Lettura Dossetti 2025
16 December, 2025 | Bologna, S. Maria della Pietà church
On Tuesday, 16 December 2025, at 6 PM, the eagerly awaited annual Lettura Dossetti will take place at the church of Santa Maria della Pietà located in Bologna, via S. Vitale 112 (here is the 2024 edition – The Nicene Creed. Trasformations of a fixed rule).
This year, the reading will be held by the Secretary of the Fondazione per le scienze religiose, prof. Alberto Melloni, and will be dedicated to Giuseppe Dossetti in the context of the II Vatican Council, marking its 60th anniversary: Il contributo di Giuseppe Dossetti al concilio Vaticano II.
The II Vatican Council – a key moment in the redefinition of the Catholic Church in a contemporary world – inaugurated an intense debate between traditions and theological innovation.
As a result, episcopal collegiality, the participation of the laity and ecumenical openness were reinterpreted and enabled, and the Church’s role in relation to cultures and civil authorities was redefined.
In this setting, Giuseppe Dossetti (1913–1996, professor at the University of Bologna, catholic priest, member of the Chamber of Deputies) played a prominent role in mediation and intellectual planning, taking part in the drafting of conciliar documents and in the development of the civil and political responsibility of the Church, while highlighting that the Council was not simply a ceremonial occasion but an authentic laboratory for ecclesial and social reflection.
ALBERTO MELLONI, Secretary of FSCIRE, is professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
His research has focused in particular on the history of the modern and contemporary Church, the Second Vatican Council, ecumenism, religious pluralism, and the relationship between the Church and society. Among his most recent publications are: Il Conclave e l’elezione del Papa. Una storia dal I al XXI secolo (Marietti 1820, 2025); A History of the Desire for Christian Unity. XIX-XX century (ed., Brill, 2025); The Creed of Nicaea (325). The Status Quaestionis and the Neglected Topic (ed., V&R unipress 2025); Storia di Mi. Lorenzino don Milani (Marietti 1820, 2023); The History of Vatican II as Ecumenical Heritage (Brill, 2022).
