Mission

The Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University is dedicated to a dialogue between the Catholic tradition and all areas of contemporary culture. Besides running programs and seminars on faith and culture for faculty, students, and the wider public, it also includes the Seton Hall Institute on Work which seeks to study and to positively influence efforts to humanize the worlds of economics and work. The Center also includes the Chesterton Institute with its prestigious Chesterton Review.

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REPORT ON THE PROGRAM IN CATHOLIC STUDIES - November  2005

The Undergraduate Program in Catholic Studies is one of the activities of the Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University.  Such centers are proliferating in universities across the country. In April 2005,  Fordham University hosted a conference at which many such centers, both at Catholic and secular universities (e.g. Duke, University of Chicago) were represented.  There will be another meeting of this group in December at Fordham.

The undergraduate program of a major and minor in Catholic Studies continues to grow, with about ten majors and a similar number of minors.  In addition, a number of students take Catholic Studies classes as electives and participate in the activities of the Catholic Studies student organization, CAST.  There are plans to publish this semester an undergraduate Catholic Studies literary journal entitled “Arcadia.”

Among the Catholic Studies courses taught recently were “Sociology and Catholicism,” “Catholic Social Thought,” “Catholicism and Literature,” “Chesterton and C.S. Lewis,” “Catholicism and Art,” “The Church and Change,” etc. 

During the summer a course/trip to Oxford entitled “The Foundations of Christian Culture” took place.  The course was taught by Prof. Dermot Quinn, Prof. Chrysanthy Grieco and Msgr. Richard Liddy and twenty students participated.  It covered such outstanding Christian writers as John Henry Newman, G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis, J.R. Tolkien and Bernard Lonergan. The course was very well received and plans are underway to repeat this course in the future.   In May 2006,  Father Douglas Milewski will be leading another course/trip to Italy entitled “Italy in the Footsteps of the Saints.”  

Lectures sponsored by the Program in Catholic Studies this semester are: “The Faces of Christ” (N. Enright, C. Grieco, J. Wargacki); a lecture on Catholicism and Opera, “The Last Words” (Richard Barrows); “The Origins of the Church” (L. Porter); “Ivan Mestrovic” (Deyrup) and “Georges Rouault” (Nourse).  The website lists upcoming activities under News and Events.

The annual faculty workshop was held in May on the subject of “Augustine on Reading Culture,” and was given by the chair of the theology department at Notre Dame, Professor John Cavadini. Next May 2006, the workshop will be on “Catholicism and Political Science” and will be facilitated by Prof. Jeanne Heffernan of Villanova University.  Another initiative for our faculty has been our sponsorship of a series of discussions on “Science and Religion.”  These discussions are sponsored by the Templeton Foundation

Also, in conjunction with the Walsh Library at Seton Hall and Dean Howard McGinn, the formation of a Lonergan Center has begun.  This research center is in the process of collecting and making available all the writings, both published and unpublished, of the great Canadian philosopher-theologian, Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984). There is also a faculty reading group on Lonergan works, under the initiative of Prof. James McCartin.   

To view the many activities and programs that come under the auspices of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture,  with its prestigious Chesterton Review, please visit the website at http://academic.shu.edu.chesterton.

The Center for Catholic Studies hosts monthly chapter meetings of the Woodstock Business Conference for Catholic business leaders, and a new program in the work area has begun, the Micah Senior Executive Project.

Financially,  the long-range goal is to create an endowment for Catholic Studies to support scholarships, faculty development and workshops, co-curricular activities such as the Study Abroad Program,  and other needs.  

Symbolic of our Catholic Studies program is the group of students who gather each Monday to Thursday evening to pray the Night Prayer of the Church together.

Rev. Msgr. Richard M. Liddy, Director

REPORT ON THE PROGRAM IN CATHOLIC STUDIES - 2002-2003

The major event of the year was the approval by the Faculty Senate and the administration of the undergraduate major in Catholic Studies in October, 2002. The major was implemented during the school year 2002-2003 with at present 7 to 10 students majoring in Catholic Studies in addition to a number of students taking the minor.

On November 12, 2002, Catholic Studies through its Colloquium on Science and Religion co-sponsored the second annual bestowal of the Garrigan Award for Excellence in Science and Religion on Professor John Haught of Georgetown University. On the occasion Professor Haught gave a major lecture on "God and Darwin" as well as meeting with groups of students and faculty.

The Center was also happy to be notified of the reception of the Lilly grant for the theological exploration of vocation since so many people connected to the Center were involved in the workshops preparing for the grant and in the writing of the grant.

The Center also published the Proceedings of the 2002 Faculty Summer Seminar, "Religious Horizons and the Vocation of the University."

From May 19 to May 22, 2003, Catholic Studies sponsored a workshop entitled "Management from a Faith Perspective." The workshop was facilitated by Professor Michael Naughton of the Business School of Saint Thomas University in Saint Paul, MN, and by Helen Alford, O.P., chair of the Social Sciences department of the Angelicum University in Rome. More than 35 faculty, administrators and staff gathered for the workshop and produced a commentary on the present Seton Hall University Sesquicentennial Strategic Vision.

