“The formation of leaders achieves its goals when academic time is used to develop not only the mind, but also the ‘heart’, conscience, and practical skills of the student”. Pope Francis said this today as he received in audience the members of the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) participating in the forum “New Frontiers for University Leaders”. The Pontiff said that “scientific and theoretical knowledge should be coupled with the scholar’s, or researcher’s, sensitivity so that the fruits of study are not acquired in a self-referential way, just to assert one’s professional position, but take on a social and relational dimension”. “Just as every scientist and every man or woman of culture is required to serve more, because they know more, so too the university community, especially that of Christian inspiration, and the academic ecosystem as a whole must respond to the same obligation”, Pope Francis said. Then, citing the recently canonized Card. Newman, patron saint of the IFCU, he reiterated that “the Church fears no knowledge, but she purifies all; she represses no element of our nature, but cultivates the whole”. “The development of technoscience will have a growing impact on the physical and psychological health of people”, the Pope observed: “However, since it also affects the ways and processes of academic studies, today more than ever, we need to remember that all teaching also entails questioning ourselves about ‘why’, that is to say, it calls for a reflection on the foundations and purposes of every discipline”. “Reducing education to mere technical teaching would mean alienating education”, the Holy Father warned, explaining that “abstracting knowledge from its ethical dimension would mean abandoning the task of teaching”. Hence the need to take action “starting with a view of education conceived as a teleological process, necessarily oriented towards a purpose and, therefore, towards a precise vision of man”. In this horizon, Pope Francis concluded, “the university has a conscience, but also an intellectual and moral energy whose responsibility goes beyond the person to be educated and extends to the needs of all humanity”.