“Pope Leon” scandalized, cheers erupted, then “Long live the Pope, long live the Pope.” This is how the students of La Sapienza University in Rome, the largest university in Europe, welcomed the pontiff to “their” university.
And the Pope addressed the crowd of young people: “My visit aims to symbolize a new educational alliance between the Church in Rome and your prestigious university, born and raised within the Church.”
Past popes’ relationships with La Sapienza
The last visit of a pope to La Sapienza University in Rome dates back to John Paul II, who visited the university in 1991 and then in 2003 to confer an honorary degree.
In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI was supposed to inaugurate the academic year, but he was forced to cancel his visit due to protests from some professors and students, an event that remained a symbolic injury in the relationship between the Church and the university founded in 1303 by a pope himself, Boniface VIII.
The speech in the Aula Magna: “be peacebuilders”
Upon entering the Aula Magna, Pope Leon XIV was greeted with long applause, with students and professors standing up.
In a speech of about three-quarters of an hour, the Pope encouraged young people to “not give in to resignation, transforming agitation into prophecy.” And he added: “be artisans of true peace: a peace that disarms and disarms, humble and persevering, working for harmony among peoples and for the preservation of the Earth.”
“What is happening in Ukraine, Gaza, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Iran, describes the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.” For the pontiff, “it is therefore necessary to be vigilant about the development and application of artificial intelligence in military and civil domains, so that they do not devalue human choices and exacerbate the tragic nature of conflicts.”
He added: “Last year, the growth of military spending in the world, particularly in Europe, was enormous: do not call ‘defense’ an armament that increases tensions and insecurity, impoverishes investments in education and health, denies trust in diplomacy, and enriches elites who do not care about the common good.”
“Your university is characterized by a center of excellence in various disciplines and, at the same time, by its commitment to the right to study, including for the most disadvantaged, the disabled, prisoners, and those who have fled war zones. For example, I greatly appreciate the fact that the Diocese of Rome and Sapienza University have signed an agreement to open a university humanitarian corridor from the Gaza Strip.” This aspect was also emphasized by Rector Polimeni in her introductory speech.
Pope Francis’ call and youths’ concerns
“A ‘common front of commitment’ concerns ‘ecology.’ As Pope Francis said in the encyclical ‘Laudato si’, ‘there is a very coherent scientific consensus indicating that we are facing a worrying warming of the climate system’. More than a decade has passed since then, and despite good intentions and some efforts in this direction, the situation does not seem to have improved.”
From the agitation of young people, the Pope said, “there is also a sad face: we must not hide the fact that many young people are unwell. For everyone, there are challenging seasons; some may feel that they never end. Today, it increasingly depends on the extortion of expectations and performance pressure. It is the pervasive lie of a distorted system that reduces people to numbers, exacerbates competition, and leaves us in spirals of anxiety.”
“It is precisely this spiritual unease of many young people,” continued the Pope, “that reminds us that we are not the sum of what we have, nor randomly assembled matter from a silent cosmos. We are a desire, not an algorithm!”
Who seeks truth, seeks God
It was a true ovation that greeted Pope Leon upon his arrival at the “Divina Sapienza” university chapel, the first moment of his visit to La Sapienza University. The Pope was welcomed there by chaplain Don Gabriele Vecchione and, of course, by Rector Antonella Polimeni and the Academic Senate.
“I wanted to start this visit here, in the chapel, because it is primarily a pastoral visit, to get to know the university,” he declared. “Those who seek, study, seek the truth, and ultimately seek God, will encounter and find God in the beauty of creation, in the many forms that God has chosen to place in His forms.”
The pontiff then rode down the university avenue in a golf cart, amidst the applause of students and the chant of “Long live the Pope.”
