Theology Week

The Seminary here does its best to engage with wider society through its various activities - sometimes this means pastoral or social work, at other times it has to do with its academic life. I have already written about its relationship with the USMA and the Bolivarian University of Colombia. This week is one of the important regular weeks in this effort.

Every year the Seminary hosts two academic "weeks". In the first semester there is the "Philosophy Week" and now, at the end of the second semester we have "Theology Week". During these weeks different speakers are invited to speak on varying topics; seminarians also speak. The idea is that the seminarians begin to engage with intellectual life outside of the seminary.

Apart from the challenge that this poses for the seminarians, there is also another important element to these weeks. They provide an opportunity for the seminary to contribute to the intellectual life of the diocese, the city, and, of course, the country. The talks are televised for transmission by the Catholic TV channel. This is a channel that has a very large viewership and these talks (more the Theology than the Philosophy apparently) are watched by a large number of people.

These talks are open to the public and it is interesting to see the profile of the people who attend. Among the participants are people who work as catechists, religious sisters, and permanent deacons. The commitment of, particularly the catechists and the deacons, is humbling. These people work all day long, take care of their family commitments, and still find time to undertake significant commitments in their parishes. Those participating in these talks are all coming from their day jobs - on Monday, for example, one man came still wearing his fireman's uniform (he is a catechist).

I will be one of the speakers tonight. My topic has to do with the concept of "Covenant" and the "ministeriality of the church". I still have to finish what I am going to say so I have to go...