Catholic Miracles in the Age of the Reformations Explored at Fairfield University

Catholic Miracles in the Age of the Reformations Explored at Fairfield University

Teddy DeRosa, tderosa@fairfield.edu, 203-254-4000 ext. 2118

FAIRFIELD, Conn., (October 24, 2017)— World-renowned scholar and expert on Prostestant Reformation, Carols Eire, PhD, will headline Fairfield University's Center for Catholic Studies 24 th Annual Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., lecture. Free and open to the public, the lecture is on Wednesday, November 1 at 7:30 p.m. in the Dolan School of Business.

Dr. Eire’s lecture, “Writing the History of the Impossible: Catholic Miracles in the Age of the Reformations,” focuses on one of the longest lasting legacies of the Protestant Reformation - its redefinition of the relationship between heaven and earth, and the natural and supernatural. Dr. Eire will discuss the various Catholic saints who received direct messages from heaven, a feat considered “impossible” by Protestants, and explore the ways in which these impossibilities were not only a response to Protestantism, but also reshaped Catholicism itself.

“Only someone as skilled and scholarly as Dr. Eire could produce an 800 page book on the Protestant and Catholic Reformations that could justifiably be described as ‘a fast-paced survey’,” said Paul Lakeland, PhD, director of the University’s Center for Catholic Studies. “He is a monumental authority and a beguiling writer, and Fairfield is lucky to have him here to commemorate the stunning events of five hundred years ago.”

Dr. Eire is currently the T. L. Riggs Professor of History and Religious Studies at Yale, where he serves as chair of the Department of Religious Studies and the Renaissance Studies Program. Eire earned his PhD from Yale University in 1979 where his studies focused on the Protestant Reformation. A former President of the American Society for Reformation Research, he is widely known outside scholarly circles as the author of the memoir Waiting for Snow in Havana (2003), which won the nonfiction National Book Award, and his second memoir, Learning to Die in Miami (2010). Dr. Eire is also the co-author of Jews, Christians, Muslims: An Introduction to Monotheistic Religions (1996), and the author of several scholarly books, including War Against the Idols (1986), From Madrid to Purgatory (1995), A Very Brief History of Eternity (2009), and Reformations: The Early Modern World (2016), which won the R. R. Hawkins Award from the Association of American Publishers.

The Christopher F. Mooney, S.J., lecture is an annual event sponsored by the Office of the Academic Vice President, the Department of Religious Studies and the Center for Catholic Studies. The lecture honors Fr. Mooney, a former Fairfield University academic vice president who died in 1993. He was the author of eight books, including Teilhard de Chardin and the Mystery of Christ , (Collins and Harper & Row) which won the National Catholic Book Award.

For more information about the Center for Catholic Studies, please call (203) 254-4000, ext. 3415, or visit fairfield.edu/cs.

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Posted On: 11-13-2017 11:11 AM

Volume: 50 Number: 63

Fairfield University is a modern Jesuit Catholic university rooted in one of the world’s oldest intellectual and spiritual traditions. More than 5,000 undergraduate and graduate students from the U.S. and across the globe are pursuing degrees in the University’s five schools. Fairfield embraces a liberal humanistic approach to education, encouraging critical thinking, cultivating free and open inquiry, and fostering ethical and religious values. The University is located on a stunning 200-acre campus on the scenic Connecticut coast just an hour from New York City.