'Seek truth courageously' Pope urges Oxford college

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.

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.

The Papal audience comes a year after the pontiff recognised former Oriel College fellow Saint John Henry Newman as a Doctor of the Church.

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.

Addressing the delegation, the Pope praised Oriel, which has the formal name House of the Blessed Mary at Oxford, for maintaining its Christian identity.

"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.

As reported by Vatican News, 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".

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.

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.

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.

"There was a great concreteness to his ideas," the pontiff said of St Newman at Friday's private audience.

"His religious convictions were rooted in his personal relationship with God, while his scholarship was both sublime and eminently practical."

Pope Leo concluded the audience by asking the Oriel delegation to "seek the truth courageously and to promote this integral anthropological vision".

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.

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.

He also welcomed the pontiff's first major teaching document of his papacy in May, which warned that artificial intelligence needed to be "disarmed".

"Artificial intelligence should be neither idolised nor feared, but governed towards human dignity, the common good, solidarity and justice," Lord Mendoza said.

"Our tutorial system's sustained conversation between teacher and student is a small but resilient defence of human judgement and human presence."