List of points

These days one of the most debated questions is that of democratising education to make it accessible to all social classes. No one today can imagine an institution of higher education which does not have a social impact or function. How do you understand this process and how can the universities fulfil their social function?

A university must educate its students to have a sense of service to society, promoting the common good with their professional work and their activity. University people should be responsible citizens with a healthy concern for the problems of other people and a generous spirit which brings them to face these problems and to resolve them in the best possible way. It is the task of universities to foster these attitudes in their students.

Everyone who has sufficient ability should have access to higher education, no matter what his social background, economic means, race, or religion. As long as there remain barriers in these areas, democratic education will be little more than an empty phrase.

In a word, the universities should be open to all and should educate their students so that their future professional work may be of service to all.

Many students feel personally involved in world problems and thus want to take an active part in assisting the many people who suffer physically or morally or who are living in poverty. What social ideals would you suggest to university students of our day?

The ideal I would propose is, above all, one of work well done and of adequate intellectual preparation during their college years. Given this basis, there are thousands of places in the world which need a helping hand, which await someone who is willing to work personally with effort and sacrifice. A university should not form men who will egoistically consume the benefits they have achieved through their studies. Rather it should prepare students for a life of generous help of their neighbour, of Christian charity.

Frequently students' concern for social problem is limited to oral or written demonstrations, and at times it degenerates into useless or harmful outbursts. I myself measure the sincerity of concern for others in terms of works of service, and I know of thousands of cases of students in many countries who have refused to build their own little private worlds. They are giving themselves to others through their professional work, which they try to carry out with human perfection, through educational endeavours, through social and welfare activities, in a spirit of youth and cheerfulness.

In the context of the present socio-political situation in our country and in others, or of war, injustice, or oppression, what responsibility do you attribute to the university as a corporate body, and to professors and students? Should a university permit students and professors to carry on political activities within its precincts?

First of all, I would like to say that in this conversation I am expressing opinions of my own. Since I was sixteen — and I am now sixty-five — I have never lost contact with the university, but I am expressing my own personal way of seeing this matter, and not the point of view of Opus Dei. In temporal and debatable matters Opus Dei does not wish to have and cannot have any opinion, since its goals are exclusively spiritual. In all matters of free discussion, each member of the Work has and freely expresses his own personal opinion, for which he is also personally responsible.

In reply to your question, I think we would in the first place have to come to an agreement about what we mean by 'politics'. If by 'politics' we mean being interested in and working for peace, social justice, the freedom of all men, then in that case everyone in the university as a corporate body is obliged to respect those ideals and to foster a concern for resolving the great problems of human life.

But if, on the contrary, we understand by 'politics' a particular solution to a specific problem, in competition with those who stand for other possible and legitimate solutions, then I think that the university is not the place where politics should be decided.

College years are a period of preparation for finding solutions to these problems. Everyone should be welcome in the university. It should be a place of study and friendship, a place where people who hold different opinions which, in each period, are expressions of the legitimate pluralism which exists in society — may live together in peace.

We would like you, as the Chancellor of the University of Navarra, to outline the principles which moved you to found it, and explain its significance today in relation to higher education in Spain.

The University of Navarra was founded in 1952 — after many years of prayer, I am happy to say — with the idea of being a university which would express the cultural and apostolic ideals of a group of professors who felt deeply about education. It aimed then, as it does today, to contribute side by side with the other universities to solve a serious educational problem in Spain and in many other countries, which needs people who are well-trained in order to build a more just society.

Those who began it were no strangers to the Spanish university scene. They were professors who has been educated and had taught at Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Santiago, Granada and many other universities. This close cooperation, which I venture to say was closer even than that between neighbouring State universities, still continues. There are frequent interchanges and visits by professors, and national congresses where work is carried out in harmony, etc. The same contact has been maintained with the best universities in other countries. The present conferring of honorary degrees on professors of the Sorbonne, of Harvard, Coimbra, Munich and Louvain is an expression of this close contact.

The University of Navarra has stimulated the contributions to higher education of many people who consider that university studies, open to all who deserve to study, regardless of their financial resources, are basic to progress. The Association of Friends of the University of Navarra, with its generous help, has distributed a considerable number of scholarships and grants. This number will continue to increase, as will the number of Afro-Asian and Latin-American students.

It has been said that the University of Navarra is a university for people with means and that nevertheless it receives considerable support from the State. We know the first part is not true because we know our fellow students, but what about the State subsidies?

The facts have been made available to the public through the press. They show that, while its fees are approximately the same as those of other universities, the University of Navarra gives financial aid to more students than does any other university in the country. And I can assure you that the number of scholarships will be increased further. We aim to reach a percentage of scholarship holders as high, if not higher, than that registered by the non-Spanish universities which are most outstanding in their efforts to help students.

I can understand that Navarra attracts attention because it functions very efficiently and this makes people speculate about the existence of massive financial resources. But they forget, when they reason that way, that material resources are not sufficient in themselves to make an institution prosper. The vitality of this university is due principally to the sense of service, to the enthusiasm and to the effort which teaching staff, students, employees and the admirable women of Navarra who do the cleaning, have put into it. If it were not for their efforts, the university would not have been able to keep going.

