The Role of the Catholic University Professor Today

ABSTRACT

This paper is to clarify the educational roles of the Catholic university professors conforming to the needs of the times. In the new millenium today the human life gets more and more easy and convient owing to the developpement of the scientific field and of the information technique. On the contrary it is expected that the wrong utilisation of such a modern convenience brings about terrible disaster and the loss of humanity. T he symmetrical developpement of the human civilisation will get accomplished by the harmony of the material and the spirit.The Catholic Church, since its establishment by Jesus Christ, carries out the religious education with a great concern . Now at the occasion of the Great Jubillee the 2000th anniversary of the birth of Jesus Christ, it is significant to explain the role of the professors engaging in education at the Catholic universities . This paper was examined with chiefly a nomber of the ecclesiastical documents adjusting the focus at the educational role and mission of the Catholic professors.In the course of study, it was found that the Catholic professors perform three main duties such as recherch, education and service as the other professors. Moreover they are requested to protect the institutional identity of the Catholic universities, and to contribute to progress of the society, the Church and the learning world. The Catholic professors, living today the 21th century having tendency of secularisation, materialism and inhumanisation, are also called to guard scientifically the evangelical values of the Christianism, and to improve the value concerning God and man. The professors, as the member on a high intellectual level of the academic community, engage in studies, educate students, and exercise their great influences over the society through their scientific lectures and the expression of their opinions. Therefore the Catholic professors have the great task to sublime the universal values involving in the culture and the religion to the evangelical values , arranging the relation between the science and the faith, and between the faith and the raison, and also promoting their own scientific field and the Christian spirit . And they are also demanded to do their dignified roles on a high level so that all people could be blessed by God, constructing on earth the Kingdom of God, and improving the human rights of the poor , the alienated and the sufferer due to social injustice and structural inequality.