NEWS & VIEWS
from a CATHOLIC perspective

      VATICAN (CWNews.com) -- Pope John Paul II today visited the Free International University for Social Studies (LUISS), and urged students there to be "promoters of authentic social renewal."

      LUISS was founded in 1996 by a group of religious and lay people, specializing in business and finance. The school has 5,000 students, served by 700 professors and administrators.

      "Follow the path of intellectual charity with generosity," the Pope told the students. He urged them to show the strength to "oppose the forms of injustice which threaten men's lives."

      By calling for "intellectual charity," the Pope explained, he meant to imply "the knowledge and experience of scientific discovery, like artistic inspiration, should be gifts which communicate energy" to the surrounding society. That energy, he continued, gives each person the ability to develop and express his own identity, and to serve society through his professional work.

      The Holy Father cautioned against a relationship between academic and financial affairs which could be "formed by a purely pragmatic vision which, in the end, can be seen as sterile." Economic and professional needs should never obscure the goal of teaching, "which is always to create masters of life," he concluded.