Academic and cultural formation
A city that educates
“It takes an entire village to educate a child,” says an African proverb. At Loppiano, one learns to be a person renewed by love and projected towards the construction of universal brotherhood, of a united world, where “he who teaches and leads is the one Master (cf. Mt 23:10), and where the dynamic is that of mutual listening and the exchange of gifts among all. (Pope Francis, Loppiano, 10 May 10, 2018). Today more than ever, the little city of Loppiano is a permanent multicultural laboratory, a school of life, and thought.
«Loppiano is a school because there is a Schoolmaster. It is He who lives among the inhabitants of this city. Jesus, the Master, taught us that to understand the truth and to deepen it, to truly possess it, we needed not only to learn it well but to put it into practice. This is the Gospel method. What does this method produce? It illuminates within, not only the mind but the whole being, because it is light, love and life together».
Chiara Lubich
The schools of formation of the
Focolare Movement
Culture and Life
Loppiano is home to 10 schools of formation specifically addressed to members of the Focolare Movement, coming from different geographical and cultural areas. They are schools directed to young people, families, priests, religious and consecrated men and women, and lay men and women involved in various social fields.
The schools are part of the Mystici Corporis Institute, inaugurated on November 20, 1965.
The formation programs aim to closely connect in-depth cultural learning with life experience. They trace out an intellectual and existential path of learning under the banner of the spirituality of the Movement, where everything plays a role in education: “school” is study but also work, care for the environment, communal prayer, harmony of relationships, shared life with different peoples and cultures. The programs of the single specific schools also include moments of shared formation with the various other schools and with other citizens of Loppiano. In this way the intergenerational and inter-vocational exchange enriches the educational track.
Sophia University Institute
A new paradigm of knowledge
«It is important that there be a university center in Loppiano intended for those — as its name says — who seek Wisdom and have as their objective the building of a culture of unity.».
Pope Francis
The Sophia University Institute (IUS) is a center for academic training and research. It provides an environment with a strongly relational configuration, where life and thought meet, where different cultures and disciplines come together. It is a university where the classical contiguity between various faculties is sublimated into a permanent laboratory of interdisciplinary and intercultural experimentation, making it a frontier experience where Wisdom and innovation converge, a place of excellence for human and cultural growth.
The IUS was erected by the Holy See; the courses and degrees awarded are recognized in accordance with international agreements and the parameters established by the Lisbon Convention and the Bologna Process, through the ECTS accreditation system.
It offers a comprehensive university course (3+2) integrating two fully structured cycles of study:
- the Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and Human Sciences (three-year degree, class L-5/L-24);
- and the Master’s Degree in Philosophy, Economy of Communion and the Environment (master’s degree, class LM-78).
Find out more HERE.
Thanks to the institutional collaboration with the University of Perugia, both programmes lead to the award of a dual academic qualification – ecclesiastical and state-recognised – which is fully valid within the Italian university system and internationally recognised.
PhD programmes in Human Sciences and Culture of Unity are also available, completing the Institute’s academic offering.
Research within Doctoral and Post-Doctoral schools is animated by an innovative approach characterized by inter and trans-disciplinarity. Sophia aims also at being a university in action. Not only through students who, having completed their studies, play important roles in professional and academic fields, but also at the direct service of institutions and civil society through programs such as: the “Piero Pasolini” Chair on Dialogue between Theology, Philosophy, and Science; the “Athenagoras – Chiara Lubich” Chair on Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches; as well as through the daily activities of its Research Centers, such as the Evangelii Gaudium Center; Sophia Global Studies; Sophia Center for Politics and Human Rights.
