BRESSANONE. Professor’s two-year term began on September 1st. Martin M. Lintner as the President of the Academic Theological Study (STA) in Bressanone. His election has attracted great international attention, as the Vatican had initially blocked the theologian’s nomination because of his positions on sexual morality.
Father Lintner, originally from Aldino, is a member of the Austrian Province of the Order of the Servants of Mary. In 2006 he obtained the Doctorate in Moral Theology at the University of Vienna and in 2009 he was appointed by Bishop Karl Golser as his successor to the chair of moral and spiritual theology at the STA in Brixen. Lintner was elected dean in November 2022, but the consent to the appointment, the so-called “nihil obstat,” was granted by the Vatican Dicastery for Culture and Education only at a later time, after the diocesan bishop Ivo Muser, Grand Chancellor of the STA, had clarified some unresolved issues between the Dicastery and the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.
Lintner looks back at the events of the past year “with inner detachment. For me it was the support of the bishop and the entire teaching staff is encouraging of theological studies” and faces the new task with confidence: a major challenge is the decline in students in theological study programs. “This is a common development at various theological faculties throughout Europe. We must convey more effectively to young people and interested persons the message that the study of theology addresses important and life-relevant questions and prepares for significant pastoral and ecclesial professions with good future prospects, for example in the field of religious education, in educational work or in hospital pastoral care,” says the new Dean.
At the STA in Brixen, the study programs in Catholic theology and religious studies with a focus on pedagogy and didactics are offered, as well as, in collaboration with the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Innsbruck, the three-year bachelor’s degree program in philosophy. In addition, there are many educational offerings for a wider audience, such as the university course in applied ethics, which qualifies for example for teaching ethics in schools, the Philosophical Days of Brixen (which on 13 and 14 September will focus on gender justice), the Brixen Theological Courses and the conference series “Theology and Philosophy in Context” which highlight the importance of the two disciplines for today’s society.
“As an academic theological study we wish to continue to participate in current discussions on social, political and ethical issues and, in the future, collaborate even more with other academic institutions in South Tyrol,” says Father Lintner, who boasts a vast network of contacts also at an international level: from 2013 to 2015 he was President of the European Society of Catholic Theology and from 2017 to 2019 of the International Association for Moral Theology and Social Ethics. Lintner succeeds Professor Alexander Notdurfter, who in 2019 was appointed Dean as the first lay person in the history of the STA.
2024-09-05 04:24:36