On September 25, the appointment of Father Juan Antonio Cabrera Montero as the new president of the Pontifical Augustinianum Patristic Institute was announced
After 24 years crossing its corridors, coming and going through its classrooms and offices; getting to know its bibliographical heritage during his 11 years in the Library or sharing with his students the thought and theology from Gregory the Great to the iconoclastic polemic of the ninth century, Father Juan Antonio now assumes the presidency of an apostolic work of academic character that he knows very well.
Grateful for the support of the students, the faculty and for the appointment of the Prior General for this new responsibility, the new president of the Patristicum dedicates a few minutes to us at the beginning of the academic year of the main center of patristic studies in the world.
Father, congratulations on your appointment. First of all, what is the main objective you have set for the start of this new academic year?
The first will be to strengthen the internationalization of the Institute by opening our classrooms to teachers from all over the world - without forgetting the richness offered by the state universities of Italy. The second is to continue to integrate and develop issues related to the norms, statutes and special regulations of the Holy See, to whom we are indebted, and of the European Union.
What is the main challenge facing university higher education in the ecclesiastical field today?
The challenge in Roman pontifical universities today is twofold. On the one hand, to face the evident decrease in the number of enrolled students, for various reasons, among which is mainly the vocational crisis, to which is added another that aggravates the problem: the world economic crisis. Therefore, we have to adapt the offer to a smaller and generally less educated number of students than years ago. Because although training, especially classical and linguistic -Greek and Latin- training was more widespread in the past, now not even in the United States or Europe, places where classical studies have traditionally been important, do students arrive with a sufficient level to pass the propaedeutic. So, faced with this challenge, with the drop in vocations and also with the economic problems that affect most ecclesiastical institutions, we have to balance the numbers and, at the same time, ensure a quality academic offer that, by having - as I said - an increasingly smaller and less prepared number of students, runs the risk of impoverishing a little in terms of theological formation in the second cycle, the licentiate and, above all, the doctorate. I think this is a rather strong challenge common to all universities, not only to the Patristic.
What makes the Patristicum distinctive and unique?
It is the only pontifical institute that offers specific training on ancient Christian literature, authors and Christian texts from the end of the first century to the ninth century. It is certainly unique in its kind. The approach we take to the authors and sources, to the writings, is a historical, philological and theological approach. We do not enter into dogmatic polemics, but rather we deal with the authors, orthodox and heterodox, who have contributed to what will later become tradition and magisterium. Therefore, we seek to approach the sources that for the first time dealt with themes that are still being treated today; from the Trinity, Christology, eschatology, morals, liturgy, canon law... Everything that we have come to know in Tradition and that we continue to study today is already found in the early Fathers. And this specificity is what gives value to the study of the first authors and, therefore, to the Augustinianum.
What can anyone who wants to approach the Library of the Institute find?
It is not an exaggeration if I say that it is the “true jewel of the Patristic Institute”. I say that it is a jewel because it gives us the possibility of opening and sharing the atmosphere of the Institute not only to our students, to our professors, but also, completely free of charge, to any scholar who wants to come from any part of the world to delve into the richness of the numerous and varied bibliographic collection that constitutes our library. The library is a service and, at the same time, a mission of the Order that looks towards the ecclesial and international academic world.
What is required to be a professor at the Pontifical Institute?
We are talking about an Institute of high specialization, which is what the Holy See asks of us within the Pontifical Lateran University, which is known as the Pope's university because it is the pontifical university par excellence. Therefore, one of the requirements is that there must be excellent quality in the teaching and academic research of each professor. It is true that we leave room for promising future teachers and logically we have to give them a place to grow. But we must show the entire academic world that some of the best have taught and continue to teach at our Institute. We are talking, for example, just to mention some who are no longer with us, of Manlio Simonetti, the greatest figure of Italian patrology, but I am also thinking of Basil Studer, Antonio Quacquarelli, Agostino Trapé and Nello Cipriani... This is the richness, that has given us a name, a mission and a responsibility to fulfill and take care of.
This will be the first course without a historical Patristic professor like Father Nello Cipriani. What legacy does he leave?
It has certainly been a great loss. He had been away from teaching for more than eight years because of his age, but he continued working, publishing and advising students. He was a point of reference to whom you could always turn to for any doubt about St. Augustine. I believe that in recent times he has been the best in his field, certainly in the Order but also one of the most outstanding in the field of Augustinian studies in general. The work he did on the sources of the philosophy and theology of St. Augustine has not yet been surpassed and in many respects had not even been begun by anyone before him. Nello followed the line of Father Agostino Trapé, a great figure, but I believe that Nello, with his own methodology and way of analyzing the sources, made his own way to reach a very high level of knowledge. As a scholar he was recognized all over the world for his way of explaining the doctrine of St. Augustine, in continuous evolution and with a very high level of intellectual honesty. It takes many years and talent to get there. He has not left direct disciples or the classic school of other masters, but he has left many people who have been formed by him and who have read his works. I am convinced that little by little others like Nello Cipriani will emerge, also in the Order.
Regarding beauty or aesthetics in St. Augustine, this may be an aspect of spirituality that has not been so well defined within the Order. The Order has a rich spirituality that comes from St. Augustine, but he is not its founder but its inspirer, its model, its father.
There is a whole tradition - although it does not correspond totally or exclusively to the Institute - which is to make known all the great authors that have existed since the foundation of the Order and that have collaborated to form a religious group with a very Augustinian spirit. And this is very important. Soon, in November, the Congress “Sub Regula Augustini...” will be held at the Augustinianum, which I believe will help us to interpret St. Augustine from our foundation as an Order onwards. We are going to study how others interpreted him in his time. Without forcing the arguments or the texts, but discovering better the intuitions that surely the Fathers and St. Augustine had to illuminate their time and that we could take advantage of to illuminate ours.
Give us a glimpse of the Congress.
It is a Congress made from within, by Augustinians, without falling into self-referentiality. We are going to echo other authors, to understand the reality and the differences between the monastic origins and what the Order is today. It is necessary to (re)discover the true Augustinian spirituality, which is unknown, sometimes even ignored, within the Order. It would seem that all the mendicant orders, in order to situate their Order in its natural context, have great mystical and ascetic figures, except ours. I hope that this congress can help everyone to deepen that spiritual tradition of the Order so close and yet so far from our lives. People know the great authors of the Order, but often by reference, not in detail. We know that there are Fray Luis de Leon, St. Alonso de Orozco or St. Thomas of Villanova, to cite only some of the Hispanic world, but few have read them. They remain as references of a great past that are hardly known. This must be changed. It is necessary to promote within the Order the knowledge of this spiritual and intellectual patrimony of our history.