A magazine to network and promote excellence among Catholic educational and cultural institutions

“The model is not the sphere, which is not superior to the parts, where each point is equidistant from the center and there is no difference between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the confluence of all partialities that retain their originality in it (Evangelii gaudium 236).” With this quotation from Pope Francis, the Rector of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore Elena Beccalli ‒ who since July has held the role of consultor of the Dicastery for Culture and Education ‒ began her speech at the presentation of the first issue of the magazine of the same Dicastery “Polyedrum: Cultura et Educatio”.

“An approach” ‒ the Rector then continued, recalling again the image of the polyhedron to which the magazine is entitled, ‒ “in which I see the experience of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore fully reflected because it is in the University that experiences, disciplinary approaches, different lines of research converge, partial, but referring back to a single ‘heart’, and in the words of the last encyclical Dilexit nos to the ‘wisdom of the heart’.”

The event took place on November 6 at Palazzo Ducale in Venice ‒ city chosen for the experience of the Holy See Pavilion at the 60th Biennale hosted in the chapel of the Giudecca women’s prison which was visited by the pope last April 28 ‒ and, in addition to the Rector Beccalli, was attended by Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, Prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Fabrizio Magani, Superintendent for Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the Municipality of Venice and the Lagoon, James P. Burns, President of Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, the funding body of the journal, Giovanni Cesare Pagazzi, Secretary of the Dicastery and editor of the first issue, Mirta d'Argenzio, editor of the visual essay by Portia Zvavahera, an African painter who illustrated this first issue, moderated by Fabrizio Capanni of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, in the presence of the city’s mayor Luigi Brugnaro, Patriarch Francesco Moraglia and the President of the Biennale Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

It emerged from their speeches that such a new magazine finds its essence in Pope Francis’ invitation to the Church’s educational and cultural institutions to “network” to promote excellence in every subject area. Hence the image of the “polyhedron” in the title to mark the sense of the approach to realities as a symbol of the plurality of sciences and arts called to investigate, each with its own epistemological status, the one truth.

The journal, therefore, addresses the topics of the moment ‒ this first issue is dedicated to Artificial Intelligence and its many applications ‒ through the various disciplines and points of view, and presents itself as a showcase of the excellence of scientific research and cultural activity of universities and other cultural institutions that report to the Catholic Church. In this way it will give voice to the best-known academic institutions and to those on the “periphery”, where there are also excellences deserving to be known by a wider audience, collecting and republishing the best essays related to a given topic already addressed in the aforementioned institutions in order to “show how Christianity contributes today, in a pertinent and original way, to the great ongoing debates and interjects its fundamental questions,” in the words of Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça.

Regarding the theme of the first issue, the Rector of Università Cattolica Beccalli reminded that the University is by definition the place of multiple intelligences, recalling the survey conducted by Università Cattolica among young people in Europe on the risks of Artificial Intelligence, which are there, but are seen as minor compared to the confidence linked to the new opportunities it will be able to bring. “All of this” ‒ according to the Rector ‒ “poses implications for institutions in educating young people in critical thinking. To educate means to integrate the language of mind, heart and hands: an alliance is needed to build an ‘educational village’ that knows how to take care of the person in his or her uniqueness and wholeness.” She went on to announce that “with this approach, our Athenaeum will initiate an educational pact for Artificial Intelligence, a challenge we face and must be able to respond to.”

In this first issue, Università Cattolica's contribution is the article by Alexandre Palma, What intelligence for ordained ministry? Notes for a characterization, previously published in “La Rivista del Clero Italiano”, no. 1, 2022.