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In this article, we offer a reflection on the eschatological valence of angeology. Angels are the symbol of consummate sociability in eternal life, of the communal greatness of Heaven, of the beauty of life eternally celebrated in praise and worship, of the luminous face of the person in his relational fullness (personal glorious body in the glorious body of Christ). They are, by excellence, the typification of the eschatological language marked by the symbol and the metaphor, by the indication of a reality other than the reference to the known and the experienceable.

The present text proposes a further synthesis of what the historical witnesses say about the apparitions of the Angel at Fátima 100 year ago. It is concerned above all to be faithful to the faithful narrative of the facts on the bases of the documents, hoping that others will interpret both the one and the other.

Study based on three angles of reflexion: a recent inquiry about “angels”, some comments on the religiosity of this actual phenomenon and an assessment of its catholicity mainly based on Holy Scripture. A final note frames this question from the perspective of Ecclesial Tradition. This text provides the bibliography used and supports a path of solidarity.

The theme of angels is generally tackled in regard to their relation to the single individual. In this contribution the aim is to broaden the context and see to what extent the angelic wings of the Invisible broaden so far as to protect and to guide not only the individual, but also the peoples and the nations. In what terms, then, may we speak of ‘political angelology’? Hence the aim of this essay is essentially that of seeing how far the theological-political figure of the ‘Angel of the nations’ or of the ‘Angel of the peoples’ is present in some of the great angelologies of the 20th century: as well as that of Romano Guardini, those of John Henry Newman, Jean Daniélou, Edith Stein and Eugenio D’Ors.

Following in the footsteps of tradition, the sage of the book of Qoheleth (Ecclesiastes), like all the authors of the Old Testament, assumes an understanding of the term ‘heart’ that expresses in vivid imagery the language of the affections and emotions proper to every human being. While outlining the tradition, Qoheleth, like all the sages, differs in the way he is able to enlarge and probe the biblical tradition of the human and theological place of the heart. This process of continuity and deepening calls for a more careful and intelligent reflection on existence. Getting to the essence of the tradition, Qoheleth makes the heart a singular and determining place, where human and religious discourse happens. It is in and through the heart that the wise person experiences the challenges of will, of fear and courage, the pangs of conscience and the very awareness of intellectual questioning. The heart is a central place for thought, will and inner strength. In the book of Quoheleth, in singular and clear discontinuity, the center ceases to be the place (the heart) and becomes the self-thinking that develops within the human being; an intense activity of self-reflection by those who seek to understand life.

The present paper studies the 1Pe 3,20 (diesôthêsan di’hudatos), considered a crux interpretum, proposing an interpretation in the light of the Old Testament and Jewish tradition. After mentioning the different proposals for interpretation, we will try to read this passage as an echo and christological rereading of Jewish traditions.

Seeking to bring together dynamically the pair ‘meaning of life’ and ‘Christian reconciliation’, my research presents the following as its main question: What relation can we establish between the meaning of life and Christian reconciliation? Note that the present text is just a summary of my doctoral dissertation in Dogmatic Theology, with the title: “Looking for the Meaning of Life and Christian Reconciliation. Theological reading of the thought of Viktor Frankl” (2016).

It is the aims of this article to discuss the unavoidable vulnerability of patients in clinic situations. It explores this topic through a reading of the book De Profundis, Valsa Lenta, written by the Portuguese writer José Cardoso Pires. The main purpose of the text is to discuss the ethical questions involved in the forms adopted by professionals in the health areas in order to deal with vulnerability on the part of their patients.

The present paper studies the problem of a philosophical theology in Heidegger’s thought, trying to show how it guides and structures his ontology in depth. Thus, after a brief presentation of the author’s theological training and the way he diverges from it through criticism of onto-theology, it analyzes the central questions of secularization and nihilism, which characterize the present time from an onto-historical point of view. They determine the program of a new philosophical theology on a phenomenological basis, which constitutes the key for a possible reading of the author.

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During the past few years, the place of Religious studies has increased all over Europe, and sometimes it’s in competition with Theology. There are plenty of reasons at the origin of this phenomenon. There is of course the increasing secularization of society with major Christian denominations losing their influence – religious practice is diminishing, vocations are scarcer, and theology institutions are gradually recruiting a much more diverse public than only from among the religious and clerics. Yet religions are not disappearing from society, Islam itself is experiencing a rise in strength, other religious references are emerging, and probably there has never been so much talk about religion as we now have. Within this context of radical pluralism, non-confessional Religious studies appear much more respectful of the principle of laïcité. The concept of the religious is expanded to, and thus influences or sacralises, new realities; traditional religions are reproached, probably like never before, and terrorist attacks turned them into scapegoats. Vandalism of confessional places and religious discrimination have become common.

As the title suggests, this study provides a brief overview of the relationship between theology and religion studies in Eastern Europe: Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

The exposure to be presented will consist of two major points. The first (I) is introductory. It is intended to offer the state of the art on the problem of the body-psyche relation, already very old, that has in Psychosomatic one of its controversial points. Nowadays, it has its nucleus in the discussion around the relations between brain, mind and body. In the second point (II), the notions to be clarified in Table 3 of our Fifth Symposium ("Psychosomatic of the religious, the rite and the body"), debated in light of the major theme of the Symposium ("Rationalities, affectivities and religious experiences in contemporaneity "). I will take advantage of the opportunity to speak at the Catholic University of Portugal, on this campus in Braga, to pay tribute to one of the greatest neuroscientists of our time, the Portuguese psychiatrist António R. Damásio, bringing to the discussion something of his view on the Psychosomatics he represented in the 1920s and 30, an ambitious theory that sought to associate clinically two complex scientific areas of contemporary science: Neuromedicine and Psychology.

Starting from the contemporary context of replacing the concept of religion with the concept of spirituality, the article begins by exploring the characteristics of contemporary spiritual experiences, situated between self-concentration and the holistic reference of experience, on the horizon of cosmic energies. From this context of analysis, it is proposed a concentration on the signification of the body for the elaboration of the contemporary spiritual experiences, relating this meaning with the anthropological dimension of the relation to the other. The otherness inscribed in the interhuman relationship in bodies is then placed in the context of ritual experience, precisely as a bodily experience of the otherness of meaning.

In this paper, we intend to point out the extent to which Girardian thought can offer elements that will serve as a basis for thinking about contemporary religious rationalities and experiences, using as a reference the process of conversion of René Girard. We suspect that this is possible and fruitful, since Girard begins his research from the point of view of the scientist and literary critic and finally converts to Christianity by means of rationality or logical reasonableness.