Tres expertos de la Universidad de Navarra reflexionan sobre la biografía y pensamiento del beato John Henry Newman
Three experts from the University of Navarra reflect on the biography and thought of Blessed John Henry Newman
-Víctor García Ruiz, José Morales and Alejandro Llano participated in an interdisciplinary seminar organized by the Institute of Anthropology and Ethics.
The Institute of Anthropology and Ethics (IAE) of the University of Navarra held an interdisciplinary seminar on the figure of Blessed John Henry Newman under the degree scroll 'Newman Today'.
Moderated by Sergio Sánchez-Migallón, director of the IAE, it counted with the participation of professors Víctor García Ruiz, from the School of Philosophy and Letters; José Morales, from the School of Theology; and Alejandro Llano, from the Schools of Philosophy and Letters, and Ecclesiastic of Philosophy.
The event was attended by more than 60 professionals from Theology, Philology, History, Philosophy, Education, Communication, Architecture, Law, Economics, Science, Tecnun and ISSA.
"The figure of Cardinal Newman is very illustrative of the IAE's goal : to reflect on the truth of man and his life, especially attending to the harmony of reason and faith," said Sergio Sanchez-Migallon.
Professor Víctor García Ruiz, who has translated several of the Blessed's works into Spanish , reviewed some features of the Cardinal's biography and thought through quotations from Newman himself. Specifically, he spoke of the stages in his conversion to Catholicism and of the reflections he made "with an extraordinary acuity" on the existence of God and the question of authority: "For him, conscience, the Pope and the Law of God say exactly the same thing".
For his part, Professor José Morales, who recently published the second edition of a biography of the Cardinal, stressed that "Newman's life can be ordered around his three facets: humanity, holiness and intellect. According to him, "his interior figure is the obedience of faith as an existential leap; this constitutes the driving force at the center of his life, conversion". He also highlighted the following traits of the figure of the Blessed: a sense of adoration, penetrating vision of the invisible world, influence staff - "in Oxford they spoke of him as 'the unmistakable voice,'" he said-, fair play and absence of worldliness, balance between sanctity and knowledge, and great indifference to unjust criticism.
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| From left to right: Alejandro Llano, José Morales, Sergio Sánchez-Migallón and Víctor García Ruiz. |
| Photo: Manuel Castells |
The university Newman
Finally, Alejandro Llano focused on Cardinal Newman's university facet and his contributions in that field. "The connection with the university," he explained, "is not sporadic or circumstantial, nor is it limited to his famous speeches. The figure we know was forged at Oxford as a theologian, churchman, preacher and writer. He is an example that the university is not a place where we pass through, but that it passes through us".
On the other hand, he emphasized that the Blessed "sought the truth, which is precisely the mission statement university. He exercised the research with unmistakable rigor - he wrote more than 100 volumes - but his authentic interest was centered on the genuine goal of the campus: the Education of the students".
He also indicated that Cardinal Newman "is the great promoter of the liberal Education , understood as free. On the contrary, he fought against liberalism, which promotes that the programs of study should not be 'contaminated' with religious confessions or with metaphysical ideas derived from them". And he ended with another of his contributions, the multidisciplinarity: "It is a matter of the different subjects not being isolated. It does not consist in teaching them all, but in teaching them in an interwoven way".