From 2024, the Dicastery for Culture and Education will publish the journal POLYEDRUM: Cultura et Educatio, the Dicastery’s official publication.
POLYEDRUM brings together and revitalises in a profoundly renewed way the legacy of the journals Educatio Catholica and Culture and Faith, which were respectively the official publications of the Congregation for Catholic Education and the Pontifical Council for Culture: with the Apostolic Constitution Praedicate Evangelium, dated 19 March 2022, the Holy Father merged the two dicasteries into the new Dicastery for Culture and Education.
The title, POLYEDRUM, indicates the adoption of the approach to reality advocated by Pope Francis since the beginning of his pontificate: “The model is not the sphere, which is not superior to its parts, where every point is equidistant from the centre and there are no differences between one point and another. The model is the polyhedron, which reflects the convergence of all the parts that retain their originality within it” (Evangelii gaudium 236). The journal, in fact, approaches the topics covered from multiple angles, thanks to the diversity of approaches offered by the various disciplines and arts brought together.
The frequency of publication of POLYEDRUM is annual. The journal is published as a monographic issue and presents a collection of the best essays on a specific topic, selected by an international editorial board and published over the last two years in the journals of the Catholic schools, Catholic universities, faculties of theology and cultural centres that make up the Holy See’s extraordinary international educational and cultural network.
The purpose is to recognise, promote and disseminate excellence wherever it manifests itself: in places considered ‘central’ and in those regarded as ‘peripheral’. In doing so, the aim is to respond to Pope Francis’ call regarding the “urgency” of “networking” among the Church’s various educational and cultural institutions (Veritatis gaudium, Introduction 4 d).
The topic of the third issue of POLYEDRUM is school and university pastoral care. It follows the second issue, which focused on the theme of hope, and the first, which dealt with intelligence and the multiplicity of its forms: Intelligenze multiple / Multiple Intelligences. The theme of intelligence is once again occupying the social and academic scene because of so-called Generative Artificial Intelligence. Attention has intensified since 2022, when the arrival of ChatGPT and other chatbots captured the public imagination, showing the extraordinary speed of technological progress in developing the potential of the digital world. The discussion has become polarized between the potentially threatening outcomes of Generative Artificial Intelligence for humanity and its indispensable contributions to humanity’s benefit. A polyhedral approach to the mystery of intelligence is the primary condition for avoiding unseemly reactions that produce obsessions and fixations far removed from reality, which is, in any case, greater than any abstract idea.
Each issue of Polyedrum will feature the work of a single artist, providing a space for their ideas to be expressed. The artistic contributions chosen for the third issue of the magazine are Martín Tironi and Manuela Garretón.