When you live surrounded by neighbors very different from you, you discover that coexistence doesn’t happen on its own. It’s not enough to simply wish for peace: you have to nurture it. It requires effort, affection, overlooking things, and compromise.

That is precisely what has always worried the University of Navarra —the “University of Opus Dei”, as some call it—, located in a strategic point in Spain, in a wonderful city like Pamplona, ​​and very close to wounds that caused so much pain to this country and that tested its democracy: the conflicts with the Basque nationalist environment.

Therefore, when Vito Quiles asked permission to give a talk at the university, I believe the institution acted out of that same concern: to maintain cordiality, dialogue, and openness with those who do not share its ideology. They considered it and said no. Not out of fear, but out of consistency. Because the University of Navarra wants to continue embodying what Saint Josemaría said: “We must walk hand in hand with those who do not think like us.”

And thanks to that attitude, many people from Pamplona, ​​without necessarily sharing that ideology, have come to feel part of the university.

It is legitimate, then, for those who have dedicated years and effort to building that cordial climate to defend what has been achieved and say no to those who may stir up what has been so hard to consolidate.

However, we cannot equate different realities. It would be unfair to compare Vito Quiles with the gangs of masked individuals who ransacked the University of Navarra and part of Pamplona last Thursday. It is not the same to go out openly, defending what one believes in, as it is to hide in order to burn containers or attack—as they did with a journalist and a student from the University of Navarra.

No. Not all of them are the same.

And here a word emerges that is thrown around far too casually: fascist. By definition, it applies to anyone who defends or practices authoritarian, intolerant, or repressive forms of power. But who has acted with intolerance and violence these days?

Meanwhile, on a bridge leading to the campus, someone hung a banner that read: “Let us study.”

Every home, every institution, has the right to decide how it wants to resolve its conflicts. As a mother, when one of my children raises their voice or insults their sibling, I tell them, “Not in my house.” Violence is not used in my house. Insults are not allowed in my house. And I have the right to uphold that rule.

That is precisely what the University of Navarra has sought to do: to choose the methods by which things are resolved within its own walls. For many years it has applied the recipe proposed by Saint Josemaría: prayer, mortification, and only as a last resort, action.

The university in Pamplona grew thanks to many people who prayed, sacrificed, and acted prudently to seek reconciliation. What has happened these past few days—almost completely ignored by the media—is the result of extremism, of those who want to lead us where we don’t want to go.

I heard that phrase from Emilio Aragón in an interview, and I underlined it: “They want to take us where we don’t want to go.” I think it perfectly describes this time of tension, of politicians and voices that seek to enrage, divide, and create conflict.

The University of Navarra has been led in a direction it did not want to go. I hope we learn to look more to the media—to those who know how to find common ground and offer a helping hand—and not to the extremes.

With a single infallible recipe: prayer, mortification… and, only at the end, action.