EDITORIAL

The year 2012, especially the month of October, has a profound significance for the universal Catholic Church, when we celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the initial sessions of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. This importance is not based on the recollection of the events and protagonists that sprung life to this major event; but on what it represented to the Catholic Church as calling and claiming from a culture and an age, characterized these ones by diversity and quick changes. The Vatican II and its cutting edge projects are still current, urging an appropriate and inquiring theological work, but, above all, moving the Christian community to permanently renovate itself in a way that is meaningful for society and its legitimate search for meaning.

Likewise, for the Society of Jesus in Colombia, and for the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, the year 2012 is an invitation to celebrate the 75^th anniversary of the restoration of the Faculty of Theology after its closing in 1767, amidst the persecution and expulsion of the Jesuits from the New Kingdom of Granada and the Spaniard colonies.

The reopening of the Faculty of Theology on the 24^th August 1937, only seven years after the restoration of the old Universidad Javeriana in 1930, marked the beginning of a new story, marked by all the characteristic features of the 20^th century, among which we can mention, from the theological perspective, the prelude to the Second Vatican Council, and with it, the ecclesial transformation of the Faculty's current moment.

In this ecclesial and theological context, this current issue 173 of Theologica Xaveriana journal is presented, for the irst semester of the year. At its core, this issue is made up by seven articles, a clear expression of finished or on-going research processes, and they -according to the very identity of the journal- represent the current theological work and its dynamics: three of them were written by professors from our Faculty, while the remaining four were submitted by external researchers to the Pontiicia Universidad Javeriana, from Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and Colombia. In the Documents section, the text Lectio inauguralis of the academic year for the Faculty of Teology is presented, and inally, in the Reviews section, it is included the review of the book Phenomenology of Revelation, by father Gustavo Baena.

Silvio Botero Giraldo., CSsR., professor for over twenty years in Rome's Accademia Alfonsiana, in his article "Marriage is born...Marriage dies...Two Perspectives in the face of Marital Failure", based on Pope Benedict XVI's assessment and the perspective of the Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera, proposes a reflection between the catholic vision of marriage and its indissoluble character and the civil law view, with its soluble character. Tis article is oriented to the handling of the relation between law and pastoral regarding the indissolubility of the marriage bond.

Eduardo Ignacio Gómez Carrillo, professor in Universidad de San Buenaventura, Bogotá, in the article "Spirituality and Displacement: Considerations for Migration Studies" wants to draw the attention to the role played by religions and spirituality in migration processes that take place not only in Colombia but in the current world in general. Without a doubt, religions and spirituality highly influence both the dynamics of adaptation to new environments and the generation of new social sense.

Luiz Alencar Libório and Antonio Raimundo Sousa Mota, S.J., professors in the Universidad Católica de Pernambuco, Brazil, in their article "Crise religiosa juvenil na perfiferia do Recife (PE), Brasil" show that secularization changes the views of the world of young people when it comes to the membership to a given concrete religious denomination and the religious crisis produced by these changes in the view of the world. This field research wants to contribute to a consolidation of a Christian ethics of integration of the elements presented in the life with God and religion.

José Luis Meza Rueda, Ph.D., professor in our Faculty, in the article "From Christology to Christophany: A Dialogue between Dupuis and Pannikar", approaches the issue of salvation outside Christianity regarding it as a gift from God to all humanity, regardless race, gender, or social condition, as it has been taught by the Second Vatican Council for fifty years already. To this regard he describes the path followed during the last decades, from ecclesiology to Christology, and its demand for a Christic understanding of salvation. From there, Pannikar's proposal of Christophany can be accessed.

Carlos Novoa Matallana, S.J., professor in our Faculty, in the article "Barranquilla's Carnival: A Theological-Artistic Interpretation", offers an example of how it is possible to perform a theological interpretation of the own realities of human communities and their cultures. To analyze the deep celebrative and jolly character of Christian experience from the experience of the carnival as cultural expression can also lead to perceive the fullness of Jesus Christ's own humanity.

Diana Rocco Tedesco, Ph.D., from Argentina, in the article "Church and Power: The Hidden Face of the Feminine", analyzes how Episcopal power is constructed excluding women from the public sphere, and how women, despite the restrictions imposed on them, take advantage or any cracks to continue producing works.

In the last article, "Heal and Raise Feminine Bodies. An interpretation from Critical Feminist Hermeneutics", our Faculty's professors Ángela María Sierra González and Consuelo Vélez Caro, Ph.D., based on the Gospel accounts of healings of the hemorrhagic woman (Mk 5,24b-34) and the crippled woman (Lk 13,10-17), show how feminist hermeneutics supports a new understanding of women, their roles as mediators for healing, and their key role in overcoming obstacles, while contributing with a more integral view of corporeality and its possible meaning in Christian life.

In the Documents section, the full text of this academic year's Lectio inauguralis for the Faculty of Theology is presented, "Truth as Task". Its author, Monsignor Rubén Salazar Gómez, Archbishop of Bogotá and Primate of Colombia, addressed the academic community of the Faculty last February 16^th in the Félix Restrepo, S.J., Auditorium, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. What is truth? (cf. Jn 18,38) is a question that might arouse multiple answers; nevertheless, in the light of God, truth is, above all, Jesus Christ Himself (cf. Jn 14,6), and theology, as hermeneutic mediation, has the fundamental function of understanding and making explicit all the salviic and existential potential of this truth, one that lights our lives (cf. Jn 1,9; 8,12).

Closing this issue of the journal, in the section Reviews, the famous Spanish theologian Xabier Pikaza, Ph.D., proposes a deep analysis and reflection about the book Phenomenology of Revelation. Theology of the Bible andHerme-neutics, written by Colombian Jesuit Gustavo Baena B., S.J., recently published by the Spanish publishing house Verbo Divino. Pikaza starts making a brief reference to the author and the thoughts shared with him. Ten he comments about the topic, structure, and contents of the work. Finally, in something the author calls a "basic trial", exposes his critical assessment regarding four fundamental aspects presented in the book: (1) Metaphysical Anthropology and its Jewish extension; (2) Te Old Testament and its prophetic extension; (3) Te New Testament and its movement towards Jesus' life; and (4) The hermeneutics of revelation as a joint work. Without a doubt, these reading keys facilitate a better understanding of father Baena's book.

With these theological research and reflection works, we continue contributing with the understanding and in-depth learning of our readers regarding core importance topics for theology and its influence on teaching, research, formation, and pastoral praxis.

José Alfredo Noratto Gutiérrez, Ph.D.
Editor