The Institute was founded in 1958 and has been constantly renewed over the years, until it assumed a dual academic identity: on the one hand, to operate research and pastoral theological formation, and on the other hand, to combine the theological disciplines with concrete man, through constant dialogue and continuous integration with the human and social sciences.

The primary purpose, in fact, is to accompany students to think about faith and the Church in order to prepare future teachers and pastoral workers capable of possessing the intellectual and practical coordinates to decode what exists and its complexity, always in the light of the datum of faith, inseparable from any reflection on God.

The Institute has four areas of study and research aimed at priests, laity, and religious available to take on pastoral leadership responsibilities in their local churches, as well as to take on new ministerial assignments or service to social-political engagement. The four areas are:

1. Pastoral Theology of the Ecclesial Community and Evangelization, for those who want to deepen the foundations of pastoral care: its specific method, its evangelical physiognomy, the subjects involved, the challenges posed by the new evangelization.
2. Pastoral Theology of Education and Communication, for those who want to specialize in pedagogy to faith and in faith, particularly by acquiring pastoral skills in the vast and complex world of communication processes and digital culture.
3. Social Doctrine of the Church, for those who want to specialize in the relationship between the Gospel and society, economy, politics, labor, environment, peace. In this perspective, the themes of the Social Doctrine of the Church become an integral part of the new evangelization.
4. Pastoral theology of care and health, to prepare pastoral workers in the field of care and health. Indeed, care and illness represent an open question about the meaning of human life and a way to reinterpret today the pastoral ministry of Jesus, "who passed by benefiting and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him" (Acts 10:38).

For each of these areas, it is possible to enroll in both the licentiate and the doctorate.

At the same time, the Institute also offers a section for graduate degrees, which have a lighter structure and teaching weight and to which it is possible to enroll even without a theological degree.

For more information, visit the website of the  Redemptor Hominis Pastoral Institute of the Pontifical Lateran University