VATICAN INFORMATION SERVICE   
   YEAR XXII - N° 68   
   DATE 10-04-2014   
      
   Summary:   
   - ECCLESIASTICAL UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT MACHINES FOR PRODUCING THEOLOGIANS AND   
   PHILOSOPHERS   
   - POPE FRANCIS: HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS A WOUND TO HUMANITY   
   - DECLARATION OF COMMITMENT FROM THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SLAVERY CONFERENCE   
   - AUDIENCES   
      
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    ECCLESIASTICAL UNIVERSITIES ARE NOT MACHINES FOR PRODUCING THEOLOGIANS AND   
   PHILOSOPHERS   
   Vatican City, 10 April 2014 (VIS) ? This morning Pope Francis received in   
   audience the professors, students and non-teaching staff of the Gregorian   
   Pontifical University, the Pontifical Biblical Institute and the Pontifical   
   Oriental Institute. These institutions, brought together in a consortium by   
   Pope Pius XI in 1923, were entrusted to the Society of Jesus and the Holy   
   Father recalled the importance of collaboration between them in ?safeguarding   
   historical memory and, at the same time, taking responsibility for the present   
   and looking to the future with creativity and imagination?.   
   Pope Francis indicated two aspects that should characterise the task of the   
   members of the consortium, both teachers and students. The first is to   
   acknowledge the value of the place where they work and study ? the city and   
   above all the Church of Rome. ?There isa part and there is a present. There   
   are the roots of faith: the memories of the Apostles and the Martyrs; and   
   there is the ecclesial 'today', the current path of this Church which presides   
   over charity, the service of unity and universality. All this must not be   
   taken for granted! ? But at the same time you bring here the variety of your   
   Churches of origin and of your cultures. ? This offers a valuable opportunity   
   for growth in faith and in opening the mind and the heart to the horizon of   
   Catholicity. Within this horizon, the dialectic between 'centre' and   
   'periphery' takes on a form of its own, an evangelical form according to the   
   logic of a God who reaches the centre from the periphery, to then return to   
   the periphery?.   
   The second aspect was the relationship between study and spiritual life, and   
   which constitutes ?one of the challenges of our times: transmitting knowledge   
   and offering a key to a vital understanding, not anaccumulation of unconnected   
   notions. There is a need for a true evangelical hermeneutics to better   
   understand life, the world, and humankind, not a synthesis but a spiritual   
   atmosphere of research and certainty based on the truths of reason and faith.   
   Philosophy and theology enable us to acquire the convictions that structure   
   and strengthen intelligence and enlighten will ? but all this is fruitful only   
   if it is done with an open mind and on one's knees. The theologian who is   
   satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. A good   
   theologian and philosopher is open, or incomplete in thought, always open to   
   the 'maius' of God and of the truth, always in development. ? And the   
   theologian who does not pray or does not adore God ends up sinking into the   
   most repugnant narcissism. And this is an ecclesiastical sickness. Narcissism   
   in theologians and in thinkers is harmful and repugnant?.   
   The Holy Father continued, ?The aim of studyin any pontifical university is   
   ecclesial. Research and study are to be integrated with personal and community   
   life, with missionary commitment, with fraternal charity and sharing with the   
   poor, with attention to inner life in relation to the Lord. Your Institutes   
   are not machines for producing theologians and philosophers; they are   
   communities in which one grows, and growth occurs in the family?. The   
   university family is ?indispensable for creating an attitude of concrete   
   humanity and wisdom, making students into people capable of building humanity,   
   of transmitting the truth in a human dimension, of knowing that if there lacks   
   the goodness and beauty of belonging to a working family one ends up as an   
   intellectual without talent, an ethicist without goodness, a thinker lacking   
   the splendour of beauty and simply 'adorned' with formalism. Respectful and   
   daily contact with the laboriousness and the witness of the men and women in   
   your institutions will give you the quota of realism necessary for your   
   science to be human and not merely that of the laboratory?, he concluded.   
      
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    POPE FRANCIS: HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS A WOUND TO HUMANITY   
   Vatican City, 10 April 2014 (VIS) ? ?An open wound on the body of contemporary   
   society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity?:   
   the Holy Father thus described human trafficking in his English-language   
   address to the participants in the ?Second International Conference on   
   Combating Human Trafficking: Church and Law Enforcement in Partnership?, which   
   took place from 9 to 10 April in the Vatican, organised by the Episcopal   
   Conference of England and Wales. ?This is an important meeting, a gesture on   
   the part of the Church and people of good will who want to cry out,   
   'Enough!'?, he added.   
   ?The very fact of our being here to combine our efforts means that we want our   
   strategies and areas of expertise to be accompanied and reinforced by the   
   mercy of the Gospel, by closeness to the men and women who are victims of this   
   crime?, said thePope. ?Our meeting today includes law enforcement authorities,   
   who are primarily responsible for combating this tragic reality by a vigorous   
   application of the law. It also includes humanitarian and social workers,   
   whose task it is to provide victims with welcome, human warmth and the   
   possibility of building a new life. These are two different approaches, but   
   they can and must go together. To dialogue and exchange views on the basis of   
   these two complementary approaches is important. Conferences such as this are   
   extremely helpful, and, I would say, much needed?.   
   Before concluding, the Holy Father thanked the participants for their   
   collaboration and commented on the importance of the fact that, ?one year   
   after your first meeting, you have regrouped from throughout the world in   
   order to advance your common efforts?.   
      
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    DECLARATION OF COMMITMENT FROM THE HUMAN TRAFFICKING AND SLAVERY CONFERENCE   
   Vatican City, 10 April 2014 (VIS) ? The Declaration of Commitment following   
   the ?Second International Conference on Combating Human Trafficking: Church   
   and Law Enforcement in Partnership?, which took place in the Vatican's Casina   
   Pio IV, is published in full below:   
   ?On this date 10 April 2014 in the Vatican, senior law enforcement officials   
   and representatives of the Catholic Church met to plan ways of together   
   combating human trafficking and slavery.   
   The Holy Father Pope Francis has endorsed this event and has stated:   
   ?I exhort the international community to adopt an even more unanimous and   
   effective strategy against human trafficking, so that in every part of the   
   world, men and women may no longer be used as a means to an end, and that   
   their inviolable dignity may always be respected.   
   Assenior law enforcement officials within the international community, we   
   commit to eradicate the scourge of this serious criminal activity, which   
   abuses vulnerable people. This conference is part, of a process where we work   
   together on the international stage to develop strategies in prevention,   
   pastoral care and re-integration, placing the victim at the centre of all we   
   do.   
   I make a personal commitment to developing partnerships with the Church and   
   civil society to bring to justice those who are responsible for these   
   horrendous crimes and to alleviate the suffering of the victims?.   
      
   ___________________________________________________________   
      
    AUDIENCES   
   Vatican City, 10 April 2014 (VIS) ? Today, the Holy Father received in   
   audience:   
   - Zvonimir Jankuloski, the new ambassador of the ex-Yugoslav Republic of   
   Macedonia to the Holy See, presenting his credential letters.   
   - Archbishop Peter Rajic, apostolic nuncio in Kuwait, Bahrain, Yemen, Qatar   
   and United Arab Emirates, apostolic delegate in the Arabian Peninsula.   
      
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