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We may safely say that the Spirit that illumines and guides Biblical authors is the same as leads writers to communicate to others the blessings that they have received. And the God that communicates to them guides them to express themselves biblically, with strong resonances of what they hear and read in the Bible. As this study tries to show, Teresa is a typical case of this search and syntony with the word of the Scriptures, for “she did not wish [to speak of herself] but to know if in all she did she was in accordance with the Holy Scripture” (CC 53,). Lamenting that the Church of her time forbade ordinary people to read the Bible, Teresa lamented that “women too remain so far from enjoying the riches of the Lord” (Mk 1,8). And, defying all dangers, she set herself to write her “meditations” on the Song of Songs for women. Furthermore, she founded her doctrine on friendship-prayer, her theology and anthropology, on the Lord’s Prayer, compendium of the Scriptures, “the book they cannot take away from us”, she says, criticising the masculine hierarchical Church. Now, as Teresa says, understanding Scripture is a labour of love, for in it God’s love towards humanity is revealed to us.

The aim of this study was primarily to carry out an internal reading of the presence of certain Augustinian themes in the work of Theresa of Ávila. To this end, texts were identified from among Saint Theresa’s work in which Saint Augustin and some of the most significant themes of his thinking were present, in order to justify the Augustinian influence that was a generating source of the existential and spiritual evolution of the great Spanish mystic. A reading of the Confessions shows itself to have been not only a great source of autobiographical motivation, but also a source of inspiration in the writing of her own work, with repercussions in certain of the most significant moments of the Book of Life, of The Road to Perfection and of The Interior Castle. In this sense, it has been possible to show, in parallel, how in the genesis of comparative studies begun in the 19th century, on the various analogies between Saint Augustin and Saint Theresa, Theresa of Ávila’s Augustinian filiation has come to enrich the library not only of Theresian studies but also of Augustinian studies.

Teresa de Jesus attended no university but all recognise in her a more than average culture. She was always anxious to learn and reading was her favourite pastime. To this tendency we must add the relations she maintained with the greatest theologians of her time, whom she sought out of personal necessity. Teresa was conscious of the divorce between theologians and spiritualists and wished to remedy this great evil. All were losing by maintaining the situation. From divorce it passed on to attack, and the inquisition fell into the hands of the theologians, with the latter subsequently persecuting the spiritualists. Teresa confesses to being a friend of the ‘lettered’. As well as this culture acquired through her friendly, intimate relations with certain theologians, from the school of prayer Teresa learnt a science that she did not find in books. The Living Book is her Master.

In search of an answer to the question posed in the title, this study turns to the laws of the Pentateuch, Proverbs and the books of Amos and Isaiah 1-39, and concludes that expressed within them are two ethical systems, of which Yahweh is the originator, foundation and guarantor. One is based on the creation, the work of Yahweh, and intrinsically universal. It is the only one to be found in the earliest sapiential writings and in the discourse of Amos and Isaiah. The other is based on the relations between Yahweh and his people Israel, and intrinsically particular. It is expressed above all in the laws of the Pentateuch, but also in the historical books and in some of the prophetic books. The author ends by making a plea for an ‘updating’ of the universal ethical system.

Both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have warned of the need for a ‘governance’ that a certain globalisation may call into question. Having stated the need for a governance of globalisation, what contribution can the Church’s social doctrine make? It is to this question that I seek an answer. The truth is that the Church has at its disposition both solid reflection and a doctrine that can and should help in shaping an increasingly urgent global conscience and responsibility.

Using the methodology of See-Judge-Act to understand the structure of Laudato Si’, this article argues that caring for creation and for justice for the poor are interrelated and constitute the fundamental contents of the encyclical letter, which has become a present-day point of reference for the Church’s social doctrine. In parallel with this, the author briefly presents the ecumenical social ethic and studies how these two fundamental contents have been studied in it. The author shows similarities and focuses on climatic justice, a key to the ecumenical social ethic but absent as such in Laudato Si’. The article concludes with a number of reactions from other Christian leaders to the encyclical and concrete action on this theme by Christian churches.

In the light of both the Jubilee of Mercy (2016) and the Encyclical Laudato Si’, this article analyses some global ethical challenges which reflect an unmerciful world and makes some suggestions for a new lifestyle based on mercy, gratuitousness, fraternity, and the common good. It is emphasized that the human family “is the first and most important school of mercy”. We need to put into practice that kind of merciful relationships which we usually experience at home during childhood and that help us to discover the real face of our heavenly Father. The future of our common home depends on it.

We know that the present Pope, in adopting the name of Francis, wished not only to commemorate the patron saint of Italy, but above all to put forward a programme of renewal for the Church and for the world. The encyclical Laudato Si’ confirms this for any that were still in doubt. Drawing inspiration from the saint whom Pope John Paul II proclaimed as patron of ecology, the Holy Father takes up the tradition of the Franciscan school to propose once more to all a new relation with the creatures of our ‘common home’. The present article seeks to revisit the essential elements of Franciscan ecology that prove to be of such present relevance.

Globalization, whose processes are complex and spill over into many socio- cultural environments, imposes itself as the backdrop of contemporary life. It has shown one possibility in the dream of the human family, but, at the same time, has given life to fundamentalist ideologies that seem to vindicate those that sustain the impossibility of realizing a mode of living together with difference. And yet, there is no alternative to a meeting of cultures. In this sense, the responsibility of theology is more than evident: the Christian message about freedom and justice for all, in the development of a culture of recognising others in their being other. In line with this, the process of communication of the Gospel moves in the terrain of an intercultural existence that, while it affirms the potential universality of cultures and religions, invites them to a reciprocal openness, in a fertile tension that values truth, solidarity and love.

