IUS: Inauguration of the Academic Year 2022-2023

The speech, on the occasion of the opening ceremony of the Academic Year 2022-2023 of the Sophia University Institute (IUS) in Loppiano (Italy), by Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement and Vice-Grand Chancellor of the Institute.

Your Eminence Cardinal Giseppe Betori, Chancellor of IUS
Professor Declan O’Byrne, Rector
Distinguished Authorities
Dear teachers and students of Sophia, and friends who are present here today,

I am very grateful that today I can participate in the inauguration of the new Academic Year of Sophia University Institute. My greeting is especially for the students who have just arrived. You are very welcome, but I also want to greet those who are in their second year and are concluding the course for their Masters degree. A special greeting to the doctoral students.

This fifteenth Academic Year is beginning in a time of change for Sophia. There are changes which, although taking place in a complex historical, social and cultural context, are, according to me, seeds of hope and of life.

In fact we are witnessing a new generation of teachers, who were formed academically in this institute and who are now  taking up the baton from those who began. I am referring to the professors who started everything and to whom I want to express my esteem and gratitude. They are the ones who, with courage, left their prestigious positions in other Universities so as to give life to the dream of Chiara Lubich: to give birth to a University Institute at the service of the Church and of humanity. It was to give cultural and academic solidity to the charism of unity, so as to contribute to the fulfilment of “May they all be one” (John17:21)

Thinking of this meeting  recently, the name of our Institute was  resonating in my heart: Sophia, it means Wisdom: the gift of the Holy Spirit which we need  more than ever today. I am thinking of the academic world, with the fragmentation of knowledge and of opinions. I am thinking of the different forms of polarisation, that are present in our society, and of the tragic failure of diplomacy and dialogue which in many parts of the world is leading to war and conflicts.

I am deeply convinced that only if we set ourselves to listen to the Wisdom of God, only if we let ourselves be formed by it and, starting from ourselves, we let ourselves be used so that it can be transformed into culture. In this way  we will open the way  to finding answers to the many questions of contemporary thought and we will be able to contribute to healing the wounds and the immense sufferings that are afflicting humanity.

Dear students, I hope that you can have a Sophia experience of this Wisdom, in your life and in your study. Here you are being welcomed by an academic community that day by day, overcoming limits and difficulties, tries to be a space of encounter, where life and thought mutually nourish one another, in the light of the Gospel and  the charism of unity.

I know that the teachers are proposing to draw up a strategic plan to guide the Sophia University Institute for the future. For this, everyone – those involved in administration and students - will be asked for a great collaboration, to overcome with courage and tenacity all the obstacles, and to put listening and mutual love at the centre of everything.

My hope for everyone is to have a year of light, characterised by the “flavour” of Wisdom which opens hearts and minds to the service of the cultures  and the societies of today.

Have a good academic year everyone!

Margaret Karram
Vice Chancellor