122 A Baccalaureate Discourse
May I end this strange sermon by quoting an illustrious
man who has drawn the charter of Catholic universities in
a powerful document entitled “Deus scientiarum Dominus.”
On the occasion of the golden jubilee of the Catholic Uni-
versity of America, His Holiness Pius XI wrote words
which can be listened to and understood by every Christian
educationist worthy of the name. Here they are : “Through
the University, it will be possible to bring to bear upon the
most pressing problems of the day the full force of those
principles of justice and charity in which alone they will find
their solution. In the course of Our Pontificate, we have
had occasion to treat these problems more than once in our
Encyclical Letters; here We wish only to point out the solid
basis upon which Our teaching rests. Since the sciences of
civics, sociology, and economics deal with individual and
collective human welfare, they cannot escape from the phil-
osophical and religious implications of man’s origin, nature,
and destiny. If they ignore God, they can never hope to
understand adequately the creature which He formed in
His own image and likeness, and whom He sent His own
Divine Son to redeem. Christian teaching alone, in its
majestic integrity, can give full meaning and compelling mo-
tive to the demand for human rights and liberties because
it alone gives worth and dignity to human personality. In
consequence of his high conception of the nature and gifts
of man, the Catholic is necessarily the champion of true
human rights and the defender of true human liberties ; it
is in the name of God Himself that he cries out against
any civic philosophy which would degrade man to the posi-
tion of a soulless pawn in a sordid game of power and pres-
tige, or would seek to banish him from membership in the
human family; it is in the same Holy Name that he opposes
any social philosophy which would regard man as a mere