Licentiate in Interfaith Theology

“Seeking and exploring every opportunity to dialogue is not just a way to live or coexist, but rather an educational criterion. The course of study in interfaith theology started at this University finds its proper place in this line. Go ahead, with courage. How much we need men of faith who educate to true dialogue, making use of every possibility and opportunity!” (Pope Francis to the PUL, 31 October 2019).

It is not so much a question of providing skills, but above all of educating to a theological mind-set, which relies on the need to get used to a Christian theology, which originates and constitutes the horizon of different churches.

We intend to prepare people who, returning to their communities of origin, know how to animate and serve them in the spirit of the “culture of encounter”, precious to Pope Francis. A transversal dimension of the entire course programme will be that of evangelization and mission in the contemporary world that has the future of Christianity at heart.

The licentiate course in “Interfaith Theology” hosts multiple presences, emerging according to method, rather than according to disciplines; the course schedule will be interfaith and interdisciplinary, where trans- disciplinarity will be tested and implemented in the concluding round tables of each system, thus moving within the horizon of the dictates of Veritatis Gaudium, which recalls “the inter and trans-disciplinarity exercised with wisdom and creativity in the light of Revelation. What qualifies the academic, formative and research proposal of the system of ecclesiastical studies, on the level of both content and method, is the vital and intellectual principle of the unity of knowledge in the distinction and respect for its multiple, correlated and convergent expressions. “(N.4c). The epistemic horizon of the polyphony of the True will be able to guarantee us from the risk of a sort of aetiological relativism.

The scientific/academic journey will be accompanied by moments of common prayer, for example on the occasion of the week of Christian unity, Christmas, Easter and other occasions (the university chaplaincy will be involved in the preparation and celebration of these moments).

Recipients of the course: in addition to ordinary students, in possession of the requisites for obtaining the Licentiate degree in interfaith theology, extraordinary students and guests, those who are in possession of the Licentiate/Master’s Degree in Religious Sciences (or equivalent title), attend the entire two-year period and conclude it with an approved dissertation, can obtain the academic title of Diploma in Interfaith Theology in accordance with art. 52 of the Ap. Veritatis Gaudium.