Catholic University challenged to find answers to society's problems

Wednesday, September 4, 2024 - 17:43
Publication
Diario do Minho

UCP Academic Day takes place today under the theme ‘Artificial Intelligence: Past, Present and Future

D. José

The Metropolitan Archbishop of Braga today called on the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP) to ‘make its contribution to reflecting on the issues that impact Portuguese society today’.  During the solemn session of UCP's Academic Day, which took place in the Aula Magna António Freire, in the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, Archbishop José Cordeiro said that ‘based on tradition, we have to look for new answers and new strategies for the problems we face and which are creating so many divisions in society’.

dia academico

This year's UCP Academic Day took place under the motto ‘Artificial Intelligence: Past, Present and Future’ and united the academic community in a day of celebration, which included awarding prizes to the best students and honouring the institution's retired employees.

Addressing the academic community, Mgr José Cordeiro expressed his delight at taking part in this moment of celebration, without, however, failing to point out the challenges facing the institution today.

‘Celebrating Academic Day in Braga is a time to rejoice and show what a body we are. It's also a time to plan for the future, remembering the past with gratitude,’ he said, emphasising that “current times pose many challenges to the Church and to humanity” and pointing to Artificial Intelligence as one of those challenges.

D. José Cordeiro relied on Pope Francis' Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, a document in which the Holy Father argues that “a Catholic university is invited not only to offer places and paths of qualified formation for priests”, but should also be “a kind of providential cultural laboratory”.

‘The new digital culture is situated in the progress of humanity: in medicine, in the safeguarding of creation, in education... however, the new opportunities are of an enormous demand for freedom in interpersonal and social relationships,’ he said.

D. José Cordeiro also left a message on the fiftieth anniversary of 25 April, which takes place today, renewing the appeal expressed in the excerpt from the Pastoral Note of the Bishops of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference: ‘let us return to the intentions of the authors of 25 April, towards the democratisation of the country, the end of the war and general development’.

He ended by emphasising that ‘the UCP was born in Braga and here, in addition to the Faculty of Theology and the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, it needs to broaden its horizons of hope more and better’.

UCP Braga announces closer relations with the business community

The pro-rector of UCP, João Duque, announced today that in the coming years, UCP will further strengthen its ties with the region's business community, as the range of training offered will be extended to areas with a more direct relationship with companies, namely management. According to João Duque, the extension to these areas only depends on the positive endorsement of the Higher Education Assessment and Accreditation Agency.

pro reitor

According to João Duque, in recent years the Catholic University has intensified its relationship with the economic and labour fabric, also broadening its universe of partners to include church structures, IPSS, municipalities and various other organisations in the region.

João Duque recalled that this year also marks the 25th anniversary of the formal start of the Braga Regional Centre, although the UCP's presence in the region goes back a long way, to 77 years ago, when the Society of Jesus started a Faculty of Philosophy in Braga, which 57 years ago gave rise to the UCP, with national expansion.

‘But it's still a symbolic date, because it celebrates the combination of the various existing programmes with another Social Sciences programme, in a single structure working towards the same goal,’ argued the pro-rector.

João Duque took the opportunity to remember some of the names that were significant in the development of the institution, such as Manuel Isidro Alves; Alfredo Dinis; Maria da Graça Alves, Canon Jorge Coutinho and Canon António de Oliveira Fernandes.