ROME — The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis will travel to Naples in June to discuss the impact of the apostolic constitution, Veritatis Gaudium, on theological studies.
In Naples, the pope will give a speech June 21 on “Theology after Veritatis Gaudium in the context of the Mediterranean,” before taking part in a private meeting on the same topic organized by the San Luigi Papal Theological Seminary of Southern Italy.
The apostolic constitution Veritatis Gaudium went into effect beginning with the 2018-2019 academic term for ecclesiastical universities and faculties. The 87-page document, published in January 2018, stipulated new norms of governance and education for all institutions that issue ecclesiastical degrees.
“The theologian who is satisfied with his complete and conclusive thought is mediocre. The good theologian and philosopher has an open, that is, an incomplete, thought, always open to the maius [greaterness] of God and of the truth, always in development,” Francis wrote in Veritatis Gaudium.
The constitution included an option for distance learning, and called for institutions to develop procedures for the education of refugees and migrants.
Francis stated in its introduction, “One of the main contributions of the Second Vatican Council was precisely seeking a way to overcome this divorce between theology and pastoral care, between faith and life. I dare say that the Council has revolutionized to some extent the status of theology – the believer’s way of doing and thinking.”
The pope’s one-day trip will be the pope’s second visit to Naples during his pontificate. On Francis’s first trip to Naples in March 2015, he denounced the city’s corruption and organized crime telling locals, “a corrupt society stinks like a rotting corpse!” His visit also included a stop to visit a local prison.
Naples is the third-largest municipality in Italy after Rome and Milan, and is also the capital of the Italian region Campania.
