Opus Dei on the other hand, does foster technical training centres for industrial workers, agricultural training schools for farm labourers, centres for primary, secondary and university education, and many other varied activities all over the world, because its apostolic zeal, as I wrote many years ago, is like a sea without shores.

But what need have I to speak at length on this topic, when your very presence here is more eloquent than a long address? You, Friends of the University of Navarre, are part of a body of people who know it is committed to the progress of the broader society to which it belongs. Your sincere encouragement, your prayers, sacrifices and contributions are not offered on the basis of Catholic confessionalism. Your cooperation is a clear testimony of a well-formed social conscience, which is concerned with the temporal common good. You are witnesses to the fact that a university can be born of the energies of the people and be sustained by the people.

On this occasion, I want to offer my thanks once again for the cooperation lent to our University, by my noble city of Pamplona, by the region of Navarre, by the Friends of the University from every part of Spain and — I say this with particular feeling — by people who are not Spaniards, even by people who are not Catholics or Christians, who have understood the purpose and spirit of this enterprise and have shown it with their active help.

Thanks to all of them this University has grown ever more effective as a focus of civic freedom, of intellectual training, of professional endeavour, and a stimulus for university education generally. Your generous sacrifice is part of the foundation of this whole undertaking which seeks to promote the human sciences, social welfare and the teaching of the faith.

What I have just pointed out has been clearly understood by the people of Navarre, who also recognise that their University is a factor in the economic development and, especially, in the social advancement of the region; a factor which has given so many of their children an opportunity to enter the intellectual professions which, otherwise, would have been difficult and, in some cases, impossible to obtain. This awareness of the role which the University would play in their lives is surely what inspired the support which Navarre has lent it from the beginning — support which will undoubtedly keep on growing in enthusiasm and extent.

I continue to harbour the hope — because it accords both with the requirements of justice and with the practice which obtains in so many countries — that the time will come when the Spanish government will contribute its share to lighten the burden of an undertaking which seeks no private profit, but on the contrary is totally dedicated to the service of society, and tries to work efficiently for the present and future prosperity of the nation.