Hedgerow Initiative - Fall 2012
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The Hedgerow Initiative offers sustained, systematic programming in feminist theological education, spiritual integration, and leadership for a just and holy world. In a particular way, the Initiative highlights the scholarship of women who since the 1950s have worked to reclaim women’s presence and significance in scripture, church, history, theology and culture. The Initiative takes its name from the hedgerow schools in Ireland that kept alive the language, faith, culture and community of the people during the time of the British penal codes. A hedgerow is a biosphere and a haven. |
Cultivating the Wisdom and Spirit of Vatican II
Mondays, September 24 through December 10, 6:30-8:30pm
Fifty years ago the Second Vatican Council catapulted the Roman Catholic Church out of post-Reformation paralysis into the modern era of nuclear arms, sexual revolution, democratic republics, civil rights, the women’s movement, and gay rights. Assembled together, caught up in the renewing Spirit, the more than 2,500 bishops from all parts of the world envisioned a Church for our time.
With increasing strength, Church leaders today are deconstructing Vatican II. What is at stake for people at worship? For women? For all the Christians and people of other faiths to which the Council opened a door? Why are ex-Catholics the second largest religious group in the U.S.? The seminar will explore the major documents of the Council, its impact on our lives today, and its evolving questions and future. The seminar intends and will benefit from broad dialogue with Catholics, Protestants, and all on the journey of faith.
Weekly topics:
Sept 24 - Introducing the 21st Ecumenical Council, Its Rhetoric of Dialogue
Oct 1 - Where Is Worship Going?
No session on Monday, October 8
Oct 9 - The Call to Solidarity (Note: Tuesday 7:00pm)
Oct 15 - The Riddles of Human Existence
Oct 22 - How Do the Urgent Problems of 1965 Fare Today?
Oct 29 - Dialogue Evening & Celebration of Reformation Sunday October 28
Nov 5 - We Are the Church, the People of God, the Body of Christ
Nov 12 - The Church: Lay Ministries Rising, Religious Unsettling
Nov 19 - Now Catholics Read the Bible, too
Nov 26 - Declaration on Religious Freedom
Dec 3 - The Church, Ecumenism, and Interfaith Work
Fostering unity among Christians and openness to other faith is a legacy of Vatican II but unfinished work. Lecturer: Catherine Clifford, Ph.D., vice dean and professor of Systematic and Historical Theology at St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada. She is co-author of Keys to Vatican II.
Dec 10 - Discussion: What is the Church we want?
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Instructors: Joan Mitchell, CSJ, Ph.D. with guest lecturers Catherine Clifford, Ph.D., Fred Kammer, S.J., Ph.D., and others.
Texts: Keys to the Council by Catherine Clifford and Richard Gaillardetz (selected passages) or Documents of Vatican II, Austin Flannery (full texts of documents).
Optional History: What Happened at Vatican II?, John W. O’Malley
Texts available through Good Ground Press: www.goodgroundpress.com.
Read or print the syllabus. 
WHEN: Mondays, September 24 through December 10, 6:30-8:30pm
COST: $20.00/session or $200.00/all 12 sessions
“What I feel about the institutional church... . For me it is the place in the slum, in our neighborhood, where it is possible to be alone, to be silent, to wait on the Lord... . No matter how corrupt the Church may become, it carries within it the seeds of its own regeneration.” -Dorothy Day
