By Dr. Antonio Torralba
CRC, and now UA&P, has been a corporate undertaking of Opus Dei, which means that Opus Dei is directly and officially responsible for doctrinal soundness and the pastoral care of the members of the academic community. Other education entities, inspired by the teachings of St. Josemaría Escrivá, are personal undertakings, which implies the help of Opus Dei for the same motives and channels but only through individual lay members and priests, not institutionally through the prelature of Opus Dei.
What have been the consequences of striving to live the spirit of the teachings of St. Josemaría in the direction, lifestyle, policy decisions, programs and projects, and major activities of CRC and UA&P? Nine of the more significant ones can be mentioned:
Lay Spirituality and Secular Culture
UA&P, a private not-for-profit initiative of lay people, has always upheld a secular mindset and a lay spirituality, coherent with the teachings of the man, St. Josemaría, which has inspired its foundational principles.
Hence, there is great freedom and responsibility among individuals in their life of faith: for example, attendance at Mass, availing oneself of the sacraments and spiritual direction, and day-to-day routine and conduct. Opus Dei, an essentially lay association of the Catholic Church, is contracted by the board of directors to simply help provide guarantee of fidelity to Christian doctrine and the teachings of the Magisterium of the Church, as well as pastoral care to the academic community. The university, however, remains open to people of other faiths and persuasions.
Freedom and Responsibility
The University upholds the inviolable respect for human freedom, plurality in matters of opinion, and personal responsibility. There is never coercion, but yes, everyone is helped to personally face and accept fully the natural consequences of one’s actions, in an effort to ensure an environment conducive to research, teaching, study, and other functions essential to university life.
Personalized Education, founded on Friendship and Confidence
Essential to the life and operations of the University is the spirit of friendship and confidence. This becomes the basis for mentoring, a process of personal and individual conversation between a student and a member of the faculty designated in the student’s freshman year and the student’s choice in the upper years. This is the foundation of the maxim that every student is treated as a person and not a number. This is the targeted essential direction that human relations are made to take between management and faculty, among faculty, between faculty and students, among students, in the spirit of respect and fraternal charity.
Collegiality in Governance
Policy and other major decisions affecting sectors of the University are always made collegially (never singly) by teams of people mandated to govern the University or its operational units. Decision-making always assumes serious study and forethought … sometimes even at the expense of fast tracking, because they would invariably and visibly affect personal and professional lives. Governance, true, is viewed as a personal responsibility of those who have the mandate, but always in the context of collegiality in formulating, enriching, and refining decisions
Fidelity to the Foundational Principles
The rallying cry of the University, its official slogan, is Unitas. There is a personal and deliberate effort to unite one’s mind and heart with the foundational principles and corporate culture of the University, in the backdrop of freedom and responsibility that ultimately governs individual decisions. The foundational principles are the evolving perspective of the rich teachings of St. Josemaria on education and university education, espoused by the board of directors, the University’s Management Committee, the unit’s operating committee, applied to major policies and day-to-day decisions.
Striving for Excellence and Professional Prestige
Growth in professional prestige, through serious and thorough study and excellence in carrying out work, is the goal encouraged of every faculty member, student, and staff. The University spends time, resources, and effort to help each staff member reach this goal slowly but progressively. Excellence is gauged not so much by tenure as by the growth and development that each individual undergoes, in teaching, research, studies, work systems, spirit of service, and teamwork.
Life of Virtue
Prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance, and all their auxiliary human virtues become a daily struggle of each one. The mentors become formidable channels for this endeavor, and so do people in governance, and the peers and associates. Care is exercised, however, to see to it that no one breathes down the necks of others; everyone is helped to develop at his or her pace, in the spirit of freedom and responsibility.
Beyond the life of virtue, which comprises the most basic human formation, is spiritual doctrinal-ascetical, professional, and apostolic formation, which St. Josemaria identifies as the five aspects of Christian formation, and which concretizes the University’s Christian identity. A wealth of opportunities and channels is provided for these areas of formation, all available to everyone, again in the spirit of freedom and personal responsibility.
Ensuring People, Money, Structure, Continuity
A constant struggle of CRC from the beginning, and now UA&P, is to ensure continuity and sustainability. This translates to guaranteeing people (for present and immediate future needs and for succession); money and other resources (from individual and corporate friends, from business ventures, from efficient fiscal management), and structure (ensuring the institutional rather than individualized character of initiatives, so that success stories or reverses are shared, even while clear expectations from the office or assignments of individual persons can point out responsibilities).
Social Responsibility
Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, the successor of St. Josemaria, has strongly encouraged the people of the University in his most fatherly way towards genuine social responsibility, encouraging these two lines in the University Credo:
A Belief: the duty “… to do everything (the University) can to uplift the moral, cultural, and material level of the country and the region in which (the University) operates” and
A Commitment: “ … to inculcate sound and time-tested human and social values and attitudes in people beginning with those we work and live with and reaching out especially to those in most need of help in society”.
Optimism – Cheerfulness – Hope
Expressed in the Credo by “an atmosphere of academic serenity conducive not only to disciplined and diligent study, high level research, but also to mutual respect, openness, understanding, and friendship, without discrimination of any kind.”
The decades that built UA&P have been marked by a constant, if imperfect, striving to live out the spirit of St. Josemaría in a secular university setting: freedom and responsibility balanced with fidelity, personal care joined with collegial governance, professional excellence inseparable from virtue and service. These have not been abstract ideals, but working principles, tested in daily life and institutional decisions alike. That they remain visible today, to greater or lesser extent, is itself a quiet proof of their enduring strength.
Leave a Reply