Economic science has intentionally adopted a simplified vision of “economic agents”. This is particularly true with regard to the relationships between such agents: attention is focussed on instrumental and calculative aspects of these relationships, in which exchange is the prototype. More recently, however, economic science has opened a new space for the consideration of more complex interpersonal relationships, which had previously been thought to be of interest only to other social sciences. This widening of focus has the effect, on the one hand, of permitting explanation of certain phenomena that would otherwise be incomprehensible, and, on the other hand, of modifying the worldview of economics itself, allowing for a relaxation of the traditional opposition between moral and economic values.

> Read more

This essay intends to respond to two questions. What is the significance for the mission of the church – in general, and specifically in Latin America – of a theological study of the relationship between the trinitarian doctrine and anthropology? What is the most effective and fruitful method for such a study that will favour positive results? The answer to the first question will be articulated in three points dealing with 1) how the advent of God-Trinity constitutes the horizon of truth of human history; 2) how this implies the invention and the functioning of the hermeneutical circle between theology and anthropology that today needs to express itself, faced with the urgent challenges of our time; 3) in the proposition of an adequate trinitarian ontology. The response to the second question expresses the importance of the inter- and trans-disciplinary context in reaching this goal, and at the same time of the existential epistemology that needs to qualify theological knowing.

> Read more

This article examines a period in the public life of the Italian politician and author Igino Giordani, with particular attention on his personality and the many activities in which he was engaged in the years prior to his meeting with Chiara Lubich. His meeting with the latter represented the beginning of profound transformations in the life and thought of Giordani. Lubich called him “Foco”, and he was a fundamental figure for the birth and development of the Work of Mary/Focolare Movement, to the extent that he can be considered its co-founder.

> Read more

Even if the NT is the full revelation of God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, theology took some time before it found a conceptual model capable of giving an account of the interpersonal and relational constitution of the One God. Both the rigid monotheism of the Old Testament and the strongly unitarian imprint of Greek rationality threatened more communional ways of understanding God and the world in all its rich plurality. The substance paradigm of classical metaphysics and the modern subject were the most concrete expression of this unilaterally unitarian vision of reality. It is necessary today to develop an ontology capable of understanding God’s unity in God’s Trinity, because God is original plural communion in infinite original unity. He is, in other words, the foundation of plurality as original donation that invites all human beings to actualize reception and self-donation at the heart of a humanity that has its principle and foundation in the infinite communion of love that is the trinitarian life.

> Read more

Erik Peterson’s Monotheism as Political Problem (1935) occupies itself with the relations between theology and politics implicit in the constitution of the trinitarian dogma of the early centuries of Christianity, in conversation with Carl Schmitt and in opposition to all totalitarianism. Peterson contests the existence of an indissoluble link between theological concepts and particular political situations. During the years of National Socialism in Germany, Peterson notes the impossibility of an immediate transposition of the theological belief in the sovereignty of Christ into political categories: a “political theology” understood as the religious justification of the existent is unacceptable from a Christian point of view. The German scholar shows the importance of the cosmic and eschatological horizon in the understanding of the monarchy of the triune God.

> Read more

Nearly 40 years after his death, Giorgio La Pira continues to be one of the most important political figures both for Italian Catholics but also generally for whoever commits themselves to the common good as a genuine civil vocation. This paper presents the research project that the author is currently conducting at the Sophia University Institute on the theme of La Pira’s Florentine administrations between the 1950s and 1960s. Several themes were central to La Pira’s political project: attention to social issues, economic development sensitive to the challenges of the labour market, international opening in favour of peace. How much of La Pira’s project and commitment can be repeated? The figure of La Pira hasn’t lost any of its fascination and represents a subtle provocation towards the many people today engaged with apparent superficiality in the effort to build the times and places of political community.

> Read more

The article presents a research project, related to the scientific and interdisciplinary debate on the issue of development and its “complication”, focusing especially on the importance of the relational dimension. The research was aimed at building a methodology for assessing the ability of development aid to generate “relational goods”. It has resulted in the definition of an analysis tool – based on the convergence of two different, but consistent approaches, Paradigm of the gift and Social Network Analysis – which has been tested in field work (carried out in Brazil) which focused on the “relational effects” of development aid delivered in the context of the Economy of Communion.

> Read more

What does it mean, in the light of christian faith, to say that God is One and Three? How has this been understood and expressed in history by great witnesses to the intelligence of the faith? What importance does this truth have in today’s postmodern and multireligious cultural context? These are the questions that the authors of the articles contained in the current issue of «PATH» (the journal of the Pontifical Academy of Theology) aim at answering. The present three-authored review offers a synthetic overview and deepens some of the more important aspects that emerge from these contributions.

> Read more