Chiara Lubich: The Inaugural Address of Sophia

Analysis and interpretation

Abstract

The object of this study is the speech with which Chiara Lubich inaugurated the Superior Institute of Culture (ISC) on 15 August 2001. This Institute was organized with the help of an international team of teachers and scholars, whose members had been invited by her – over 10 years previously – to participate in the original laboratory of study, dialogue and research, which Chiara herself called the “Abbà School”, working from the spiritual and cultural heritage of the charism of unity. ISC was the immediate forerunner and the incubation cradle of the Sophia University Institute, which was established by a decree of the Congregation for Catholic Education on 7 December 2007. The objective of this paper is to provide a brief exegesis and an initial interpretation of this inaugural speech, to indicate its inspirational intuition, its central message, its fundamental contents, and its cultural and academic significance.