will resemble more closely the past, when it was normal to move from one university to another”. In particular, explained Figel, the Commission’s proposals for the future of European universities go in three directions: “the updating of courses and curricula, a better management, also at the institutional level, of systems of higher education and far more substantial and efficient funding for universities”, so that they be able to contribute “more fully to economic development and the growth of employment”.