In the service of the truth. The 620th academic year at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow
In the service of the truth. The 620th academic year at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow

Summary/Abstract: “The vocation of every university is to serve the truth, to discover it, and to pass it on to others.” That was how John Paul II defined the vocation of the university twenty years ago. The past academic year marked the twentieth anniversary of the canonization of the founders of our Faculty of Theology (June 8, 1997) and John Paul II’s memorable meeting with the rectors of the Polish universities in Krakow, which took place on the 600th anniversary of the establishment of our Faculty of Theology and the foundation of the Jagiellonian University in Krakow (June 8, 1997, in the afternoon). This event was reported in the Chronica published in the 29th volume of our periodical (for 1997).1 The pope’s teaching that was formulated then is not only still relevant, but it is especially valuable today with regards to the contemporary ideologies that reject the classical understanding of the truth. In his Last Testament, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI says: “I had for a long time excluded the question of truth, because it seemed to be too great. […] In these years of struggle, the 1970s, it became clear to me: if we omit the truth, what do we do anything for? So the truth must be involved.”2 Thus the truth gives ultimate meaning to all university activity

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