Catholic Studies is an interdisciplinary movement to reinforce mission and identity that began in US Catholic higher education in the 1990s in response to a vision expressed in Pope John Paul II’s Apostolic Exhortation Ex corde ecclesiae. Inspired by the documents of Vatican II, Catholic Studies programs arose in Catholic and secular universities as a way for students and faculty to encounter the Catholic intellectual tradition through dialogue and study, and so to experience the “deeper humanity” of which the Council speaks.
A new handbook discussing some of the theory and best practices of this burgeoning effort has just been published by Springer. An Interdisciplinary Pedagogical Model for Catholic Studies, Rooted in Vatican II, Growing Through the 21st Century (ISBN 978-981-96-3289-3) is a volume edited by two Seton Hall professors:
Ines Murzaku (director of the Catholic Studies Program and founding chair of the Department of Catholic Studies) and Joseph Rice (past chair of the Department of Philosophical Theology). Arriving 60 years after Vatican II, this book also marks 25 years of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall.
Representing a collaboration among institutions and scholars from three continents, this compendium traces the genesis of Catholic Studies at the University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), its consolidation at Seton Hall and other academic centers, and its potential for global expansion. Adopting the form of a broadly interdisciplinary symposium, the authors address themes of faith, reason, science, technology, medicine, business, social justice, and politics, as well as the future of Catholic higher education worldwide. The result is an essential resource for understanding and participating in the development of the Catholic Studies movement in America, Europe, and beyond. At once expert and accessible, it invites the reader into a lively conversation with the potential to bear fruit across a range of cultural and educational contexts.