"Being people who are not anti-anything or anti-anyone, goal-reflective, committed to truth and lovers of freedom, will allow work itself to form bonds, build bridges, help overcome fractures and join forces to create projects at the service of the common good. Those of us who work in universities have the opportunity and the challenge to show that a shared exploration of any issue is possible, based on respect for people and openness to reality, always with the rigor and breadth of vision proper to the University."

A few days ago we celebrated at the University of Navarra one of the most emblematic days of the academic year: the investiture of the new doctors. On that occasion, I proposed a reflection on a topic which, in my opinion, is core topic for the university as an institution and for society as a beneficiary of its activity professor and research: the connection between freedom and truth.

The research is, above all, a search for truth, and without this approach it loses meaning. Truth is not something we possess, but a goal that we seek to attain, and this search is only possible in a context of freedom: free to seek the truth. This, which we could consider an undisputed starting point, is being threatened in recent years. Without pretending to make an exhaustive analysis, we can define two major origins of this threat.

The first has to do with the influence of political or ideological positions in the university. In the United States and other countries, the authorities and other members of the university community frequently face censorship from both ends of the ideological spectrum, jeopardizing not only freedom of expression, but also the freedom needed to deepen knowledge and allow research to shed light on the big issues. There is certainly no single cause that justifies this status, but the growing polarization and the isolating and, above all, multiplying effect of social networks contribute in this context to limiting free and open access to others and their ideas, a prerequisite for the search for truth.

The second front is more difficult to identify, because it is within those of us who move in the academic field. It has to do with the restriction posed by our own area of knowledge. The specialization is proper to the research, but the true university vision identifies not only the possibilities of each science, but also its limits and, therefore, the possible contributions of the others. When this does not happen, reason - or rather, the person who reasons - becomes cloistered, and the search for truth is replaced by partial truths that say little and compromise little.

How then to ensure an atmosphere of freedom and openness? I propose two pieces of advice that come from good hands. The first is from the founder of the University of Navarre, St. Josemaría Escrivá, whose feast we will celebrate on June 26. He often spoke of not being "anti-anything or anti-anyone. Not to be "anti-anything" means not taking on the opinions or prejudices of others (or one's own!) that could limit our open and serene search for the truth. This involves distinguishing an opinion from a certainty, a casual assertion from a well-founded judgment. The times of science are not the times of public opinion. One of the collateral effects -in my opinion positive- of training as researcher is an almost physical incapacity to take a position on any issue without a previous, deep and serene study; and a rejection, also almost physical, of someone appropriating or excluding a topic from the intellectual discussion .

Not being "anti-anyone" speaks to us of the staff dimension of the search for truth, a long chain that puts us at contact with previous traditions and schools, and that is concretized today in the contribution of colleagues and students. True seekers of truth are willing to establish an open, patient and respectful dialogue with everyone and to recognize it wherever it is, whoever it comes from, even if sometimes it seems to be a fragment hidden in the midst of errors or distortions of reality.

The second committee is by Margaret S. Archer, honorary member of our faculty who recently passed away. It is the capacity for "goal-reflection", an attitude she recognized in people who "do not live distracted by the possibilities of the digital world, nor by their individualistic desires for success, nor cloistered in bubbles and echo chambers". They are self-critical and capable of establishing bonds of trust and reciprocity with others, even if they do not belong to their closest circle. Being goal-reflective speaks to us of openness to those truths that shape people and society, truths that have to do with the dignity of the person and his or her transcendence, with the existence of God, with the nature of the common good. Truths that involve and commit, and that force us to think outside the box of our area.

Being people who are neither anti-anything nor anti-anyone, goal-reflective, committed to truth and freedom-loving, will allow work itself to forge links, build bridges, help to overcome fractures and join forces to create projects at the service of the common good. Those of us who work in universities have the opportunity and the challenge to show that a shared exploration of any issue is possible, based on respect for people and openness to reality, always with the rigor and breadth of vision proper to the University.