Amada and Paulo are in the first year of the Theology Degree at the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Both chose religious life, and see the course as an "opportunity to deepen their faith", but explain that Theology "is not only for Christian people or for those who want to be priests".

Luís is proof of this. The final-year student, initially trained in music, dreams of becoming a professor and researcher to "deepen the dialogue between Christianity and contemporary culture". To his new colleagues he gives two words of advice: "study hard and love what you study".

The three students are in Lisbon, but have colleagues in Porto and Braga - and even elsewhere, through the distance learning dimension of the course. At the beginning of this academic year, they are beginning to discover how the Faculty of Theology works. Founded in 1968, it has already formed people like Cardinal D. Tolentino de Mendonça, Father João Seabra and the Cardinal Patriarch of Lisbon D. Manuel Clemente.

For Paulo Domingos, 24 years old, studying Theology will "allow having a solid background on faith, on religion and on religiosity". He believes that it is a course for those who "want to know more about religion and religious phenomena".

The Angolan student is a seminarian at the Major Seminary of São Paulo in Almada. He chose this path, inspired by his adolescence spent in a religious institution. "I was captivated by seeing how the priests cared for people," he explains.

Amada Deolindo, 26 years old, is part of the Hospitaller Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in the Luz community in Telheiras. She has been in Lisbon since November last year and came from Mozambique to fulfil her desire to support people in need.

"Since my childhood, when I saw a group of sisters for the first time, I said, in that innocence, that I wanted to be like them," says the student. "The mission with which I had the most contact was with mentally disabled children, and then I thought: we are never so poor that we have nothing to give."

What Amada wants to do is exactly what Luís proposes to his colleagues: "have your eyes open before reality. Starting from what you are studying, project it to our reality", he advises. The teacher of Catholic Moral and Religious Education explains that studying alone "does not work", adding that "it is like a writer writing a book for himself".

At the age of 29, Luís Sequeira has already studied for five years at the Faculty of Theology. For the student, "Theology cannot live alone, without Philosophy, without Economy, Politics, Law, Arts...". He argues that the study of theology can "benefit future generations", and that the role of the theologian is "to warn, to prophesise, to call attention to reality".

"There is a professor of mine who gave a very funny example: the the theologian is like a man who cleans up the rubbish that is on the riverbank, he cleans up the rubbish so that the river can continue to flow. That's the image of the theologian, he's the one who cleans up what doesn't matter, so that the river can keep flowing."

The essay On the soul and roots of European integration: purpose and metaphors by Prof Alexandre Palma has just been published in the volume The Political Economy of Europe's Future and Identity Integration in crisis mode (edited by Annette Bongardt and Francisco Torres; published by the European University Institute and UCP Press).

This work brings interdisciplinary approaches to the current challenges of European integration, with a particular focus on economic policy issues. The book is available in open access here.