The American College of St Maurice at Münster in Westphalia was founded in 1867 to train priests for the Catholic missions in the United States. This paper outlines the history of this short-lived educational institutions (1867-1879), with particular focus on the 68 seminarians, who attended this theological seminary for their pastoral formation,…

This study explores the ways the leaders of three American congregations of women religious have prepared their sisters for the teaching apostolate both in the past and in the present. The study includes information on the founding of the communities, how their apostolates have evolved over time, factors that have contributed to the development of…

Mathematics was considered to be a universal language that God used to write the book of nature. Many of the greatest mathematicians (such as Descartes, Leibniz, Euler, Cantor) saw their mathematical work as a way to have a clearer insight into the existence of God and His infinity, as well as to glorify His name. This paper explores the…

A "charism-centered" institutional mission is a mission that is believed to be instantiated and guided by the working of the Holy Spirit. Countless Catholic higher education institutions claim to have missions rooted in one or more charisms. However, institutional assessment processes tailored to charism-centered missions have remained…

The Congregation of Holy Cross has been working on evangelisation and education in Bangladesh for more than 170 years. This paper examines and discusses the educational aims of highly reputed institution of Holy Cross Congregation, Notre Dame College (NDC). It also examines how NDC negotiated historical changes -- internal and external -- and how…

One of the identified causes for clericalism -- associated with the sex abuse crisis currently plaguing the Church -- is the closed seminary model that prevails in many parts of the world: all four pillars of formation of seminarians occurs in the seminary. This model, which has prevailed since the Council of Trent, encourages future priests to…

Roman Catholic priests undergo years of formation prior to being ordained. Upon ordination, they are assigned to a particular ministry. Diocesan priests are typically assigned to a parish. As ordained ministers, priests exercise both service and leadership. This study therefore examined the presence, experience, and perceptions of servant…

Purpose: The Catholic Church expects theological institutes, priests and seminarians to be well-informed, critical and creative users of information and communications technology. Currently, most theological institutes use the traditional face-to-face teaching method. An attempt to implement blended learning as an innovative teaching and learning…

This article begins with a brief autobiographical depiction of my religious education. It then charts the ways in which the inadequacies of that religious education caused me to treat my family's traditional religious expressions with suspicion rather than appreciation, undergirding coloniality as a phenomenon within my religious education.…

The final report of the Australian Royal Commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse comprises 17 volumes, one of which addresses its findings in relation to schools. In this article, I raise two key questions in response to the devastating details of the allegations made by survivors of their abuse: how was any of this possible,…

In light of ongoing debates about religious education as hermeneutical, this contribution proposes a 'hermeneutical-communicative' (HCM) paradigm for RE through the development of a twofold reflection: (a) a critical (re-)evaluation of the theological and anthropological foundations for RE in light of (b) a context marked by religious and…

Debates about Catholic higher education in the United States sometimes focus too much on what Catholic colleges and universities should not do, rather than what they should do. This article attempts to reframe those debates away from the negative expressions of Catholic identity (i.e., denying guests a right to speak on campus based on their level…

A recontextualising approach in religious education has been adopted in the newly revised religious education curricula of the four dioceses in Victoria: the dioceses of Melbourne, Ballarat, Sandhurst and Sale. This approach requires a radical change to the teacher's role from knowledge transmission to one which supports students to grapple with…

When upper-level theology courses are taught within a general education program at colleges and universities, instructors are often challenged to invite students, some of whom are committed neither to the discipline of theology nor to Christian faith, into a style of critical reflection that largely depends on both of these commitments. In a…

This study focuses on two major aspects of Jesuit pedagogy in Spain that should be held in mind in order to understand Jesuit educational transformations after the Second Vatican Council: Firstly (A), the theological renewal undertaken since the end of the 1960s, mainly by the Jesuit institute "Fe y Secularidad" founded in 1967 and the…