WASHINGTON — Pope Benedict XVI told leaders of America's Roman Catholic colleges and universities Thursday, April 17, that academic freedom has "great value" for the schools, but it does not justify promoting positions that violate the Catholic faith.

Benedict, a former academic, said that church teaching should shape all aspects of campus life and that Catholic educators have a "profound responsibility to lead the young to truth."

"I wish to reaffirm the great value of academic freedom," Benedict told hundreds of educators gathered at Catholic University of America.

"Yet it is also the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom in order to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the church would obstruct or even betray the university's identity and mission," he said.

Benedict's talk contained no explicit directive to the school presidents, but emphasized a core theme of his pontificate: that faith is compatible with reason.

University of Dayton President Daniel J. Curran said Pope Benedict's statements "sent a strong message to our faculty."

He said Benedict coined a phrase "intellectual charity" to "describe the idea of charity and church and giving back to the community."

Curran said UD is not immune to the challenge facing the entire church as it invigorates its Catholic identity: The decline in numbers of religious within the Catholic church.

Curran, named president in 2002, is the Marianist institution's first lay president.

UD now brings 10 to 15 faculty, staff and administrators into the Marianist laity to help the declining number of Marianists brothers and sisters.

"It requires planning on who will carry the charism forward," he said. "I felt good about where UD is in this mission."

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