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Dearest students, colleagues and readers,
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here we are with the report of the activities promoted by ROR in the second semester of 2025, the year of the Jubilee of Hope, which saw us learn the news of the passing of the Holy Father Pope Francis and gratefully welcome the election to the throne of Peter of Pope Leo XIV.
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In this semester, as you will see reading our newsletter, we have given space to some young scholars and have concentrated our efforts on three main fronts: the 1700 years since the Council of Nicaea; the contribution of ancient philosophy on the great theme of assimilation to God (homoiosis theõ); the modern ontologization of metaphysics and the crisis of the self in the pathoplastic society. We thank Professors Ariberto Acerbi and Gennaro Luise for the attentive collaboration of the philosophy faculty, which, together with Antonio Malo from the beginning of our collaboration, contributes strongly to enriching the thought of theologians.
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If, for the coming year, you would like to be informed in advance of scheduled events, you can subscribe to the informational mailing list. We already inform you that the first of next academic year’s meetings will be held on October 8, 2025 at PUSC, with the presentation of Pierpaolo Donati’s latest book La relazione con Dio. Quale alterità fra l’umano e il divino? (San Paolo ed.).
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For our most assiduous readers and for the curious, I remind you that on the front of the discussion on current psychological distress, the volume Dalla crisi dell’io nella società post-moderna has been published by InSchibboleth, edited by Ilaria Vigorelli and psychologist Paola Beffa Negrini, which in a certain sense settles into the research line of Ansia e idolatria by C.M. Cornaggia, G. Maspero and F. Peroni, also presented during the Seveso workshop.
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Finally, thanks to the support of our benefactors and collaboration with the Patres association, this semester has seen the launch of the ambitious project of the exhibition “Light from Light: Nicaea 1700 Years Later”, which will be inaugurated next August during the Meeting for Friendship Among Peoples in Rimini from August 22 to 27, 2025. As usual in the spirit of ROR, the exhibition will be much more than a historical reconstruction: history, theology, art, architecture and music will merge together in a great Trinitarian praise. The challenge hidden behind the exhibition’s framework is that an event like Nicaea can still have, even today, concrete and salvific relevance. We point out the recent mini-interview by Giulio Maspero for the organizers of Meeting 2025 which, as also emerged during the meetings in Seveso, begins with the observation that in the post-modern era we all feel “a bit wrong”. At Nicaea it was said that God is Father and not only that “he acts as Father” – he cannot decide whether to be Father, because Jesus is his eternal Son. This means that God cannot do anything but love us and, perhaps, the contemporary world suffers so much precisely because it has lost sight of this liberating primary relational reference!
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The hope that everyone may find light from this Light, we greet you and wish you a good summer.
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Ilaria and Diletta for all of ROR
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Perché ci interessa Nicea oggi?
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In view of the exhibition to be held during the Rimini Meeting 2025, entitled “Light from Light. Nicaea 1700 years later”, organised by the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross and the PATRES Association, and starting from the book The Bet of Constantine. How the Council of Nicaea changed history (Mondadori 2025), on 16 June 2025, the ROR organised an afternoon of dialogue, moderated by President Ilaria Vigorelli, between Gian Guido Vecchi (Vatican correspondent for Corriere della Sera), Giovanni Maria Vian (professor of patristic philology at La Sapienza University), authors of the aforementioned volume, and Giulio Maspero, dean of the faculty of theology (PUSC).
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La discussione dottrinale a Nicea nel 325
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Professor Samuel Fernández held a seminar for the ROR presenting the work of re-editing the sources of Nicaea (with critical text and facing translation), already published in English, Spanish and Italian editions: Fontes Nicaenae Synodi: The Contemporary Sources for the Study of the Council of Nicaea (304-337), translated as Le fonti antiche sul Concilio di Nicea (Città Nuova 2025).
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La dottrina della assimilazione a Dio (homoiosis theo) nel Timeo di Platone
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Within the framework of the seminar series on homoiosis theõ, Prof. Franco Ferrari from the University of Pavia illustrated the contents of this same doctrine in Plato’s Timaeus.
