Pope to Merrimack College: 'Educate students to grow in solidarity'

By Lisa Zengarini

One of the fundamental aims of education should be to help young people face challenges so they can grow in solidarity, Pope Francis said on Friday.

It is important that young people “be taught to face challenges together” so that every crisis in life  “can be transformed into an opportunity for growth,” the Pope said as he welcomed in the Clementine Hall the President and Trustees of the Augustinian-run Merrimack College, Massachusetts.  

“Per scientiam ad sapientiam”

The Augustinians founded the college in 1947 at the invitation of the then Archbishop of Boston Richard Cushing, as a direct response to the needs and aspirations of local soldiers returning home from the Second World War.

Recalling that since its onset the college has sought to educate students by drawing inspiration from the Augustinian principle of “cultivating knowledge in order to attain wisdom, as reflected in its motto: “Per scientiam ad sapientiam”, in his address Pope Francis offered a brief reflection on two interrelated aspects of its mission:  educating young people to face challenges in order to grow in solidarity.

Young people must be taught to trasform crises into opportunities

He noted that its first students had experienced the trauma of war and therefore needed “more than academic instruction alone”: “It was necessary to restore in them a sense of meaning, hope and confidence for the future, to enrich their minds, but also to warm their hearts and restore hope for a brighter future.”

“In a word, it was necessary to offer them, through their studies and their life in the College community, a path to a new start,” the Pope said.

Similarly,  Pope Francis continued, young people today, faced with new multiple crises, need to be taught to address these challenges together, “not letting themselves be overwhelmed, but rather responding in such a way that every crisis, even when it involves suffering, can be transformed into an opportunity for growth.”

Teaching the value of solidarity

Pope Francis went on to highlight that this personal growth is closely connected to solidarity: “There is a need to train new generations to view difficulties as opportunities, and to aim for a future, not so much of wealth and success, as of love, building a humanism grounded in a spirit of solidarity,” he said.

In this regard the Pope further remarked the importance, in every aspect of education, to guide students “toward the capacity for discernment" in the face of the present process of globalization, which has its nega.tive aspects, “such as isolation, marginalization and the ‘throwaway culture’", but also positive ones, including its  “potential to increase solidarity and to promote equality “

“This this is your responsibility, and it is a great one”, Pope Francis concluded,  thanking the Trustees of the Merrimack College and entrusting them to the intercession of the Virgin Mary and Saint Augustine.