Address For The Opening Of Broadway Campus Of Notre Dame University, Australia
+ Cardinal George Pell,
3 Mar 2006
Earlier this week as I was finalising my few words for this important ceremony, I realised that I did not know whether I would be homilising during the blessing ceremony or actually saying my few words afterwards as one of the three occasional addresses. I therefore had a problem identifying the proper literary form required.
My quandary called to mind the scandalously unjust and untrue story circulated in Melbourne about Catholic school openings during the 1950s, when it was alleged that the parish priest would speak about money, Archbishop Mannix would speak about politics and Prime Minister Menzies would talk about religion!
Vice Chancellor Tannock resolved any dilemma I had, as he obviously felt I was better equipped to talk on university life than to deliver a homily by giving me a slot after the blessing. I thank him for this.
My talk will not be political, but I do want to begin by congratulating the Prime Minister on his ten years in office, thank him particularly and the then Minister for Education Brendan Nelson for their Government’s support for this worthy project and express the hope that Mr. Howard will be present as Prime Minister for the opening of the Darlinghurst Campus in early 2008*.
The opening of this Catholic university campus in this university precinct of inner Sydney is a reason for celebration; and we celebrate with human optimism and Christian hope.
It has been my privilege to be associated in some way or other with universities for over forty years. I therefore know something of the highs and the lows, the solid achievement and missed opportunities of university life. At some moments the temptation to cynicism can be strong; to regard the opening of a new university campus as Dr. Johnson regarded a second marriage: the triumph of hope over experience!
But such cynicism would be a mistake. Our justified expectation is that generation after generation here will be developed personally and professionally, have their minds broadened and understanding deepened; not only carve out successful carers for themselves and contribute effectively to the creation of wealth in Australia and overseas, but also add to our social capital, to sustaining and developing the levels of decency, compassion and philanthropy our society needs.
Christian hope goes further that this. It purifies and transforms human optimism so that students with Christian hope will be inspired not only to leave the world a better place, but also to leave this world finally as better persons. Christian hope also transforms our natural desire for happiness so that our hearts are ordered to the Kingdom of Heaven, opened to the expectation of eternal beatitude.
All this is a tall order, only achieved imperfectly. But such are the perspectives that will be offered for free acceptance or rejection by students of every religious tradition and none who will study here.
I anticipate that the professional courses at Notre Dame will be thoroughly professional, that the pursuit of excellence, of high academic standards will be a feature of undergraduate and graduate life. But we also hope that this university will be serious about the getting of wisdom.
At the opening Mass here at Broadway on June 10th last year I touched on the importance of wisdom and this theme deserves at least a brief restatement, some repetition. The wise do understand that wisdom is worth more than sceptres and thrones; is to be loved more than health or beauty. Beside wisdom gold is like a pinch of sand, and silver ranks as mud.
These are serious claims, politically incorrect, rarely stated today in our acquisitive society, but we do hope that a goodly percentage of the Notre Dame graduates will be truly wise.
And finally a few words about the position of Notre Dame University within the Catholic community. Because of her constitution and the geography of this campus Notre Dame Sydney will always be linked to Catholicism.
There is a famous Renaissance painting of the ideal city with sets of beautiful buildings surrounding what is probably a library surmounted by a small cross. Notre Dame here is different.
Here the academic buildings will always surround one of the oldest parish sites in Australia, founded by the Benedictines in 1838. Many generations have already been welcomed in this Church of St. Benedict by baptism (three generations of Cardinal Gilroy’s family for example) and farewelled from here into eternity. From this Church they set out on a new life after their marriages were blessed; here they had their sins forgiven and here they prayed when they were in trouble; the disappointed, the betrayed the afflicted. Here in this Church now at the heart of this new university campus many learnt that suffering can be made holy and that forgiveness is sweet (1).
At her best the Catholic Church has always valued and encouraged the intellectual life. Today we heard the apostle John describe the Godhead, or at least the Second Person of the Trinitarian God as the word. “In the beginning was the Word: the Word was with God and the Word was God”.
And this divine Logos, eternal reason, the origin of the universe became flesh and lived among us. Ultimately truth is not abstract, much less empty. Truth became incarnate in a person, and that person is Christ, who calls us in obedience to love.
These linkages of faith and reason, of flesh and spirit, of truth and the human person constitute together a uniquely Christian set of insights and still provide the substance of our response to today’s successors of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, who cynically muttered to Christ “What is truth?”
More than ever our society needs to hear cogent arguments for moral realism, truth claims, the uniqueness of the human person and the reality of the Transcendent. Such is one task of a Catholic university.
Later this morning the Prime Minister will launch Notre Dame Sydney into an exciting and unknown future. We wish her well; God speed in every sense. Our high hopes and prayers go with her. May this university give glory to God and promote the spiritual and material good of a countless number of people for many, many generations.
*The Cardinal in his speech pointed out that he now realised an election was due in 2007, but that Mr Howard would be welcome in capacity in early 2008.
