He explains that the mission of Catholic science and the university, with its own capabilities and means, is to awaken the man who wants to think about the tragic situation in which matter and mechanisms have triumphed in our time, and to clarify hope. From a more humane future. You can do all this by “presenting the complete and vertical horizon of human knowledge and indicating the true place and purpose of science – in the lives of both the individual and society.” The mission of the Catholic University is also to help its students and citizens to ask and grasp the big questions of human existence.
The university president says that from the Catholic point of view science and worldview were never in conflict. Where one and the other are six ways more fertile for the other, but they cannot extinguish each other, if they strive for it, both see harm. Even in sciences that are taught in the most positive way, there is necessarily an element of worldview, and worldview is also based on accepted facts, and it is a worldview based on scientific foundations.
Today, objective science has also reached its limits, and theorists of philosophy and religion know that the scientific view and scientific models cannot be ignored.
That is, they are valued for a fruitful dialogue with each other, but the assessment of the worldview places scientific knowledge in its entirety and defines the tasks of science, and thus an “inevitably leadership role”. The real world then deals with the part and the whole at the same time, and cares at the same time, extending his knowledge and worldview, his Catholic faith. The further we move away from the personal absolutist, the more the human personality becomes distorted and the world distorted.
As for the question about when the university becomes Catholic, the answer of the university president is: legally, of course, if it was established and operated by the competent ecclesiastical authority, or if it is recognized as such. Indeed, if the teachers, researchers and students, at the same time, are truly Catholic, that is, people are permeated with the Catholic spirit, “not only Catholics or religious in their own way.”
Regarding the professor’s duties, Géza Kuminetz recalls: The famous preacher Billy Graham was once asked, what would he do if he had been absent from his life for only three years? He replied that he would prepare for his speeches for two years. Even today, a university professor must “be in the silence of his studies, the church and the classrooms in order to deepen himself, achieve lasting scholarly achievement and preserve his humanity. Keep your hours and always be ready.” According to the Cistercian monk Pius Fisher:
When the true teacher performs, “it almost disappears, and meanwhile the thing being done appears in its vitality and richness.”
The Catholic University is chosen primarily by Catholics, but the institution is open to all sincerely interested people. We need students who “realize that we do not live to gain the benefits in an unfair way. We do not live to enjoy life, but to realize our vocation, devote ourselves to it, live our lives fairly, and thus fulfill our life’s mission.”
University President Geza Cominitz says:
With the help of science educated in the Catholic way, the face of a friend and his blessed activity is revealed to us: “The face of the man who became Christ, who is truly the crown of creation, and in whom the Heavenly Father also pleases”.
But for all this, in order to realize this choice, we must understand the meaning of the phrase from Saint Thomas Aquinas in one of the slogans of the main discourse, “The Primary Force”. And least knowledge of the greatest of all is the gift of the Catholic faith. But Professor Comintz warns that our insight (our faith) and our fruits will only be part of our class if, in the other slogan, the idea from the pen of Romano Guardini, we can really create the fertile silence that elevates us to the source of truth. Knowledge, God and Ascension. As a result, we will be part of the true choice that teaches us to live and create the truth. Dean Pázmány admits, “I know we are far from this Christian ideal. But the good news is that we can take our first step toward it today and our next step every day.”
Geza Cominitz: The Catholic University is a special stronghold of scientific life and personality development
Szent István Társulat, 2020
Photo: SZIT; Lambert Attila (archive)
Dániel Bodnár / Hungarian Express Mail
