The pontiff urged Oxford scholars to seek truth courageously and promote an education rooted in human dignity, justice and the common good.
Pope Leo XIV received a delegation from the University of Oxford’s Oriel College at the Vatican on Sept. 4, highlighting St. John Henry Newman’s vision of education as a response to contemporary challenges.
Founded in 1326 at the initiative of King Edward II, Oriel is considered Oxford’s oldest royal foundation.
Marking the 700th anniversary of its royal charter, the Pope noted that the college “has remained firm in its Christian identity” throughout the centuries.
He said the anniversary offered “an opportunity to celebrate its Catholic origins as the ‘College of the Blessed Virgin Mary.’”
That identity, he said, has been key to Oriel’s development “not just [as] an academic institution, but a true community of faith and scholarship in its deepest meaning.”
Oriel’s connection to St. John Henry Newman
The college is also known for its role in the 19th-century Oxford Movement and its association with St. John Henry Newman, who was a fellow there before his conversion to Catholicism.
Leo praised Newman as “a shining example of a scholar who not only showed the inseparability of
