Colegio los Arcos
Honoris Causa
May 6th,
Good afternoon, everyone,
It is difficult to fully express my gratitude for the great honor that Monteávila University bestows upon me today, and for what this moment signifies for Aprendiendo a Querer (Alive to the World). This work, truly a labor of love, is honored and affirmed today through the recognition of this wonderful institution.
I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to the Rector, Dr. Guillermo Fariñas Contreras; to the Academic Vice-Rector, Professor Carolina Amaya de Escobar; to the Administrative Vice-Rector, Professor Orlando Pérez Caldera; and to the Higher Council, represented by its President, Dr. Carlos García Soto.
It also gives me special joy to share this occasion with my respected friend, Dr. Rafael Tomás Caldera.
Monteávila University has always impressed me with the exceptional caliber of its educators, not only for their academic excellence, but also for their fidelity to truth, their vision, and their dedication. In this historic moment, this university will undoubtedly serve as a beacon of light for a country that must rebuild itself.
Indeed, we gather here at an extraordinary moment in our history. It is an unexpected opportunity to rethink our future and our purpose as a nation. It is a time to apply and uphold our values as individuals, families, and citizens, ensuring that we do not repeat the mistakes of the past, but instead build a structured path forward for our youth, founded upon solid principles.
Divine Providence has been merciful toward Venezuela, granting us a new opportunity to discover whether we can finally succeed in cultivating the generous land and talented people He has placed here. This time, we hope to do so with a deeper awareness of the effort and dedication required to confront both the complexities of the modern world and the challenges of human nature itself.
Christian civilization, born two thousand years ago in a world marked by cruelty, slavery, and war, spread with extraordinary speed and vitality. It reached much of the globe, producing immense spiritual, cultural, and artistic beauty, while introducing profoundly humane legal and moral concepts into human society.
This progress slowed during the twentieth century as societies increasingly drifted away from God and His laws. Today, we see cultural trends and ways of living increasingly disconnected from the moral foundations of Christian civilization, weakening the culture of family, life, and even the very understanding of what it means to be human.
Yet despite, or perhaps because of the immense difficulties Venezuela has endured over the last twenty-five years, our nation seems to have avoided some of the crises currently affecting parts of Europe, such as declining birth rates, a lack of vocations, and a loss of hope for the future. At the same time, we face enormous challenges of our own: deficiencies in education, tolerance for corruption, and the temptation to imitate the materialism of other cultures.
I believe Venezuela has both the opportunity and the responsibility to become a leader in the Americas, and maybe even beyond, in helping restore human dignity and the family, created by God as father, mother, and children: a community of love meant to transmit virtue and grace in His image.
No enterprise, family, or individual can flourish without knowing and adhering to the solid values that form the backbone of their structure. At this moment, we have a unique opportunity to reexamine who we are as a country and to organize ourselves civilly around the fundamental values that make a nation strong.
The dream and passion of our team has always been to help children and adolescents from every socio-economic background and every region of Venezuela. We seek to help them develop the innate capacity for goodness and virtue with which they are born: to become noble, generous, courageous, and self-giving human beings, capable of resisting the vulgarity, selfishness, and unrestrained permissiveness so prevalent in modern culture.
I am profoundly grateful to the University for recognizing these efforts today under the banner of Aprendiendo a Querer, and for helping us bring this vision to the beautiful and talented children and youth of Venezuela.
Human beings, just as God created them, are designed to find fulfillment when they live according to His plan. We are happiest when we love and are loved. As the great neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl explained clinically, and as modern neuroscience continues to confirm, a human being requires two foundational elements in order to live a full and meaningful life: security and purpose.
From birth, security is rooted in being loved, something that naturally begins with maternal and paternal affection and continues through authentic love of neighbor.
According to Frankl, the meaning of life is also intrinsically connected to love. He explained, both neurologically and in profoundly human terms, the central message of the Gospel: that it is through the gift of self that we discover true happiness and experience meaning in our lives.
This gift of self, or “self-transcendence,” which Frankl considered the very essence of human existence, requires virtue, and these virtues are universal. Setting aside self-interest in order to serve others or dedicate oneself to a worthy cause rewards us with happiness. This is not only a spiritual truth, but also a neurological reality.
Qualities such as courage, generosity, loyalty, respect, truthfulness, and responsibility are naturally admired and desired by people everywhere. They are universally recognized as the ideal foundation for any healthy and flourishing society.
When learned naturally, as even the simplest anthropology suggests, virtues make profound sense. They naturally counteract selfishness, favoritism, and dishonesty through the application of the Golden Rule: “Treat others as you would like to be treated.”
Aprendiendo a Querer, together with its military adaptation, Vida Plena: Virtud y Honor (Full Life: Virtue and Honor), represents our humble contribution toward a holistic and integrated education, one that we hope may eventually permeate every level of national learning.
The recognition Monteávila University grants us today gives renewed strength and legitimacy to this mission, and for that, I offer my most sincere gratitude.