The publication of the encyclical Laudato Si’ is opportune in reminding us of the urgency of the ecological crisis that has becom of the theology of the creation that Pope Francis proposes, it is important to analyse the conditions for a fertile reception of the magisterial text. For Africa two important points help: the religious heritage of the various traditions and the current economic- -political context. Without bringing about a complete fusion of cosmologies, the idea of a harmonious reconciliation of God, of humanity and of the world brings together the theoanthropocosmic conception so current in African religious traditions. For Christian theology, it is in Jesus Christ that this reconciliation is realized since the salvation that is accomplished in him is the reality of creation renewed. It is in this link between creation and salvation that African theology should find the bases of its approach to the ecological crisis.e a global concern. In the light

This article aims to show how Christianity and the Churches of Africa continue to be victims of forms of colonialism that have prevented them from affirming themselves as the true incarnation of the Gospel. Continuing to bear the heavy burden of their history, the African churches face the always difficult challenge of fidelity to the Gospel and to the peoples and cultures of Africa. Only stemming from this will it be possible to speak of a true African Christian ethic, in the same way as we have spoken for centuries of a Christian ethic stemming from Mediterranean Europe.

The public space of democratic societies is a ‘place’ of action and of discourse. What a social actor does or says there depends, to a large extent, on his own representation of the relationship that exists between the group to which he belongs and the body politic of which he is part. Is this relationship one of conflict? Or is it rather based on mutual esteem? Does it go as far as collaboration? We can see, the representation of the relationship between the institution of belonging and the body politic is at the heart of what in rhetoric is termed as the discourse situation. It is through the ‘discourse situation’, in other words through the circumstances and context that in their way shape any form of discourse, that I will approach the issue of ecclesial discourse in the public space. In this text, I have two objectives: 1) to show an awareness of the changes that have marked ecclesial representations of the relationship Church/ body politic with and after Vatican Council II; 2) to demonstrate how public ecclesial discourse has adjusted to these changes. To do so, I will proceed in three steps: firstly, I will summarily define what I understand by ‘public space’; secondly, I will cast an eye on the Catholic theories of the relationships Church/body politic following Vatican II; lastly, I will show how these theoretical shifts have effectively led, in their turn, to shifts in ecclesial discourse.

This essay provides an analysis of the concept and phenomena of secularization, arguing that Christianity in its radical message and experience is not, in any sense, secularizable. After a conceptual survey and the consequent first definition of secularization as desacralization, we focus on Hegel’s Verweltlichung and its consequences in Hegelians and later Hegelianism, as well as confronting them with the Catholic Christian view. Finally we evaluate the concept of secularization from an etymological point of view, while examining the concept thus redefined (as linear time and as related to the temporal order) in the Gospels. The present essay offers a reconsidered discussion on philosophy and Christianity at a historical moment so removed from any spiritual path.

Given the current situation in the Islamic world, the wave of terrorist attacks and the global refugee crisis, it is worth questioning History without bias to avoid simplistic or ‘essentialist’ analyses and fostering confrontation between peoples, religions and cultures. By addressing periods of coexistence, conviviality and cultural exchanges between Christians and Muslims (as well as Jews) in the Iberian Peninsula and the Middle East, we aim to measure the degree and scope of those historically-documented interchanges.

The evangelist Saint Luke, who presents himself as a historian, dedicates his two works to his “Excellency Theophilus”. Who is this ‘illustrious’ figure? Are we dealing with a fictitious character, as was the custom in Greek literature, or a concrete historical person? In this text, new elements are presented with a view to answering this important question.

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The university, a mediaeval foundation, cultivated theology from the outset, demanding scientific characteristics derived from Aristotle’s Organon, taking from there what was compatible with the revealed Word. But if the university has never disappeared, theology, with changing trends in society and with the progressive formalization of knowledge, has lost its privileged position both in the constitution of knowledge and in the university, deserving attention almost exclusively in private institutions of ‘Religions of the Book’. With the current crisis in the sciences that calls for a new knowledge, it is legitimate to propose the return of theology, including the theologies arising from religions, whose presence in cultures is inextinguishable.

The university exists in the context of the public space. Thus, the present text also approaches religious matters outside Faculties tied to religious traditions. These two approaches are different, but not incompatible; each envisions a specific aim. At the university, religious matters are: 1) a whole to be known and incorporated into organized knowledge; 2) a phenomenon to be interpreted as a symptom of a given social situation (for example, today, religious radicalism and certain compensatory uses of religion); 3) a field that enables us to think about fundamental human questions and social issues that are repressed in our homogenizing postmodern societies. This article develops these three lines of inquiry. Lastly, it advocates a vindication of differences and heterogeneity, through reflection on religious and social matters.

Based on the operative category of mediation, this article aims to explore the meaning of the Church for theology and vice versa. First, it presents the Church as a mediation comprising multiple mediations. Among these, theological mediation takes upon itself the position of being reflective, hermeneutic and critical. Thus, it is mediation of Scripture and of the world to the Church, and of the Church to itself; at the same time it is mediation of the Church to the world. In all these dimensions, theology sees itself as a theoretical and practical science, immersed in the ecclesial fabric and at the same time as its interpellator.

This article studies the teaching of moral theology at the Theological Faculty of Coimbra, beginning with the Pombal reform, which brought with it a new scientific methodology, up to the end of the ‘decadent school’ (1772-1910), at a time of confrontation of theological currents. It looks at the curricula, describing the concrete and detailed indications for the teaching staff, both for method and content. It proceeds to analyse the teachers and textbooks, completing an overview of the Faculty with the publications of contemporary Portuguese theologians (18th and 19th centuries) and comparing them with the most outstanding European authors in the Portuguese context.