Financially the university is supported by subsidies. In the first instance, that of the Provincial Council of Navarra, which is for operating expenses. One must also mention the grant of land for the university buildings made by the Pamplona City Council following a common practice of city councils in many countries. You know from experience the cultural and economic advantages which a region like Navarra and, in particular, the city of Pamplona derive from a modern university which opens to all the possibility of receiving good higher education.

You ask about State subsidies. The Spanish government gives no help for the operating expenses of the University of Navarra. It has granted some subsidies for the buildings necessary to accommodate larger numbers of students, which alleviate the great financial effort which the university has to make to set up these new facilities.

Other sources of income (for the School of Industrial Engineering) are the Corporations in Guipuzcoa and particularly the Provincial Bank of Guipuzcoa.

From the start the help given by Spanish and foreign foundations, both public and private, has played an important role. For example, a large official grant from the United States for scientific equipment for the School of Industrial Engineering; the contribution from the German Foundation Misereor towards the new buildings; the help from the Huarte Foundation for cancer research; grants from the Gulbenkian Foundation etc.

Then there is the help for which we are, if it were possible, even more grateful: that of the thousands of people in Spain and abroad, of all social classes, who are cooperating in so far as they can to maintain the university, even though many of them have very limited financial means.

Finally one must not forget those companies whose interest leads them to cooperate in the research carried out by the university or to help in some other way.

You might imagine that with all this there is money to spare. Well, it isn't so. The University of Navarra still operates at a deficit. I would like still more people and more foundations to help so that this work of service and social welfare can continue and expand.

As the Founder of Opus Dei and the force behind a wide range of university-level educational centres all over the world, could you tell us both why Opus Dei has started these centres and what are the principal features of its contribution to this level of teaching?

The aim of Opus Dei is that many people all over the world may come to know both in theory and in practice that it is possible to sanctify their ordinary tasks, their daily work; that it is possible to seek Christian perfection in the middle of the world without having to give up the work in which our Lord decided to call us. Thus, the most important apostolate of Opus Dei is that which each member carries out individually, through his professional work done with the greatest human perfection possible — despite my personal shortcomings and those which each individual may have — in all environments and in all countries: for among the members of Opus Dei there are people of some seventy countries of all races and social conditions.

Besides, Opus Dei as a corporation, with the help of very many people who do not belong to the Work and who often are not Christian, fosters corporate activities through which it seeks to contribute towards solving the many problems which face the world today: educational institutions, welfare centres, schools for professional development and advancement. etc.

The university-level institutions of which you speak are another aspect of this task. Their principal features can be enumerated as follows: to train people in personal freedom and in personal responsibility. With freedom and responsibility, people work enthusiastically and wholeheartedly, and there is no need for controls or supervision. Everyone feels at home and therefore all you need is a simple schedule. Another characteristic is the spirit of living together in harmony without discrimination of any kind. Here, in this living together, personality takes shape. Each individual learns that, in order to be able to demand respect for his own freedom, he must respect the freedom of others.

Finally, there is the spirit of human brotherhood. Each person's individual talents have to be placed at the service of others: if not, they are of little use. The corporate works which Opus Dei conducts throughout the world are always at the service of everyone, because they are a Christian service.

Opus Dei, on the other hand, fosters technical training centres for industrial workers, agricultural training schools for farm labourers, centres for primary, secondary and university education, and many other varied activities all over the world, because its apostolic zeal, as I wrote many years ago, is like a sea without shores.

But what need have I to speak at length on this topic, when your very presence here is more eloquent than a prolonged discourse? You, Friends of the University of Navarra, are part of a body of people who know they are committed to the progress of the society to which they belong. Your sincere encouragement, your prayers, sacrifice and contributions are not offered on the basis of Catholic denominationalism. Your cooperation is a clear testimony of a well-formed civic consciousness, which is concerned with the common temporal good. You are witnesses to the fact that a university can be born of the energies of the people and be sustained by the people.

On this occasion, I want to offer my thanks once again for the cooperation lent to our university, by the city of Pamplona, by the region of Navarra, by the Friends of the University from every part of Spain and, I say this with particular gratitude, by non-Spaniards and even non-Catholics and non-Christians who have understood the intention and spirit of this enterprise and have shown it with their deeds.

Thanks to all of them this university has become a source, which grows day by day, of civic freedom, of intellectual preparation, of professional emulation, and a stimulus for university education. Your generous sacrifice is part of the foundations of all this work which seeks the development of human knowledge, of social welfare and of the teaching of the Faith.

What I have just pointed out has been clearly understood by the people of Navarra, who also recognise that their university is a factor in the economic development and, especially, in the social advancement of the region, a factor which has given so many of their children an opportunity to enter the intellectual professions which, otherwise, would have been difficult and, in some cases, impossible to obtain. This awareness of the role which the university would play in their lives is surely what inspired the support which Navarra has lent it from the beginning; support which will undoubtedly grow continually in enthusiasm and extent.