・教皇が、カトリック神学のあり方について自発教令「現代世界のために神学の”革命的転換”が必要」

2. The Pontifical Academy of Theology, founded at the beginning of the eighteenth century under the auspices of Clement XI, my Predecessor, and canonically instituted by him with the brief Inscrutabili on 23 April 1718, in the course of its centuries-old existence has constantly embodied the need to place theology at the service of the Church and the world, modifying its structure when necessary and expanding its aims: from an initial place of theological formation for ecclesiastics in a context in which other institutions were lacking and inadequate for this purpose, to a group of scholars called to investigate and deepen theological themes of particular relevance. The updating of the Statutes, desired by my Predecessors, has marked and promoted this process: one thinks of the Statutes approved by Gregory XVI on 26 August 1838 and those approved by Saint John Paul II with the Apostolic Letter Inter munera Academiarum on 28 January 1999.

3. After almost five decades, the time has come to revise these norms, to make them more suited to the mission that our time imposes on theology. A synodal, missionary and “outgoing” Church can only correspond to an “outgoing” theology. As I wrote in my Letter to the Grand Chancellor of the Catholic University of Argentina, addressing professors and students of theology: “Do not be satisfied with a theology that is just a coffee table. Let your place of reflection be borders. […] Good theologians, like good pastors, also smell of the people and of the street and, with their reflection, pour oil and wine on the wounds of men.” Openness to the world, to man in the concreteness of his existential situation, with his problems, his wounds, his challenges, his potentialities, cannot, however, be reduced to a “tactical” attitude, extrinsically adapting contents that have now crystallized to new situations, but must urge theology to an epistemological and methodological rethinking, as indicated in the Preface to the Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium.

4. Theological reflection is therefore called to a turning point, to a paradigm shift, to a “courageous cultural revolution” (Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’, n. 114) that commits it, in the first place, to being a fundamentally contextual theology, capable of reading and interpreting the Gospel in the conditions in which men and women live daily, in different geographical environments, in different geographical contexts, in the same contexts, as in the context of the Gospel and having as its archetype the Incarnation of the eternal Logos, his entry into the culture, the vision of the world, the religious tradition of a people. From this point on, theology can only develop into a culture of dialogue and encounter between different traditions and different knowledge, between different Christian confessions and different religions, openly confronting everyone, believers and non-believers alike. The need for dialogue is in fact intrinsic to the human being and to the whole of creation, and it is the special task of theology to discover “the Trinitarian imprint which makes the cosmos in which we live ‘a web of relationships’ in which ‘it is proper to every living being to tend towards something else'” (Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, Preface, 4a).

5. From the epistemic point of view, this relational dimension connotes and defines the status of theology, which is impelled not to close itself in self-referentiality, which leads to isolation and insignificance, but to perceive itself as part of a web of relationships, first of all with other disciplines and other forms of knowledge. It is the approach of transdisciplinarity, that is, interdisciplinarity in the strong sense, distinct from multidisciplinarity, understood as interdisciplinarity in the weak sense. The latter certainly favors a better understanding of the object of study by considering it from several points of view, which nevertheless remain complementary and separate. Transdisciplinarity, on the other hand, must be thought of “as the placement and fermentation of all knowledge within the space of Light and Life offered by the Wisdom that emanates from the Revelation of God” (Apostolic Constitution Veritatis Gaudium, Preface, 4c). Hence the arduous task for theology to be able to make use of new categories elaborated by other fields of knowledge, to penetrate and communicate the truths of the faith and to transmit the teaching of Jesus in today’s languages, with originality and critical awareness.

6. Dialogue with other fields of knowledge obviously presupposes dialogue within the ecclesial community and an awareness of the essential synodal and communion dimension of doing theology: the theologian cannot but live fraternity and communion in the first person, at the service of evangelization and in order to reach the hearts of all. As I said to theologians in my Address to the Members of the International Theological Commission on 24 November 2022: “Ecclesial synodality therefore commits theologians to do theology in a synodal form, promoting among them the ability to listen, dialogue, discern and integrate the multiplicity and variety of requests and contributions”. It is therefore important that there be places, including institutional ones, in which to live and experience collegiality and theological fraternity.

7. Finally, the necessary attention to the scientific status of theology must not obscure its sapiential dimension, as Saint Thomas Aquinas clearly affirmed (cf. Summa theologiae I, q. 1, a. 6). For this reason, Blessed Antonio Rosmini considered theology a sublime expression of “intellectual charity”, while he asked that the critical reason of all knowledge be oriented towards the Idea of Wisdom. Now the Idea of Wisdom inwardly binds Truth and Charity together in a “solid circle”, so that it is impossible to know the truth without practicing charity: “For the one is in the other, and neither is found outside the other. Wherefore he who has this Truth has with it the Charity that fulfills it, and he who has this Charity has the Truth fulfilled” (cf. Of the Author’s Studies, nn.100-111). Scientific reason must broaden its boundaries in the direction of wisdom, so as not to become dehumanized and impoverished. In this way, theology can contribute to the current debate of “rethinking thought”, showing that it is a true critical knowledge as sapiential knowledge, not abstract and ideological, but spiritual, elaborated on one’s knees, pregnant with adoration and prayer; A transcendent knowledge and, at the same time, attentive to the voice of the peoples, therefore “popular” theology, mercifully addressed to the open wounds of humanity and creation and within the folds of human history, to which it prophesies the hope of an ultimate fulfilment.

8. This is the pastoral “tone” that theology as a whole, and not only in one of its particular areas, must assume: without opposing theory and practice, theological reflection is urged to develop with an inductive method, which starts from the different contexts and concrete situations in which peoples are inserted, allowing itself to be seriously challenged by reality, to become discernment of the “signs of the times” in the proclamation of the salvific event of the God-agape, communicated in Jesus Christ. For this reason, it is necessary that the knowledge of the common sense of the people be given priority first of all, which is in fact a theological place in which so many images of God dwell, often not corresponding to the Christian face of God, one and always love. Theology is placed at the service of the evangelization of the Church and the transmission of the faith, so that faith may become culture, that is, the wise ethos of the People of God, a proposal of human and humanizing beauty for all.

9. In the face of this renewed mission of theology, the Pontifical Academy of Theology is called to develop, with constant attention to the scientific nature of theological reflection, transdisciplinary dialogue with other scientific, philosophical, humanistic and artistic knowledge, with believers and non-believers, with men and women of different Christian confessions and different religions. This can be done by creating an academic community for the sharing of faith and study, which weaves a network of relationships with other formative, educational and cultural institutions and which is able to penetrate, with originality and a spirit of imagination, into the existential places of the elaboration of knowledge, of the professions and of Christian communities.

10. Thanks to the new Statutes, the Pontifical Academy of Theology will thus be able to pursue more easily the goals that the present time requires. Welcoming and supporting the wishes that have been made to me to approve these new norms, I desire that this eminent seat of study may increase in quality, and for this reason I approve, by virtue of this Apostolic Letter, and in perpetuity, the Statutes of the Pontifical Academy of Theology, legitimately drawn up and revised, and I confer on them the force of Apostolic approval.

All that I have decreed in this Apostolic Letter motu proprio da, I order to be of stable and lasting value, notwithstanding anything to the contrary.

Given in Rome, at Saint Peter’s, on 1 November in the year 2023, the Solemnity of All Saints, the eleventh of my Pontificate.

FRANCIS