Spring 2013
The 2013 Bellarmine Lecture
"The Elusiveness of God in a Wary Age"
Paul Crowley, S.J., Professor of Religious Studies, Santa Clara University
Wednesday, February 13, 8 p.m.
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
What has become of God? For many Catholics, the current ecclesiastical "winter" has led not only to alienation from religion but to a sense of deep loss. God has become elusive, and belief itself a problem. Dogmatism, Catholic identity movements and religious nostalgia cannot reach the depths of this situation. We need to rediscover an approach to believing that could recover an authentic sense of the divine transcendence and immanence within the reality we actually inhabit, not in a mythic religious past that offers only false assurances. We need to rediscover God.
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"Age to Age: Generations of Faith"
A concert with Steve Angrisano, Dan Schutte, and Curtis Stephan
Co-sponsored by St. Anthony of Padua Parish and the Center for Catholic Studies
Friday, February 15, 7:30 p.m.
Egan Chapel of St. Ignatius Loyola
Tickets are available through the Quick Center Box Office for $10 each, and go on sale January 2, 2013. Call (203) 254-4010 or buy tickets online.
Tickets will be available online and via phone until 4pm tomorrow. After that, any remaining tickets will be sold at the door prior to the start of the concert.
For easy access to the Chapel, we recommend that guests park either in the Barone Campus Center lot, the Canisius Hall lot, or the Kelley Center lot. See the campus map for details.
Steve Angrisano, Dan Schutte, and Curtis Stephan, three generations of Catholic musicians, come together to share their music with one another and with you. Though their musical expressions vary, their common baptism is the river that flows through their lives, giving heartbeat to the composer within. Cosponsored with St. Anthony of Padua Parish of Fairfield, this event marks the first time the Center for Catholic Studies will partner with a parish on an event.
"When Catholics Change Their Minds about the Faith: Disaffiliation and 'Deconversion' in the Church Today"
Patrick Hornbeck, Assistant Professor of Theology, Fordham University, and
Tom Beaudoin, Associate Professor of Theology, Graduate School of Religion, Fordham University
Wednesday, March 20, 8 p.m.
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
Recent studies by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life have found that a third of U.S. adults under the age of 30 claim no religious affiliation and that nearly a quarter of adults raised Catholic no longer identify themselves as such. Disaffiliation, once broadly stigmatized in terms of "lapsing" and "falling away", is now a regular feature of the U.S. Catholic landscape. At the same time, many Catholics decide to stay on in the Church, living with substantial disagreements, "deconverting" in place.
Patrick Hornbeck and Tom Beaudoin will explore the contours of "deconversion," or the changes in heart and mind that many American Catholics are experiencing with regard to their relationship with Catholicism. They will discuss the history of deconversion research, talk about the early findings to emerge from their current study of deconversion among local Roman Catholics, and address the implications of this work for the Catholic Church, Catholic theology, and society at large.
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The 7th Annual Commonweal Lecture
"Ask the Beasts: Darwin and the God of Love"
Elizabeth Johnson, CSJ, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Fordham University
Wednesday, April 17, 8 p.m.
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
"Ask the beasts and they will teach you; the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth and they will instruct you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you ... " (Job 12:7-8). Guided by this often unheeded advice, this lecture will ask the creatures formed by life's evolution for their wisdom. Their beauty and agonies disclose in new ways the energizing presence of the Spirit, the solidarity of Jesus in their suffering and death, and the immense hope unleashed by their origin and future in the living God. As a fellow species, human beings are summoned to step up as responsible kin in the community of creation in this time of ecological distress.
"Today's Catholics, Tomorrow's Church"
Special lecture hosted by Religious Studies students
Speaker to be announced
Wednesday, April 24, 8 p.m.
Dolan School of Business Dining Room
All lectures and workshops are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Elyse Raby, administrative coordinator, at (203) 254-4000 ext. 3415.
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