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According to Arius Didymus, Plato dealt with assimilation to God in three ways: physical, in the Pythagorean manner (Timaeus); ethical (Republic); logical (Theaetetus). The discontinuity of this approach was criticized in antiquity, though in some opinions it was only apparently inconsistent, ultimately respecting the macro-areas of philosophy.
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Assimilazione a Dio e governo del mondo in Filone di Alessandria. Il caso del De fuga et inventione
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On 8 April 2025, Prof. Emanuele Vimercati (Pontifical Lateran University) held a seminar on the theme of assimilation to God, his economy and development, in Philo of Alexandria. The meeting is part of a cycle of seminars dedicated to the theme of “assimilation to God” (homoiosis theõ) and follows the one held by Professor Ferrari (University of Pavia) on the same theme in Plato’s Timaeus.
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Natural Contemplation in Maximus the Confessor: an Introduction to Patristic Philosophy of Nature
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On February 26, doctoral candidate Robert Marsland presented a research seminar on his thesis concerning St. Maximus the Confessor’s philosophy of nature. Marsland, who transitioned from a career in physics to pursue dogmatic theology, explored how Maximus’ patristic vision offers a meaningful response to contemporary ecological challenges.
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St. Maximus the Confessor’s Epistolary Metaphysics
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On March 27, 2025, Sea-Yun Pius Joung (PhD, University of Cambridge) held a seminar on the epistolary of St. Maximus the Confessor for the ROR.
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After providing some context on Maximus’s life, times, and broader theological context, Sea-Yun Pius Joung reconstructed Maximus’s metaphysical system with reference to his epistolary greetings, specifically the use of logoi in his greetings and farewells.
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Apocalyptic and Eschatological Spaces: Thinking between Philosophy and Theology
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From 1 to 3 May, a conference entitled Apocalyptic and Eschatological Spaces: Thinking between Philosophy and Theology was held at St. Patrick’s Pontifical University in Maynooth (Ireland). The initiative was the result of a joint effort involving St. Patrick’s Pontifical University, the Catholic Institute of Toulouse, and ROR. The following speakers presented their papers during three intense days of work: Andrea Bellantone (Toulouse); Agata Bielik-Robson (Nottingham); François Daguet OP (Toulouse); William Desmond (Leuven); Emmanuel Falque (Paris); Joshua Furnal (SPPU Maynooth); Philip Gonzales (St. Mary’s Seminary & University, Baltimore); Giulio Maspero (Rome); Cyril O’Regan (Notre Dame); Johanna Rahner (Tubingen); Ilaria Vigorelli (Rome); Judith Wolfe (St. Andrews).
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Heidegger: tra esistenza ed essere
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Professor Carmine Di Martino of the University of Milan held a seminar on March 20, 2025, on Heidegger’s writings from the first Freiburg period, presenting them through the development of some Key themes.
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Since their publication, the critical reading given to these writings, which the philosopher was uncertain whether to publish (would they bring to light something that bothered him?), has partly changed. What inheritance they represented became clear only later.
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Disagio psichico e postmodernità
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Representatives from various fields of knowledge and professions (philosophers, theologians, psychologists, psychiatrists, school and social educators) met in Seveso, at the Ambrosian Pastoral Centre. The topics discussed were the crisis of the self and psychological distress in a pathoplastic society (which generates pathologies, causing and producing them). What questions and practical suggestions does this situation of widespread malaise raise, especially among young people, from a multidisciplinary perspective?
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Una cultura che trasforma il mondo: La vita come relazione (di Ares). Un incontro tra Pierpaolo Donati e Marta Cartabia
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On the occasion of the release of the volume Una cultura che trasforma il mondo. La vita come relazione (published by Ares), sociologist Pierpaolo Donati (creator of the general theory for the analysis of society called “relational sociology,” professor emeritus at the University of Bologna, member of the scientific committee of ROR) met with Professor Marta Cartabia (President emeritus of the Constitutional Court and professor of Constitutional Law, Bocconi University of Milan) at the Refectory hall of the Chamber of Deputies on May 27, 2025.
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