Letter from the Dean

September 2023

A cordial greeting of welcome to those who, with the beginning of the academic year, join the School of Theology of the University of Navarra as professors, students or staff of services.

For School your presence is a source of great joy. We all hope that your stay with us will be enriching and that you will achieve the goals you have set for yourselves; we also hope that it will be an opportunity to forge lasting friendships, to dialogue, to learn, in other words, to enjoy an authentic university experience that will leave a deep impression.

This School already has a long experience in research and professor. It began its activity as a Theological Center in 1964. It was elevated to the rank of high school Theological in 1967, and was erected by the Holy See as School in 1969. Its academic degrees have full canonical validity and civil recognition. Hundreds of students have already passed through its classrooms, who exercise the teaching of theology and priestly ministry in the most diverse places of the world.

The teaching and research of the School, structured according to model departmental, are organized under the department of Systematic Theology and the department of programs of study Biblical and Church History. To these is added the high school of Church History as a Center researcher. The students of the School thus have easy access to the broad panorama of theology considered from very diverse and complementary angles; they also find a suitable place for their research. The offerings of the School both at teaching and research cover the essential areas of theological knowledge. In this sense, the generous service provided by the Library Services of Humanities to the entire University of Navarra and, in particular, to the School of Theology is very much appreciated: its bibliographic holdings include more than one million volumes and it is connected to the most universal interlibrary loan and exchange systems.

Also belonging to the School is a high school of Religious Sciences, erected in 1997 and renewed, from agreement with the new rules and regulations of the Congregation, in 2011. The programs of study of Religious Sciences offers the students a systematic vision of the mystery of Christ and the history of salvation, together with the specific knowledge of pedagogical, didactic and catechetical subjects suitable for the training of the academic staff of religion.

Finally, the School has three periodicals: Scripta Theologica, yearbook of Church History y Doctoral Notebooks of the School of Theologywhich collect part of the research that is carried out in the School and, at the same time, are open to other researchers, as is usual in the university environment.

I conclude by recalling some words of Pope Francis that encourage us in our task at the service of the Church and society, and help to give our theological work a sense of responsibility: "The Church, committed to evangelization, appreciates and encourages the charism of theologians and their effort for theological research , which promotes dialogue with the world of cultures and sciences. I invite theologians to fulfill this service as part of the salvific mission statement of the Church. But it is necessary that, for such a purpose, they carry in their hearts the evangelizing purpose of the Church and also of theology, and not be content with a desk theology."(Evangelii Gaudium, 133).

Dr. Gregorio Guitián
Dean of the School of Theology