CUPAV – Lisbon’s Jesuit center dedicated to university students – is hosting, this year, from October until June – “Projecto 18.91”, in English: “Project 18.91”, an introductory course on the Social Doctrine of the Church (SDC) with a special method inspired by the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (reading – lecture – Q&A – personal reflection, sharing in groups), motivated by the recent publication of “DoCat”. The name Projecto '18 .91 'refers to the year in which the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII 'Rerum Novarum 'was published, which became a fundamental pillar of the Church's Social Doctrine.

There are 100 participants, aged between 20 and 30 and 9 lecturers, one for each monthly session. The mains goals are, first, to get people informed about how the Church interprets the links between the Gospel and social thought and, second, to incentivize an autonomous approach to doctrine in general, and third to insist on the relationship between doctrine and daily life. The initiative came from a group of young laymen and was supported by Fr. João Goulão sj, the director of CUPAV. The two first sessions were a success.

When asked about how did the first session go, Rui Fernandes sj, a Jesuit student from Santarém, the first speaker at Projecto 18.91 on the topic: “Being Christian in the society – Church and society”, says: “I was very surprised by the number of people participating, also very happy to see the interest people demonstrated. From what I could perceive, I think there is a clear desire of deepening; people want to get to know stuff, they want to have an intelligent reading of them and I think that is a very good sign”. Fr. Francisco Mota sj, the speaker of November talked about the main principles of SDC. In his opinion, Projecto 18.91 “is a pertinent project, that was missing in the Portuguese Church (…) the method helps.. this relationship between a lecture and previous reading has many benefits, helps to prepare the theme before it starts, helps to dispose oneself to listen what is to be said. It’s a type of course that permits decentralizing preoccupations and doing so it can bring unity to our Church. We are studying what concerns the SDC, we are at a catechesis, being loyal to the text and applying what we learn into daily life. I hope that this is a work that brings unity.”