University students in their hearts

They accompany the youth along the most important and delicate phase of their life marking the passage to the working environment of adulthood. They are the university chaplains who serve in the great majority of European universities, animating initiatives such as coffee-breaks, meetings, study classes, they give counsel to young people during this delicate moment in life, offering friendship as well as opportunities for reflection. It’s a major challenge: European societies seek a generation of citizens capable of unlocking the standstill that is afflicting Europe. University students have chosen difficult study paths. They are willing to dedicate themselves fully to earn their right to a better future. In this existential challenge they need not only knowledge and commitment. They also need higher horizons of meaning. "Faith and Science: Perspectives for University Pastoral Care in Europe" is the title of a meeting held in Paris April 4-7 that brought together some forty national delegates for university pastoral care, organized by the Council of the European Bishops’ Conferences (CCEE). During the three-day Conference, participants also had the opportunity to learn more about university pastoral care in France and meeting with university students. Maria Chiara Biagioni, interviewed for SIR Europe one of the participants, Monsignor Gianni Ambrosio, bishop of the diocese of Piacenza-Bobbio, COMECE vice-president. For 7 years the prelate served as general assistant of the Catholic University (from 2001 to 2007. Let’s start from here.How was the experience of meeting university students? "It’s a very difficult question since we’re talking of a multifaceted realm. Those who reach the university stage initially feel at loss. The way they study is different, and they’re no longer with their high-school friends. That’s why the first thing to do is to succeed in making them feel that the University is a welcoming home. It’s important also as relates to university chaplainship. Only by taking friendship as a point of departure is it possible to pave the way to a path of mutual sharing and reflection". The Pope has recently called upon the youths not to allow anyone to take away their dreams. To what extent does the fear of the future and unemployment affect the hopes of the young generation? "I am under the impression that young people today are much less fearful of the future than what we think. In other words, they are much more flexible than adults in terms of adapting themselves to living in an uncertain and provisional world and grasp the new possibilities. In my view, they have also less demands and that’s why they managed to endure a situation marked by precariousness. I don’t think that future prospects are missing in young people’s horizons. Nonetheless it should be said that uncertainty is not a positive perspective. It would be important to eliminate this feeling of uncertainty, and at the same time address the difficulties linked to unemployment. But young people are called to address this challenge after their university studies, i.e., once they are called to face the job market". Let’s then continue taking about the university environment. Who is the university chaplain? "He is the one who is capable of establishing a relationship and a friendship before anything else. Along with this first step it is necessary to show how the study of a given discipline can influence a person’s life. This is the level of the dialogue between faith and reason, which is critical to a unitary, global, and knowledgeable vision of existence and of the human person, made of heart and mind". How can the myth that science is innovation and faith is conservativism be debunked? "Firstly with personal experience and with the testimony of the chaplain. If the life of the chaplain is marked by a balance of faith and thought then he will be able to put it to the service of the students. Second, it could be said that there is no space for a serious innovation, compared to the human person if all that has been passed down to us by tradition is neglected, such as art, beauty, philosophic and scientific research. It is necessary to treasure all that we have been given in order to extend our glance to the future. We shouldn’t consider ourselves as the guides of the world nor that a specific discipline is capable of telling us everything about life and about human existence. But in my view university students don’t view science and religion as two opposite realms. Rather, I believe that this contraposition is the result of a reductionist understanding that is channeled in a superficial way by the media. The youths have the capacities of identifying points of convergence". What kinds of citizens does Europe need today? "It needs citizens in the true sense of the term, capable of tackling the ongoing situation and its problems whilst not focusing on the difficulties. One of the major causes of the present standstill is a reductionist view of human reality, In Europe reality has been analyzed only from a given perspective and at a certain level. Europeans have lost their ability to have a passion for life and for human history. We don’t only have sad passions. We also nurture a sad thought, a reductive thought. There is a need for men and women moved by the same major thrust that pioneered the creation of a great Europe. But when spiritual dynamism is lacking the dynamism of mankind succumbs with it. When there are small men with small thoughts there is nowhere to go".