Vatican II: Achievement and
Challenge
The Catholic Heritage
Lectures 2012-13
What will the Catholic
Church Look Like in 2050:
A Prognostication from Asia
Featuring
Peter Phan, PhD
Ellacuria Chair for Catholic Social
Thought
Georgetown University
April 18, 2013 at 7 p.m.Pigott Auditorium
Seattle University
Reserve your tickets to this FREE
public lecture at
http://ictc.brownpapertickets.com/
Dr. Peter C. Phan
The leading Catholic Asian American theologian in the country, Dr. Peter C. Phan will consider the future of the Catholic Church. With the dwindling number of Catholics in Europe and among Americans of European descent and growth in the so-called developing South, what can the Church learn from these regions of growth? In this lecture, Phan considers what can be learned from Asia, where Christianity has been a minority religion (only 3% of Asians are Catholic) and yet has remained vibrant and dynamic. Phan is recognized as one of the most important North American Catholic theological voices of our times, raisingconsciousness of the global nature of Catholicism and the challenges and possibilities that arise from this.
Examining Vatican II
This year's Catholic Heritage Lecture Series is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council by revisiting the event of the council, exploring its present reception and envisioning possibilities for the Church of the future.
Joseph Komochak began the year by presenting "Vatican II as an Event." Mary Ann Hinsdale examined the meaning of reception of the council today in her talk "Vatican II at 50: Towards a Dynamic Understanding of Conciliar Reception". We will conclude this year's series with Peter Phan, who will consider the future of the Church, in his lecture "What Will the Catholic Church Look like in 2050: A Prognostication from Asia," exploring what can be learned from the creativity of the Church in Asia.
Phan's lecture considers that "Christianity in Asia is as old as the apostolic age, and despite two thousand years of missions, it still remains a minority religion. Yet by any measure Asian Christianity has been vibrant, especially after Vatican II, and exerts a great influence on the countries in which it is rooted. After a brief historical survey the lecture explores aspects in which Asian Christianity can offer ways to revitalize Christianity in the next fifty years." (Phan)
About Dr. Peter C. Phan
Phan is the inaugural holder of the Ignacio Ellacuría Chair of Catholic Social Thought at Georgetown University and is the founding Director of the Graduate Studies Program in Theology and Religious Studies. He has earned three doctorates: Doctor of Sacred Theology from the Universitas Pontificia Salesiana, Rome, and Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Divinity from the University of London. He is the first non-white to be elected President of Catholic Theological Society of America. In 2010 he was awarded the John Courtney Murray Award, the highest honor given by the Catholic Theological Society of America for outstanding achievements in theology.
His award-winning writings are wide ranging and include works from icon in Orthodox theology (Culture and Eschatology: The Iconographical Vision of Paul Evdokimov) to patristic theology
(Social Thought; Grace and the Human Condition); from eschatology (Eternity in Time: A Study of Rahner's Eschatology; Death and Eternal Life) to the history of mission in Asia (Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes and Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam) and liberation, inculturation, and interreligious dialogue (Christianity with an Asian Face; In Our Own Tongues; Being Religious Interreligiously). In addition, he has edited some 20 volumes (e.g., Christianity and the Wider Ecumenism; Church and Theology; Journeys at the Margins; The Asian Synod; The Gift of the Church; Directory on Popular Piety and Liturgy; Christianities in Asia, and The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity). His many writings have been translated into Italian, German, French, Portuguese, Spanish, Polish, Arabic, Croatian, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Vietnamese.
Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture
The Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture (ICTC) at Seattle University creates opportunities for engagement with the breadth and depth of the Catholic intellectual tradition through support of scholarship, course and program development, and public discourse.
Catholic Heritage Lectures
Housed in
Seattle University’s Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture, the annual Catholic
Heritage Lectures, launched in 2010, engages the intellectual and religious
communities of the Seattle area and the Seattle University community to explore
aspects of the Catholic intellectual traditions and the intersection of
Catholicism and culture.
2010-11 "Religion and Science" Click here for more infomation regarding the 2010-11 Lectures
2011-12 "Religion in “Secular” America" Click here for more infomation regarding the 2011-2012 Lectures
2012-13 "Vatican II: Achievement and Challenge"
Joseph Komonchak, Professor Emeritus of the
School of Theology and Religious Studies
Catholic University of
America
“Vatican II as an Event “
October 11, 2012
Mary Ann Hinsdale, Associate Professor,
Theology
Boston College
“Vatican II at 50: Toward a Dynamic Understanding of
Conciliar Reception”
January 24, 2013
Peter Phan, Ellacuria Chair of Catholic
Social Thought
Georgetown University
“What Will The Catholic Church Look Like
in 2050: A Prognostication From Asia”
April 18, 2013
Save the Dates
Catholic Heritage Lectures 2013-14
Catholicism in a Religiously Plural
World
Oct. 8,
2013 7 p.m. Philipp Renczes, S.J., Director of
the Cardinal Bea Centre, Gregorian University, Rome
Feb. 13, 2014 7 p.m. Jose Casanova, PhD, Professor of Sociology,
Georgetown University
April 10, 2014 7 p.m. Catherine Cornille, PhD, Associate Professor and
Chair of Theology, Boston College
These lectures
are held in Pigott Auditorium on the Seattle University campus. The
lectures are free and open to the public.
Articles of Interest
(click on the article title for follow the link):
An eloquent silence that echoes in Asia by Fr. Bill Grimm, Tokyo, March 20th, 2013