The document “Veritatis Gaudium” insists on open-confrontation in all fields, on interdisciplinarity, and asks ecclesiastical universities to network and build” “leadership capable of striking out on new paths” for “changing the models of global development”.
More mission, more wide-ranging dialogue, more connections with other scientific disciplines and more worldwide network among Catholic universities and ecclesiastical faculties. This is what emerges from the reading of “Veritatis Gaudium”, the new apostolic constitution that reforms and updates the studies of Catholic universities and ecclesiastical faculties in the world, signed by the Pontiff on 8 December last year and made public today, 29 January 2018. Already from the title, it is evident the connection with the apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium” , 2013, which represents the road-map of Francis’ pontificate. The papal document was published 39 years after the constitution “Sapientia christiana” promulgated by John Paul II in the spring of 1979.
The Pope explains, “The primary need today is for the whole People of God to be ready to embark upon a new stage of “Spirit-filled” evangelization. This calls for “a resolute process of discernment, purification and reform”.
“In this process, a fitting renewal of the system of ecclesiastical studies plays a strategic role. These studies, in fact, are called to offer opportunities and processes for the suitable formation of priests, consecrated men and women, and committed lay people. At the same time, they are called to be a sort of providential cultural laboratory in which the Church carries out the performative interpretation of the reality brought about by the Christ event”.
All the more so because today we are not only living in a time of changes but are experiencing a true epochal shift, marked by a wide-ranging “anthropological” and “environmental crisis”. “Yet – Francis writes - “the problem is that we still lack the culture necessary to confront this crisis. We lack leadership capable of striking out on new paths. This vast and pressing task requires, “on the cultural level of academic training and scientific study, a broad and generous effort at a radical paradigm shift, or rather – dare I say – at “a bold cultural revolution”.
The text is divided in two parts. In the first, the proem, the Pope established four pivotal principles. The second contains common norms, special norms (for the faculties of theology, law and philosophy) and final norms. A second attached document, signed by Cardinal Giuseppe Versaldi, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education, contains the implementing norms of the Constitution.
The first of the document’s four key principles contained in the proem relates to “missionary identity”: one must return to the “kerygma”, that is to say, to the heart of the Gospel, to the essential element of Christian proclamation,” namely the ever fresh and attractive good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which continues to take flesh in the life of the Church and of humanity”. This joyful and life-giving contemplation of the face of God, revealed in Jesus Christ as a Father rich in mercy enables us to live in a liberating and responsible way the experience the Church as a “mystique” of living together. This provides the leaven of that universal fraternity which is “capable of seeing the sacred grandeur of our neighbour, of finding God in every human being.”
The second guiding criterion is wide-ranging dialogue, “not as a mere tactical approach, but as an intrinsic requirement for experiencing in community the joy of the Truth and appreciating more fully its meaning and practical implications. Today our proclamation of the Gospel and the Church’s doctrine are called to promote a culture of encounter”. Hence the urgency “to review, from this standpoint and in this spirit, the structure and method of the academic curricula proposed by the system of ecclesiastical studies, in their theological foundations, in their guiding principles and in their various levels of disciplinary, pedagogical and didactical organization”.
The third criterion indicated by the Pope is that of inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary approaches, i. e. trying to overcome the fragmentation of knowledge and scientific knowledge. What distinguishes the academic, formative and research approach of the system of ecclesiastical studies, - Francis writes - on the level of both content and method, is the vital intellectual principle of the unity in difference of knowledge and respect for its multiple, correlated and convergent expressions”.
Today, as Paul VI and Benedict XVI already noted, “there is a lack of wisdom and reflection, a lack of thinking capable of formulating a guiding synthesis” and therefore the “specific mission entrusted to the programme of ecclesiastical studies comes into play. The need for such a guiding synthesis not only makes clear the intrinsic purpose of the programme of ecclesiastical studies, but also demonstrates, especially today, its real cultural and humanizing importance. Today’s recovery of an interdisciplinary approach is certainly positive and promising, even in its “weak” form as a simple multidisciplinary approach that favours a better understanding from several points of view of an object of study. It is all the more so in its “strong” form, as cross-disciplinary, situating and stimulating all disciplines against the backdrop of the Light and Life offered by the Wisdom streaming from God’s Revelation”.
And finally, the fourth principle concerns the ability to make a network: not only from the point of view of the principle that those who have most help those who have least, but also trying to enhance the positive and enriching contribution of the most peripheral realities. “In the diversity of peoples who experience the gift of God each in accordance with its own culture – the Pope says - the Church expresses her genuine catholicity and shows forth ‘the beauty of her varied face’… This way of seeing things clearly sets out a demanding task for theology just as, in their own specific areas of competence, for the other disciplines contemplated in ecclesiastical studies”.
It is to research conducted in ecclesiastical universities, faculties and institutes that the Pope primarily entrust the task of developing that “creative apologetics” that he called for in Evangelii Gaudium, in order to “encourage greater openness to the Gospel on the part of all”.
Indispensable in this regard is “the establishment of new and qualified centres of research where – as I proposed in Laudato Si’ – scholars from different religious universities and from different scientific fields can interact with responsible freedom and mutual transparency, thus entering into “dialogue among themselves for the sake of protecting nature, defending the poor, and building networks of respect and fraternity”.
The most “technical” novelties concern various areas. From the updating of regulations, which involves all the documents after the 1979 constitution, to some innovations dictated by changes in society, for example with the “Bologna Process”, the international reform of the European Union’s higher education systems - which began in 1999, the Holy See joined it in 2003 - to achieve the European Higher Education Area. Associated with this is AVEPRO, the Holy See Agency for the evaluation and promotion of the quality of ecclesiastical universities and faculties, established by Benedict XVI to “promote and develop a culture of quality” in academic institutions directly dependent on the Holy See, ensuring international standards. Then there are all the new agreements signed in recent decades, as well as the establishment of Masters Courses, which was not covered by the regulations.
The document published today concerns university studies and ecclesiastical faculties, but the Congregation led by Cardinal Versaldi has competence over the whole world of Catholic education, including kindergartens, primary and secondary schools. From kindergartens to universities in the world there are about 70 million students who gravitate in the galaxy of the Catholic educational world. This is also why the Congregation, in view of the Synod of Young People, will promote a specific questionnaire - in addition to the one already prepared by the Secretariat of the Synod - dedicated to secondary school and university students with questions on how they live their faith.
