The uniqueness of human being in focus at the Antonianum

(Vatican Radio) Is human being really special? If so, what makes human being unique among all the things that are? These are questions with which a group of thinkers from across disciplines have been wrestling at the Pontifical University “Antonianum” in Rome for the past three years, with the support of the Templeton Foundation.

On Tuesday, December 1^st, the Antonianum hosted a major international conference to present some of the fruits of the three years’ interdisciplinary labor, under the rubric of “Anthropology and Christology – traditional and current perspectives”.

The director of the Human Specificity project at the Antonianum, Prof. Ivan Colagè, told Vatican Radio the conference is also – and especially – looking to move the program into a new phase of dialogue with intellectual and cultural leaders who are not experts in the specific fields of natural and social science, philosophy, and theology, which have been most directly involved in the program’s work thus far, as well as with the broader public.

“This is not just a way to celebrate the close of the project, but it is also a way to inaugurate a new effort that the Antonianum would like to take on, which is that of beginning to pass, to transmit the result of our research to a public of non-specialists, [and people who are] not professional researchers,” said Colagé. “The question of human specificity is one that may be dealt with very ‘academically’,” he continued, “but it is also a question that concerns the great majority of human beings nowadays.”

Click below to hear Chris Altieri’s extended conversation with Prof. Ivan Colagè of the Pontifical University “Antonianum”