Tokyo: At a Jesuit university in Tokyo on Tuesday, Pope Francis said a quality university education should not be something out of reach for the average person and should promote justice and the common good. He asked Nov. 26 that the education of students at Sophia University may prepare them to “be concerned that their conduct is just and humane, conscientious and responsible, and show themselves, resolute defenders of the vulnerable,” even in complex situations.
The pope addressed a group of the university’s students, as well as their chancellor and the Jesuit provincial of Japan. Pope Francis spent his final morning in Japan at the Catholic Sophia University. He celebrated a Mass with Jesuits in the university chapel. After breakfast, he visited the elderly and ill priests of Japan before giving his address to the university.
The stop at the university was the last appointment of a busy six-day trip to Asia, which began in Thailand Nov. 20-23. The trip was intended to encourage the two countries’ small Catholic communities, which are less than 0.5% of the population in both places. “I would also observe that, for all the efficiency and order that mark Japanese society, I have sensed a yearning, too, for something greater: a profound desire to create an ever more humane, compassionate and merciful society,” he said.
