Pope marks 75 years of the Teresianum

Pope Benedcit XVI received the students, faculty and staff of the Pontifical Teresianum Theology Faculty on Thursday in a special private audience marking the 75^th anniversary of the institution’s founding.

On July 16^th, 1935, the Sacred Congregation for Seminaries and Universities signed a decree granting official recognition to the Pontifical Theological Faculty Teresianum, attached to and created by the Seminary College of the Order of Discalced Carmelites in Rome as a center of theological learning and formation in the service of the Order and of the whole Church.

Taking its name from the great Carmelite mystic and Doctor of the Church, St Teresa of Avila, the Teresianum has from its very beginnings placed special emphasis on the development of spirituality and theological anthropology: the study of the question of human nature in the light of the faith.

In remarks to the whole Teresianum community gathered in the Clementine Hall of the Apostolic Palace on Thursday, Pope Benedict XVI noted that those living and studying at the faculty come from all around the world. “Here in Rome,” he said, “your heart and your intelligence are challenged to open themselves to the universal dimension of the Church.”

“They are,” he continued, “stimulated to sentire cum ecclesia,” to think and feel with the mind and the heart of the Church, “profoundly in tune with the Successor to Peter.”

Listen to Chris Altieri's report: