Pontificia Università della Santa Croce (PUSC)

The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross was born from the desire of St. Josemaría Escrivá, Founder of Opus Dei, to create a center of higher ecclesiastical studies in Rome at the service of the whole Church. With prayer and patient work, he laid the foundations of the current University of the Holy Cross.

St. Josemaria’s first successor, Blessed Álvaro del Portillo, with the support of St. John Paul II, brought that desire to completion, inaugurating the Roman Academic Center with a Holy Mass dedicated to the Holy Spirit on October 15th, 1984. Thanks to the assistance of the University of Navarre’s ecclesiastical Schools, the institution was destined to become a center of study and research, committed to the task of theological, philosophical, and canonical formation.

The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross is currently comprised of the Schools of Theology, Canon Law, Philosophy, and Church Communications; the Higher Institute of Religious Studies “all’Apollinare” (ISSRA) is also an essential element. The Academic Building is found in Palazzo S. Apollinare in Rome, while the Research Center and the Library are located on Via dei Farnesi.