María Lacalle: «testimony is the most direct vehicle for transmitting values».»

In the Apostolic Letter “Designing New Maps of Hope”, Pope Leo XIV invites schools and universities to become authentic “laboratories of hope” where dignity is prioritized over efficiency or educational commercialism.

He thus proposes an education that places the person at the center, promoting dialogue between faith and reason, and the collaboration of the entire educational community-teachers, families, students and civil society-in a choral task. It also stresses the responsibility of the educator, whose personal witness is as important as his or her teaching, and the need to form future professionals integrally with mind, heart and hands.

In this context, we spoke with María Lacalle Noriega, Vice Rector for Faculty and Formative Model and Director of the Instituto Razón Abierta of the Francisco de Vitoria University, to learn how a Catholic university can respond today to the Pope's call and become a true space for human and social transformation.

The Apostolic Letter “Designing new maps of hope” proposes that the Catholic school be a “laboratory of hope” in the face of educational mercantilism. How do you interpret this call of the Pope in the context of Catholic universities? 

-In the current context, one of the main dangers facing the university lies in the tendency to conceive of its function as merely technical and focused solely on professional training. It is true that a large majority of students are not looking for anything else, and that many companies demand precisely this type of training. This dynamic has led some universities to adopt this reductionist approach, responding to the demands of the market and, admittedly, obtaining good economic results.  

However, the mission of the university goes far beyond mere professional training to embrace the whole person, and seeks “that professionalism be imbued with ethics, and that ethics not be an abstract word, but an ordinary practice,” as Pope Leo says. When the university fulfills its true vocation and succeeds in forming and transforming its students, they not only become better persons, but also better professionals. In this way, the university makes a valuable contribution to the common good and actively contributes to the construction of a more just and better society, thus becoming an authentic “laboratory of hope”.

The Pope emphasizes that “educators are called to a witness that is as valuable as their teaching.” How can a Catholic university involve its faculty more in the evangelizing task?

-The current educational context is marked by the predominance of relativism in most of our students, so that the effectiveness of arguments and theoretical reasoning is very limited. Rational discourses alone rarely succeed in convincing, and even have great difficulty in capturing the interest of students. Faced with this reality, personal testimony is a much more direct and powerful vehicle for transmitting values and convictions.

The teacher's authentic and coherent example has an impact that far exceeds the force of theoretical arguments. When the teacher not only explains and rationally defends a certain conception of life, but also lives in accordance with these principles and demonstrates it in his or her daily life, his or her influence is multiplied. In this way, the conviction he generates is twofold: on the one hand, through logical reasoning and, on the other, through the credibility and coherence of his own vital testimony.

This combination of argumentation and witness is fundamental in the integral formation of students and in the evangelizing work of the Catholic university, since it facilitates the intellectual understanding of the proposed values and shows their viability and meaning in real life. In this way, the professor becomes a true point of reference, capable of inspiring and guiding the students both by word and example.

How are the humanities promoted at UFV? 

-At the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria, all undergraduate students participate in a transversal humanities training plan, regardless of the degree they are taking. And it is important to emphasize that humanities subjects occupy a central place in the university's educational model; they are not a complement, but the fundamental nucleus on which the students' integral education is articulated.

The main objective of this pathway is to achieve a complete education that combines professional excellence with a solid integral education. The aim is for students to develop both their technical skills and their human dimension, to learn to think rigorously, to critically position themselves in the face of reality and to responsibly take charge of their own lives.

The different subjects of the humanities track are designed to invite students to ask themselves questions about the person, truth, good and meaning, in short, about the deepest questions of the person and society. This reflection is carried out through an experiential pedagogy that links humanistic reflection with the degree they are studying and with their own lives. Teachers have an essential role in this process: their main task is to awaken students to these questions and then to offer them criteria that will enable them to seek and discover the answers for themselves, making them part of their own personal and professional growth.

How does UFV accompany students personally?

-At the UFV we have a formative model that guides and sustains all our teaching work. And we have noted with joy that the Pope highlights and gives importance to some issues that for us are also essential, such as community, the search for truth, relationship, dialogue between reason and faith, education understood as a task of love and the role of the professor as an authentic teacher. All these elements are present in the formative model of the UFV, whose basis is a vision of the person as a being in relationship and whose central axis resides in the relationship between teacher and student. 

Aware of the educational power of relationships, we live on campus a culture of accompaniment that is materialized, on the one hand, in personalized attention from the faculty and, on the other hand, in a mentoring itinerary that all students follow. A team of more than 300 mentors accompanies our students throughout their formative process, helping them to connect humanistic reflection with their own life experience through meaningful questions. In this way, we accompany their questions, listen to their concerns, walk with them in search of truth, and grow together. 

In a time dominated by technology and artificial intelligence, how can the Catholic university form professionals who maintain that humanity in the face of digitalization?  

-Education is the key that will allow us to take advantage of all the good things that technology and artificial intelligence bring us without losing humanity. And I dare say that, within university education, humanistic training is essential to give meaning and authenticity to everything in the digital and global environments in which we live. 

We believe that it is necessary to address the issue in its entirety, avoiding the risk of formulating the question of technology in education in an excessively simple way, as if it were a merely instrumental question: what do we educate with? To consider that it is simply a matter of choosing this or that tool would lead us to a reductionism that is certainly risky. That is why we consider it necessary to go beyond the immediate usefulness of technological tools and approach the question with a broad view, including “theological and philosophical reflection”, as Pope Leo affirms, or from an “open reason” according to Benedict XVI's proposal that we have adopted at UFV. This implies assessing how technology and the way it is used can affect people, their relationships and their way of being in the world, their understanding of reality, as well as the common good and the future of humanity. In this way, we can arrive at prudent and sensible approaches that allow us to take advantage of all the good that technology has to offer and to avoid its risks.

What are UFV's objectives for the coming years? 

-Our main objective is to consolidate our training model, which is entitled Training to transform. We are convinced that university education can transform lives and entire societies. Our commitment is to form people who seek truth and goodness, leaders capable of facing the great challenges of the world with humanistic vision, innovation and responsibility. We want to be a place where science and faith dialogue, where academic excellence meets social commitment, and where each student, and also each professor, discovers the meaning of his or her existence and the need to commit to transforming society. We aspire to do our part to “design new maps of hope,” as Pope Leo XIV asks us to do.