Dire il Concilio in Università Cattolica. Michele Pellegrino e gli interventi presso l’Università Cattolica di Milano all’indomani del Concilio Vaticano II

Abstract

Immediately after the end of the Second Vatican Council, Ezio Franceschini, just appointed as rector of the Catholic University of Milan, launched a series of initiatives aimed at presenting to professors and students the most important outcomes of the Council, especially those related to Catholic universities, their relevance and their mission within contemporary society and the Church. Mgr Michele Pellegrino, a former student of the Faculty of Literature, was invited several times to these meetings. He was an illustrious scholar of ancient Christian literature and full professor at the University of Turin, before being elevated to the archiepiscopal chair of Turin a few years before. Indeed, he was also one of the protagonists of the last Council period, who significantly contributed to the discussion and the drafting of the so-called “schema XIII”, which sketched the Gaudium et spes. In his speeches at the Catholic University of Milan, as well as in other public occasions and through various media, he openly and clearly highlighted the role and mission of Catholic universities, as a meeting point between Church and contemporary society, as essential elements of the dialogue between theology and secular sciences. In connection with Rector Franceschini and Giuseppe Lazzati, who was soon to succeed the latter, he fostered the idea of the Catholic University of Milan as the university of the Second Vatican Council.