Academic Affairs
Academic Affairs | News
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March 18, 2013
Dr. Denis McNamara, Assistant Director of The Liturgical Institute, traveled to Providence College where he gave two lectures on Church Architecture to undergraduates studying Theolo-gy and Western Civilization.
Meyer Lecture Series - This week, Mundelein Seminary concluded its six year series on the Second Vatican Council with the 2013 Albert Cardinal Meyer Lecture Series on Religious Freedom. The Meyer Lecturer was Paula Stannard, former deputy general counsel and acting general counsel of the United States Department of Health and Human Services now counsel at Alston and Bird LLP in Washington D.C. Ms. Stannard delivered two lectures: “Our First Freedom: An Exploration of the Constitutional and Statutory Protection of Religious Liberty and Conscience” and “Religious Liberty, Conscience and Health Care: A Case Study of Two Administrations’ Implementation of the Public Health Services Act.” Additional presentations on the theme of Religious Liberty were offered by two Mundelein professors of systematic theology, Fr. Lawrence Hennessey, whose paper was titled: “John Courtney Murray’s Defense of Religious Liberty” and Fr. Thomas A. Baima who presented, “The Relationship of Natural Law to a Catholic Understanding of Religious Freedom.” The lectures will be published in our journal Chicago Studies.
Community Activities
Father Thomas Baima, Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, did interviews on the election of Pope Francis for the Archdiocesan Office of Media Relations with WGN News at Nine, the Chicago Tribune and the local affiliates of CBS and ABC. Sister Alicia Torres was interviewed by WGN News at Nine on the new Pope, her vocation and on women in the Church today. We thank them for bringing a positive message about Catholicism to these media audiences.
Earlier in the week, Fr. Thomas Baima delivered a lecture to the Catholic-Jewish Scholars Dialogue in Chicago on “The New Teaching on Contempt” which explored some parallels between classical anti-Semitism and more recent expressions of anti-Catholicism and Islamophobia. The Catholic-Jewish Scholars is an official dialogue of the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago
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April 2, 2013
The Office of the Rector announced some changes to the Mundelein Seminary Faculty which will take effect July 1, 2013.
First, Father Barron expressed his thanks to a number of our faculty members who will be completing their service to Mundelein Seminary and wished them God’s blessings in their new appointments.
Father Peter Damian Akpunonu, Professor in the Department of Biblical Exegesis and Proclamation, will be retiring from Mundelein Seminary and is returning to his home diocese in Nigeria to teach in the major seminary and serve as a consultant to the Bishops’ Conference.
Father Kevin Feeney, Director of Spiritual Life, has been appointed as the Chaplain and Director of the Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University.
Father Thomas Norris, Paluch Professor of Theology, will become a full-time faculty member of the Pontifical Irish College in Rome.
Secondly, he announced several new appointments to our seminary faculty:
Father Marek Duran, who is currently completing his post-graduate studies in Rome, will become instructor in the Department of Moral Theology.
Father Christopher House, presently vocation director for the Diocese of Springfield, will become an associate dean of formation.
Father John Kartje, currently Chaplain and Director of the Sheil Catholic Center at North-western University will become assistant professor in the Department of Biblical Studies.
Father Carlos Rodriguez, currently associate pastor of St. Michael Parish in Orland Park, will become associate dean of formation.
Father Brian Welter, presently vocation director for the Archdiocese of Chicago, will be-come an associate dean of formation.
Father Wilson D. Miscamble, CSC, coming from Notre Dame University, will hold the Paluch Chair of Theology in the 2013-2014 academic year.
Archbishop Arthur Roche, who serves as the Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, and is the former Bishop of Leeds in England, has accepted our invitation to be the 2014 Albert Cardinal Meyer Lecturer.
Father Edward T. Oakes, S.J., professor of systematic theology, had two articles on the mystery of Holy Saturday come out, appropriately enough, during Holy Week: 1) “Pope Ben-edict XVI on Christ’s Descent into Hell,” Nova et Vetera Volume 11, Number 1 (Winter 2013), pp. 231-52, which traces the development of the thinking of Joseph Ratzinger on this mystery of the faith from his 1968 book Introduction to Christianity to the first volume of his three-volume work Jesus of Nazareth, published in 2007; and 2) “Reason Enraptured,” First Things, Number 232 (April 2013), pp. 45-50, which provides an overview of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar, with a special stress on the place of Holy Saturday in the overall structure of his thought.