This morning, the Vatican Press Centre published the text of a letter which was sent by His Holiness, Pope Francis to the Archbishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina), His Eminence, Mario Aurelio Cardinal Poli, Grand Chancellor of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina (U.C.A.), marking the 100th anniversary of the Faculty of Theology at that institution.
Dear brother,
The celebration of the 100 years of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University is an important moment for the Church in Argentina. This anniversary coincides with the fiftieth year since the closure of the Second Vatican Council, which was an update, a re-reading of the gospel from the perspective of contemporary culture. It produced an irreversible movement of renewal that begins with the gospel, and now, it must continue.
How then, do we go forward from here? Teaching and studying theology means living on a frontier, a frontier in which the gospel meets the needs of people to whom it must be proclaimed in a comprehensible and significant way. We must protect against a theology that is lost in academic dispute or that watches over humanity from a glass castle. We must learn how to live: theology and holiness are inseparable.
The theology that developed is therefore rooted and based in Revelation and on Tradition, but also accompanied by cultural and social processes, in particular the difficult transitions. At this time, theology should also take responsibility for the conflicts: not only those that are being encountered in the Church, but also those that involve the entire world and which are found along the roadways of Latin America. Do not settle for desktop theology. Your place for reflection is at the boundaries. And don't fall into the temptation to varnish over them, to perfume them, to change them a bit and to play them down. Even good theologians, like good shepherds, know the scent of the people and the path to follow, and with their reflection, they pour oil and wine on mankind's wounds.
Theology is an expression of a Church which is a field hospital, living her mission of salvation and healing in the world. Mercy is not only a pastoral attitude but also the very substance of the gospel of Jesus. I encourage you to study how the various disciplines - the dogma, morality, spirituality, the law and so on - can reflect the centrality of mercy.
Without mercy, our theology, our laws, our pastoral work .. all run the risk of collapsing due to bureaucratic pettiness or ideology, which of its own design seeks to explain the mystery. To understand theology is to understand God who is love.
Who then is the student of theology that the U.C.A is called to form? Certainly not a museum theologian who accumulates dada and information on Revelation without truly knowing what to do with it. Nor is it a matter of someone looking upon history from the balcony. A theologian formed at U.C.A. is a person capable of building humanity around him- or herself, of passing on the divine Christian truth in a truly human way, and not an intellectual without talent, an ethicist without goodness or a bureaucrat of sacred things.
Let us ask the Madonna, Seat of Wisdom and Mother of Divine Grace to accompany us in the celebration of this centenary. I ask you to greet the alumni, the personnel, the professors and the authorities from the Faculty so that they might not forget to pray for me. May Jesus bless you and may the Holy Virgin protect you.
Fraternally
From the Vatican
March 3, 2015
Francis
Letter of the Holy Father, Pope Francis
for the centenary of the Faculty of Theology
at the Catholic University of Argentina
To our Venerable Brother
Cardinal Mario Aurelio Poli
Grand Chancellor of the Catholic University of Argentina
Dear brother,
The celebration of the 100 years of the Faculty of Theology at the Catholic University is an important moment for the Church in Argentina. This anniversary coincides with the fiftieth year since the closure of the Second Vatican Council, which was an update, a re-reading of the gospel from the perspective of contemporary culture. It produced an irreversible movement of renewal that begins with the gospel, and now, it must continue.
How then, do we go forward from here? Teaching and studying theology means living on a frontier, a frontier in which the gospel meets the needs of people to whom it must be proclaimed in a comprehensible and significant way. We must protect against a theology that is lost in academic dispute or that watches over humanity from a glass castle. We must learn how to live: theology and holiness are inseparable.
The theology that developed is therefore rooted and based in Revelation and on Tradition, but also accompanied by cultural and social processes, in particular the difficult transitions. At this time, theology should also take responsibility for the conflicts: not only those that are being encountered in the Church, but also those that involve the entire world and which are found along the roadways of Latin America. Do not settle for desktop theology. Your place for reflection is at the boundaries. And don't fall into the temptation to varnish over them, to perfume them, to change them a bit and to play them down. Even good theologians, like good shepherds, know the scent of the people and the path to follow, and with their reflection, they pour oil and wine on mankind's wounds.
Theology is an expression of a Church which is a field hospital, living her mission of salvation and healing in the world. Mercy is not only a pastoral attitude but also the very substance of the gospel of Jesus. I encourage you to study how the various disciplines - the dogma, morality, spirituality, the law and so on - can reflect the centrality of mercy.
Without mercy, our theology, our laws, our pastoral work .. all run the risk of collapsing due to bureaucratic pettiness or ideology, which of its own design seeks to explain the mystery. To understand theology is to understand God who is love.
Who then is the student of theology that the U.C.A is called to form? Certainly not a museum theologian who accumulates dada and information on Revelation without truly knowing what to do with it. Nor is it a matter of someone looking upon history from the balcony. A theologian formed at U.C.A. is a person capable of building humanity around him- or herself, of passing on the divine Christian truth in a truly human way, and not an intellectual without talent, an ethicist without goodness or a bureaucrat of sacred things.
Let us ask the Madonna, Seat of Wisdom and Mother of Divine Grace to accompany us in the celebration of this centenary. I ask you to greet the alumni, the personnel, the professors and the authorities from the Faculty so that they might not forget to pray for me. May Jesus bless you and may the Holy Virgin protect you.
Fraternally
From the Vatican
March 3, 2015
Francis
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