Sophia, a trans-disciplinary initiative that is growing

The speakers at the inauguration of the new academic year of the Sophia University Institute (SUI) pronounced words of encouragement and stimulus. They included the Grand Chancellor Cardinal Betori, Deputy Grand Chancellor Margaret Karram, Rector Declan O’Byrne and Prof. Mauro Magatti, Professor of Sociology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart.

The official start of the year is a major event for any academic community. In the times we live in, with the complex challenges of culture and society that emerge from the pandemic and the return of war on European territory, it is a very important occasion.

This year, 350 people attended the opening of the 2022/2023 Academic Year of the Sophia University Institute in Loppiano (Figline-Incisa, Valdarno-Italy). The title of the event, the 15^th so far, was: “Paradigm shift: the university of the future”. As usual, Sophia wanted to take the opportunity to try to open up new paths, to present something of the “versatility” that is a constitutive part of her heritage.

The Grand Chancellor, his eminence Card. Giuseppe Betori, who has accompanied and supported Sophia’s journey from the beginning, said that Sophia “is beginning to enter the time of maturity”. And he recommended “always drawing on the charismatic roots at the base of the Institute, roots from which life emerges”, including academic life.

The Vice Grand Chancellor, Margaret Karram, President of the Focolare Movement, emphasized the renewal that, after the initial phase, characterizes the current moment of the Institute. She said, “We note that a new generation of teachers, who have trained academically in this Institute is taking the baton from those who started. I am referring to the Professors of the ‘first hour’ to whom all my esteem and gratitude goes. They are those who, with courage, left the prestigious positions they held in other universities to give life to Chiara Lubich’s dream: to create a university institution at the service of the Church and humanity, which would give cultural and academic consistency to the charism of unity, to contribute to the realization of ‘that all may be one’ (Jn. 17:21)”. The mission of the SUI appears of no secondary importance in this historical moment of “fragmentation of knowledge and opinions” which requires attention and dedication: “Only by listening to God’s Wisdom, only by letting ourselves be shaped by it and by working, starting with ourselves, to ensure that it is transformed into culture, we will trace the way to answer the many questions of contemporary thought and we will be able to help heal the wounds and immense pains that afflict humanity”.

The student representatives, Merveille Kouatouka and Valentina Alarcón, proposed six words in their short presentation: welcome, listen, discover, contemplate, dare, desire. They are the six verbs that the students wanted to choose in their study of a subject that is not usually found in universities: “sharing” (a subject for which Sophia gives university credits, because it is an expression of the lifestyle that the Institute wants to promote). They said it is, “An invitation to open a path to create and be, a ‘place’ in which to share Wisdom and mutually nourish each other. We like to recall Benedict XVI’s invitation in Caritas in Veritate: ‘Truth is logos that creates diá-logos and therefore communication and communion'”.

Prof. Declan O’Byrne is the recently appointed third Rector (Acting) of SUI, following Prof. Piero Coda, Rector until 2020 and Prof. Giuseppe Argiolas, Rector since 2020. In his speech, he focussed on an expression present in the 2014 Strategic Plan, which spoke of Sophia as the “university of the future“. He posed the question: “In what sense can such a statement be made?” It doesn’t mean that “Sophia pretends to be some kind of model of what other universities can be”. Rather it means “thinking of Sophia as a university which serves the future. In other words, shifting attention from the already to the not-yet”. And, again and above all, “Sophia, in continuity with the mission of the Church, must be able to direct its work towards the future and must know how to overcome the rigid distinctions between disciplines, but also to connect the trans-disciplinary effort to a vision informed by the destiny of all things to become one in Christ”.

In his address, Prof. Mauro Magatti, Professor of General Sociology at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and a friend of Sophia since the beginning, reflected on the idea of ​​the university. He said: “Social life cannot be understood without taking into account the ability to accept a deviation from the plan, a quantum leap with respect to constraints that would seem to configure an impasse, or an unshakable determinism. In this sense, the spirit can be thought of as something which is capable of “infinite in the finite”, of “infinitizing” through projections that open lines of flight and spaces of freedom beyond the factual”. He said: “We need new knowledge and therefore a new university (…) To live in the time of complexity, it is necessary to recognize, enhance and cultivate an open, multidimensional, widespread, embodied reason, in constant dialogue and questioning with what is non-rational, a-rational, and supra-rational”.

“Live in the time of complexity” is the invitation of Prof. Magatti. Sophia’s Academic Community and its vast array of friends accept the challenge.

Michele Zanzucchi
Foto: Cittadela Loppiano