“One of the most important contributions that the universities can make to the construction of a European identity is the formation of a ruling class; this has always been a priority objective for the Catholic Universities I think especially of the university founded by Agostino Gemelli. The Catholic University of Milan was founded precisely with the aim of promoting a ruling class that were not merely of Risorgimento (i.e. secular) formation”: so says Lorenzo Ornaghi, pro-rector of the Catholic University and vice-president of the European Federation of Catholic Universities. “This objective continued Ornaghi is essential with a view to the construction of the European Union. What does Europe need? Of course it needs the politico-institutional system to which we are proceeding with great exertion. But it will always have a need for a ‘European’ political class, hence not the convergence of fractions of national political classes, but a political class that is ‘born’ as European, ‘thinks’ as European and ‘works’ as European. Each university, and the Catholic universities in particular, apart from the task they cannot abandon of forming a ‘local’ political class, have the urgent task of forming the European political class. From this point of view, the specific nature of the statutes of the various Catholic universities, each characterized by different relations with the State to which it belongs (as was highlighted by the report drawn up by EFCU), represents a difficulty: joint degree courses need to be developed. The task of coordination between the various universities played by EFCU becomes even more important in this context. While joint curricula and joint degrees may help, what is needed from them all is, above all, a cultural effort: the effort of ‘thinking’ in a European manner”.
