On the 1st and 2nd of July, 3000 people (students, professors, researchers) from Ecuador, Argentina, Colombia, Chile and Spain took part in the "International Symposium on Theology" organized by our university.

The opening ceremony was attended by UPS president Juan Cardenas, Fernando Pesantez, general vice presiden; Fernando Moscoso, vice president of our branch campus in Cuenca; and Xavier Merchan, head of the Pastoral department.  It was also attended by Alfredo Espinoza, archbishop of Quito; Marcelo Farfan, worldwide coordinator of higher education institutions; and Cesar Morales, director of the faculty of theology and philosophy. 

Father Juan Cardenas stressed that "the challenge of higher education institutions is to educate people to be capable of building a better society and think about everyone's wellbeing. I am really happy with these events organized by our university".

The keynote conferences were led by Olga Consuelo Vélez from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana de Bogotá, Colombia, who spoke about: "Theology in Latin American: an ethical response to the situation on the continent"; Esteban Inga, research and professor at UPS, who spoke about "The human being in the face of technological development.

Juan Chopin, director of the doctoral program in Theology at the Don Bosco University of El Salvador, spoke about "Technocracy and the culture of discarding. Sociological assumptions of the encyclical Laudato Si 'and Fr. Jorge Armijos, of the Order of Friars Menores de San Francisco de Quito focused on "Ecological Spirituality".

In the closing ceremony, the general vice president of the university said that "We are satisfied that we had around 3,000 participants, in addition to those who have followed us on social networks, and the presentation of 70 papers that will be published by the Abya Yala University Publishing House", he said. He invited attendees to register for the II International Congress on Bioethics, Technology and Society to be held in October this year.

Verónica Loor, director of the online Theology undergraduate program; Santiago Quishpe, researcher and one of the academic coordinators of the event, thanked the attendees and encouraged them to continue working in this line. Xavier Merchán said that "it is important to have the commitment of encouraging the love of God in our universities, workplaces and personal places".

Finally, Father Juan Cárdenas announced the holding of an international academic meeting on Ecological Theology and Spirituality for 2022. "Due to the urgency of gathering experiences on these issues in pastoral, educational or cultural diversity processes in order to present, explain them, know them in depth and systematize them in publications", he said.

Watch the entire event at: @UPSalesianaEc