“Theology serves the proclamation of the Gospel; therefore it is an integral and fundamental part of the Church’s mission.” Pope Leo XIV expressed this when meeting representatives of the Theological Faculty of Puglia and the Theological Institute of Calabria on Monday morning in the Vatican. Offering reflections concerning the path of formation offered by the respective institutions, the Pope encouraged them to move forward and backward, and to do theology together.
Recalling that Puglia and Calabria lie along the sea, Pope Leo referred to when the late Pope Francis addressed the writers of La Civiltà Cattolica in 2017 and said, “Remain on the open sea.
The Catholic must not be afraid of the open sea; he must not seek the shelter of safe harbors.” Pope Leo said there is a great need for this attitude, especially in the contexts in which the faith must be proclaimed and inculturated today.
"It is not a matter of acquiring notions in order to fulfill academic obligations," he said, "but of setting out on a courageous navigation, a crossing on the high seas." “On the one hand,” he said, “it is a path of descending into the depths, probing the abysses of the mystery of God and the various dimensions of the Christian faith.” “On the other hand,” Pope Leo continued, “it is a putting out into the deep in order to go beyond, to explore other horizons and thus to find new forms and new languages in which to proclaim the Gospel in the different situations of history.” The Pope said he wished to reiterate an "important point," namely that “theology serves the proclamation of the Gospel; therefore it is an integral and fundamental part of the Church’s mission.”