What matters more in the Church, pastoral practice or study and formation?

- Cindy Wooden, Vatican City, CNS

Sometimes there is talk of Popes being more pastoral or more intellectual. What should prevail in the formation of priests and laity in the Church, what matters more: study or the pastoral task? Or the two legs... These are frequent analyses that arise. 

Pope Leo XIV further clarified the matter at the official inauguration of the 2025-2026 academic year of the Pontifical Lateran University on November 14. A center that is often referred to as “the Pope's University,” and which occupies “a special place” in his heart, as he has affirmed.

“Scientific research and research work are necessary.”

“To truly serve the Church and the world,” Pope Leo said, “the university must maintain the highest academic standards. Scientific excellence must be promoted, defended and developed”. 

“Sometimes we come across the idea that research and study are useless for real life, that what matters in the Church is pastoral practice rather than theological, biblical or legal preparation.”.

However, the risk lies in “falling into the temptation to simplify complex issues to avoid the burden of thought, with the danger that, even in pastoral action and its language, we may fall into banality, approximation or rigidity,” he continued.

“We need trained and competent laity and priests.”.

“Scientific research and research work are necessary. We need trained and competent lay people and priests. Therefore, I urge them not to lower their guard in scientific matters, but to pursue with passion the search for truth and to be closely involved with other sciences, with reality and with the problems and difficulties of society,” he said in his speech.

“Counteracting the risk of a cultural vacuum”.”

Faith must be studied in a way that allows it to be expressed “within today's cultural contexts and challenges,” he said, but these studies are also a way of «counteracting the risk of the cultural vacuum that, in our time, is becoming more and more widespread».

The university's theology faculty, the Pope said, must find ways to highlight the «beauty and credibility» of the Christian faith «so that it can appear as a fully human proposal, capable of transforming the lives of individuals and society, of bringing about prophetic changes in response to the tragedies and poverties of our time, and of encouraging the search for God.».

Dialogue and respect

Everything a Catholic university does, Pope Leo XIII said, it must be done with dialogue, respect and with the aim of building a true community of brothers and sisters.

That sense of fraternity, he said, is essential to counteract “the lure of individualism as the key to success in life.” This has “worrying consequences in all areas: people focus on self-promotion, the primacy of the ego is nurtured, cooperation is hindered. Prejudices and barriers towards others, especially those who are different, grow, responsibility in service is confused with solitary leadership and, in the end, misunderstandings and conflicts multiply.”.

On the human and religious level, Pope Leo said, a Catholic university is called to promote the common good and to prepare students to contribute to the good of their churches and communities.

“The goal of the educational and academic process must be to form people who, guided by the logic of gratuitousness and by a passion for truth and justice, can become builders of a new world, fraternal and in solidarity,” he said. “The university can and must spread this culture, becoming a sign and expression of this new world and of the search for the common good.”.