Cardinal Sturla A University: faith, hope and love dry the best of us

Visiting in Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), the Archbishop of Montevideo and Cardenal Primado de Uruguay, Daniel Sturla, taught a conference to the meritorious students of the Pontifical Catholic University Mother and Teacher (PUCMM) to whom he urged hope.

The words of welcome were in charge of Fr. Secilio Espinal, rector of the University, who highlighted the importance of education for the construction of a more just and supportive society.

“Education is an act of love and hope, because it generates life, it implies transcendence and breaks skepticism and attitudes contrary to the dignity of the human being,” he said.

Cardinal Sturla’s conference was entitled “Educate for hope at the Catholic University in the Jubilee Year”, and focused on education in a “quite dark” historical context.

In particular, he referred to “wars and deportations,” as symptoms of this time, and stated: “Where are the roots of hope?”

In this regard, he reviewed the history of survival of Uruguayan young people remembered in the movie “The snow society”, which in 1972 remained more than 70 days in the mountain range when the plane in which they were traveling.

The purple rescued the organization’s capacity to organize that group and assured that they could get out of that situation “by themselves, living the three theological virtues: faith, hope and love, which are intertwined and get the best out of us in difficult times ”

Hope, said the Archbishop, “it is not for when everything goes well,” but is learned in suffering. “Where we see wars, where we see so many realities that hurt and hit us,” he said, the question is “What do I do? What is my attitude towards a dramatic situation that we can live?”

Hope, Cardinal Sturla observed, is not about being filled with illusions, but requires realism about what you want.

“Prayer, made with great desires and not with illusions, with desires of things we expect and that can be given, opens us to a transforming experience of life, transforming our hearts,” he said.

When referring to the influence that teachers printed on good students, he considered that “intelligence is relational and performance depends on how a teacher looks at his student. If you think it is an eagle, it will make it an eagle. If you think it is a donkey, it will make it a donkey. ”

At the end of the conference, recognitions to academic excellence were given to 16 meritorious students of the University, in areas such as art and culture, sport, university pastoral, teamwork and student leadership.