The opening of the 2023-2024 academic year of the Patristicum took place during the first week of October.
From the earliest years of the Institute, this is an event that has marked the passage from one academic year to the next. "A simple event," says the President of the Pontifical Institute, Fr. Giuseppe Caruso, "in which all those who come to the Augustinianum from different places are closely united”.
The session opened with a greeting sent for the occasion by Monsignor Alfonso Amarante, the new Rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, of which the Institute is a part as a center of singular specialization. Monsignor Amarante could not be present at the ceremony because at that same moment he was being consecrated bishop in the Basilica of St. John Lateran. Nonetheless, he graciously sent a warm greeting to the nearly 100 people attending the event.
Immediately afterwards, the president of the Pontifical Augustinian Patristic Institute, Fr. Giuseppe Caruso, read the report of the preceding academic year (2022-2023). “These are statistics apparently made up of sterile numbers, behind which, however, is hidden the work of all those - students, professors and workers - who enable the Institute to carry out its mission at the service of the Church and the world," stated Fr. Giuseppe.
19 new enrollees
On October 18, the feast of St. Luke, the Inaugural Mass of this new academic year took place at the Patristicum, during which the passage of Jesus’ sending of the 72 disciples was proclaimed. In the chapel of St. Monica, located next to the Augustinianum, the beginning of this year’s course was marked by the "invitation to accept the message of the Gospel and transmit it faithfully, as did the Fathers of the Church, who help us to receive the Good News with fresh vigor," as Brother Edivaldo Rossi Goncalves, a Brazilian student in the second year of his doctorate, recalled during the celebration.
For this new academic year, the Institute has 19 new enrolments among the 50 students in the first and second year degree courses.
In the propaedeutic year, the Patristic has 16 students and 4 for the doctoral courses.