南山大学

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Overseas Business Trip

【Rome, Italy】　IFCU 23rd General Assembly

November 16-20, 2009

At the General Assembly of the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) held in Rome, Italy, from November 16 to 20, the President of Nanzan University, Michael Calmano, had an audience with His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, the 265th pontiff.
Since Michael Calmano and the Pope are both originally from Germany, they enjoyed conversing with each other in German. At the General Assembly the President of Nanzan University was elected to become an international vice-president of the IFCU.

Venue Pontificia Universita Gregoriana
Names of those attending from Nanzan President, Michael Calmano and Vice-president for International Affairs,Noboru Kinoshita

IFCU

In 1924 the l’Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan, Italy) and the Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (Nijmegen, Netherlands) conceived the idea of forming a federation of Catholic universities to deal with specific issues of common concern. Created by a Decree of the Holy See in 1948, the Federation was formally recognized by Pope Pius XII in 1949.

It assumed its current form as the International Federation of Catholic Universities (IFCU) in 1965 and was recognized by UNESCO in 1967. It now serves as an advisory body for organizations such as the United Nations (headquarters in New York), the Human Rights Council (Geneva), and UNESCO (Paris). Approximately 200 universities and organizations around the world now belong to IFCU.

PHOTO

Basilica di San Pietro in the Vatican City. Photograph by Michael Calmano.

President of Nanzan University, Michael Calmano, talking with Pope Benedict XVI.

Aula Paolo Sesto, the venue for the audience with the Pope. Photograph by Michael Calmano.