Pope Francis letter to priests “on the renewal of study church history” is a short, but loaded. It needs to be read slowly and as a spiritual reading, if one is to benefit from its insights. The pope talks of a “sense of history” that is beyond “a solid and detailed knowledge of major events.” The phrase “sense of history” appears several times in the text. The pope is looking at study of history in terms of what is happening in the individual, not in terms of what happened in the past. In that way, history is formation because it does something to one who studies it. He speaks of “attending to bonds that link them to previous generations” and of keeping alive “the flame of collective conscience” Again this goes beyond analyzing past events to placing oneself into a narrative. Study of history then is a journey into self, just like any spiritual journey.
Fr. Dominic F. Tomuseni SJ
Hekima University College
Systematic Theology
