Published 15-03-2026
Keywords
- Gravissimum educationis,
- Catholic higher education,
- canon law,
- anthropology,
- community,
- evangelization,
- AI
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Abstract
According to the Gravissimum Educationis declaration,
“The Church pays great attention to higher education institutions, especially universities and faculties. In the institutions dependent on it, it naturally strives to ensure that the various disciplines are cultivated according to their own principles, methods, and the freedom of research to which they are entitled, so that they may attain deeper knowledge day by day, paying attention to the new questions and research of our time, and following in the footsteps of the Church’s teachers, especially in the footsteps of St. Thomas Aquinas, to gain a deeper understanding of how faith and reason lead to the one truth”.
In 2025, Catholic and ecclesiastical universities, and in particular Pázmány Péter Catholic University, will have to provide appropriate responses to a number of new challenges. The nature, goals, and tasks of Catholic university education are precisely defined in the Church’s key documents in this area. Gravissimum educationis, Fides et ratio, Ex corde Ecclesiae, and, of course, the Codex Iuris Canonici, face unprecedented challenges with the passage of time, changing attitudes, and the decline of Christianity in Europe, which make it increasingly difficult to achieve the goals set forth.
In my presentation, beyond elaborating on these challenges, I would like to present possible answers based on the philosophical anthropological teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the flourishing scholasticism, and Pope John Paul II. I would also like to draw on the theology of the mystical body of Christ. The first fruits of these are already visible, and we can already taste them.