{"id":197985,"date":"2026-09-06T10:13:35","date_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197985\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T10:13:35","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T10:13:35","slug":"seek-truth-courageously-pope-urges-oxford-college","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/197985\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Seek truth courageously’ Pope urges Oxford college"},"content":{"rendered":"

A delegation from a University of Oxford college has been urged by the Pope to “seek the truth courageously” during a private audience at the Vatican.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Pope Leo XIV met with a group from Oriel College, led by its Provost Lord Mendoza, at the Apostolic Palace next to St Peter’s Square.<\/p>\n

The Papal audience comes a year after the pontiff recognised former Oriel College fellow Saint John Henry Newman<\/a> as a Doctor of the Church.<\/p>\n

It also marked the 700th anniversary of Oriel’s royal foundation, in 1326, with the pontiff celebrating the college’s “long and illustrious” history at Friday’s meeting.<\/p>\n

Addressing the delegation, the Pope praised Oriel, which has the formal name House of the Blessed Mary at Oxford, for maintaining its Christian identity.<\/p>\n

“This identity is key to what has made and can continue to make Oriel not just an academic institution, but a true community of faith and scholarship in its deepest meaning,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"Pope<\/p>\n

The Pope urged the attendees to “seek the truth courageously” [Vatican Media]<\/p>\n

As reported by Vatican News<\/a>, the Pope went on to talk about St Newman, who he called a “shining example of a scholar who not only showed the inseparability of faith and reason in his works, but even more admirably in his life”.<\/p>\n

The 19th Century Oxford-based theologian and resident was canonised by Pope Francis in 2019, after the Vatican attributed two miracles to the former cardinal.<\/p>\n

Six years later, Pope Leo recognised him as a Doctor of the Church, and named him co-patron of Catholic education, alongside St Thomas Aquinas.<\/p>\n

In doing so, he made St Newman only the 38th person, and first Briton born in the past thousand years, to be anointed with the prestigious title.<\/p>\n

“There was a great concreteness to his ideas,” the pontiff said of St Newman at Friday’s private audience.<\/p>\n

“His religious convictions were rooted in his personal relationship with God, while his scholarship was both sublime and eminently practical.”<\/p>\n

Pope Leo concluded the audience by asking the Oriel delegation to “seek the truth courageously and to promote this integral anthropological vision”.<\/p>\n

\"This<\/p>\n

St Newman was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church during a ceremony in St Peter’s Square last year [Getty Images]<\/p>\n

During the ceremony, Mendoza presented the Pope with a 17th Century engraving of Oriel College from the first illustrated book of Oxford, published in 1675.<\/p>\n

Following the audience, the Oriel Provost said he was “deeply grateful” to the pontiff for receiving the college contingent and his recognition of St Newman.<\/p>\n

He also welcomed the pontiff’s first major teaching document of his papacy in May, which warned that artificial intelligence needed to be “disarmed”<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Artificial intelligence should be neither idolised nor feared, but governed towards human dignity, the common good, solidarity and justice,” Lord Mendoza said.<\/p>\n

“Our tutorial system’s sustained conversation between teacher and student is a small but resilient defence of human judgement and human presence.”<\/p>\n

More on this storyRelated internet links<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A delegation from a University of Oxford college has been urged by the Pope to “seek the truth…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[17,2823,62052,62047,62053,62048,62046,661,62049,62055,62050,28097,62054,62051],"class_list":["post-197985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-canada","tag-church","tag-leo","tag-leo-xiv","tag-mendoza","tag-oriel","tag-oriel-college","tag-oxford","tag-st-newman","tag-st-peters-square","tag-st-thomas-aquinas","tag-vatican","tag-vatican-media","tag-vatican-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}