NEWLY-installed Papal Nuncio to the Philippines Archbishop Fernando Filoni urged Thomasians to be “guardians of truth and bold witnesses of Jesus Christ” in his first visit to the University during the Mass of the Holy Spirit last June 13 at the Santisimo Rosario Parish. The annual Mass of the Holy Spirit officially opened the new schoolyear.
Filoni said students should fully develop their talents and pursue the truisms of their disciplines.
“The students’ potentials need to be drawn out, harnessed and used for the pursuit of common good guided by and anchored upon the truth,” said Filoni, who was appointed papal nuncio by Pope Benedict XVI last Feb. 25 to replace Archbishop Antonio Franco.
Filoni was last posted as papal nuncio to Iraq, but is not new to Manila since he served for many years as a papal diplomat in Hongkong which is attached to the Apostolic Nunciature of Manila.
Filoni said the pope’s address to Catholic universities last December stressed that a Catholic university must be a “laboratory which, through different disciplines, should develop new research in an encounter between faith and reason.”
The papal nuncio was pleased to visit the University, which he said has. I. A. L. de Lara