Among other events sponsored by the Center for Catholic Studies was a guided tour for thirty students and faculty of the Cloisters Museum in New York City in October, 2002.

The Center also sponsored several visits for students, staff and faculty to Saint John’s Soup Kitchen in Newark, New Jersey.

HISTORY OF THE CENTER FOR CATHOLIC STUDIES

In January of 1997 Monsignor Robert Sheeran, President of Seton Hall University, called a meeting of those interested in forming a Center for Catholic Studies. Over forty faculty members attended and over ninety responded that they were interested in this project. As a result of that meeting, Msgr. Sheeran appointed a task force to develop a mission statement for the Center. The task force worked on the Mission Statement during the spring of 1997. They also conducted a study day on June 24, 1997, led by Brian Daly, S.J., historian at the University of Notre Dame. Representatives of Catholic studies centers at other universities were also invited to share their experiences.

As a result of these activities, in September of 1997 the Center for Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University was constituted with Monsignor Richard M. Liddy as its first Director. The Provost also appointed a Steering Committee for the Center and that committee began to meet during October of 1997.

One of the first projects for the center was an undergraduate Minor/Certificate program in Catholic Studies. This Program in Catholic Studies was approved by the College of Arts and Sciences on April 24, 1998. The first course in this program was taught during the Fall semester of 1999 and a full complement of courses was offered in the Spring of 2001.

Also, five Faculty Summer Seminars have been held under the auspices of the Center for Catholic Studies: the topics of those seminars with their facilitators were:

• “Knowledge and Wisdom,” Prof. John Haughey, S.J., Loyola Univ. Chicago (1998)

• “Divine Madness, Exercises in Appreciation," Prof. Jerome Miller, Salisbury State University, MD (1999)

• "Spirituality and the Academic Vocation," Prof. Elizabeth Johns, University of Pennsylvania (2000)

• “The Core of the Core: Reflections on the Core Curriculum,” Prof. J. Michael Stebbins, Gonzaga University (2001)

• “Religious Horizons and the Vocation of the University,” Prof. Patrick Byrne, Boston College (2002)

• "Management From a Faith Perspective," Helen Alford, O.P., Angelicum University in Rome,  and Michael J. Naughton, Saint Thomas University (2003)

These seminars have been very well received by the faculty. The invariable result has been a deeper sense of community around issues of human and religious concern. The faculty seminar planned for May 19 to 20, 2004 will be on the topic “The Call of Poetry” and will be facilitated by Paul Mariani, poet and author of a number of biographies of poets, and currently working on the biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins.

During the Spring of 1999 the Center for Catholic Studies came into a formal relationship with the Institute on Work, formally located in the Law School. The Institute is now formally under the Center for Catholic Studies and focuses on bringing justice and healing into the workplace.

In the summer of 1999 the center also became formally related to the Chesterton Institute, now located at Seton Hall University, as well as to its prestigious journals, The Chesterton Review, The Second Spring and Gilbert! The Chesterton Institute engages a diverse group of people from a position that is both very Catholic and at the same time open and approachable.

The Fall of 2000 saw the first of several ongoing faculty colloquia on topics relating to religion and culture, this one on "Method in the Study of Religion and the Social Sciences." Ten faculty members from various departments in the university were involved in the colloquium under the direction of Professor Baron Pineda from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology. The year 2001-2002 saw another such colloquium, this one on “The Meaning of Human Rights.” Future faculty colloquia are being planned on the subjects of natural science and religion and religion and the arts.

In addition, the Center for Catholic Studies has regularly scheduled lectures relating to Catholic studies as well as to religion and culture. It has also scheduled regular faculty discussions on various topics as well as activities for various groups of alumni.

In the year 2001 “The Colloquium on Science and Religion” was formed by Professor Joseph Maloy to facilitate dialogue on the relationship between science and religion. Besides initiating several lectures, the Colloquium has also undertaken to administer the Owen Garrigan Award in Science and Religion. That award, given to persons who have done outstanding work in this field, was bestowed on Fr. Stanley Jaki, OSB, of Seton Hall University in the spring of 2002 and on Prof. John Haught of Georgetown University on November 12, 2002.

Also, in the Fall of 2000 a Catholic Studies student organization, called "CAST," was formally organized with a graduate student as its first President. The aim of the organization is to organize student interest in Catholic Studies.

In the fall of 2001 preparations began for a major in Catholic Studies. That major was approved by the School of Arts and Sciences in April of 2002 and received the approval of the Faculty Senate of the University in October of 2002. The major consists in 36 credits and, in addition to introductory courses, covers such topics as “Catholicism and Literature,” “Catholicism and Art,” and “Catholic Social Teaching.” Some of the courses are course/trips and the center has sponsored three such courses: “The Emergence of Christian Rome,” “Italy in the Footsteps of the Saints” and “Catholicism and Latin America.”

For more information, contact:
Director: Msgr. Dick Liddy
 liddyric@shu.edu