Educating Foreign Students

5. Thus We are quite concerned about this, especially in light of the pattern left Us by Our predecessors, who never omitted an opportunity to encourage higher studies. The remarkable forethought of the Pontiffs shines out particularly in the fact that, to this very city, the first of all Catholic communities, they summoned young clerics from abroad and gathered them into colleges. They especially sought students whose countries lacked adequate opportunities for learning or sound institutions, after the vigilance of the Church had been rejected. For this end many minor seminaries were established to which foreign students flocked to take up sacred studies; they intended to use whatever blessings of mind and spirit they might acquire in Rome for the ultimate benefit of their own countrymen. Since much good has resulted from these efforts, We too considered it worthwhile to increase the number of such colleges. Therefore We opened the college for the Armenians in Rome and one for the Bohemians. We also restored to its onetime dignity the college for the Maronites.