Centro Pro Unione, Rome’s ecumenical research and action center and a ministry of the Franciscan Friars of the Atonement, is now taking applications for its summer course. The center also announced several upcoming events.
The annual summer course, Introduction to the Ecumenical and Interreligious Movements from a Roman Catholic Perspective, will be held from June 27 through July 15. The course is recognized and endorsed by the Graduate Theological Foundation, which can grant up to six graduate credits for qualified graduate students.
“The summer course held each year at the Centro Pro Unione in Rome offers an opportunity for men and women to explore how the Holy Spirit continues to work through the churches to realize the unity for which Jesus prayed before his passion and death,” said Father Jim Puglisi, SA, Director of Centro Pro Unione. “We treat the course like a pilgrimage of discovery. After taking the three-week course, the participants leave not only with new knowledge of the Catholic Church, but of the traditions of the various Christian churches and communities, as well as new friends made because of their walking together.
“Our hope is that people will discover that there is not an ‘ecumenical winter,’ but the flourishing of the Holy Spirit’s continued opening of new insights into the unity that we are called to in the Body of Christ.”
The course is designed to introduce participants to the ecumenical and interreligious movements from a Catholic perspective. It will offer a historical and theological overview of the issues that divide Christians as well as the bonds that unite them.
The course, which is taught in English, is open to men and women who are in preparation for ministry or religious life, who are in the mission field, who are ecumenical officers or members of ecumenical commissions, or who are looking for a sabbatical experience led by qualified professors and ecumenists.
The schedule for the three weeks is the same Monday through Friday: morning prayer followed by three 60-minute lecture segments.
The afternoons are for on-site excursions and lectures including Roman catacombs; Basilica of St. Peter and excavations; St. Clement; “Roman ghetto;” Synagogue and museum; and a Mosque and Islamic center. There is no class on weekends.
To apply for the course, click here.
The Center also announced several lectures that will precede the start of its summer course.
On April 28, Rev. Daniel Pratt Morris Chapman will lead “Newman, Wesley and the Logic of Unity: An Inductive Ecumenism.” Rev. Pratt Morris Chapman is a visiting professor from the University of Saint Thomas Aquinas in Rome, a research fellow at Wesley House Cambridge and University of Stellenbosch and the chair of Churches Together in Rome. The lecture will be held at 6 p.m. (Rome time) and take place at Centro Pro Unione’s Via Santa Maria dell’Anima, 30. Those interested can also register for the webcast.
The Via Santa Maria dell’Anima, 30 will host another event at 4 p.m. in European time on May 17 for the launch of the book “The Vatican and Permanent Neutrality.” Editors Marshall J. Breger and Herbert R. Reginbogan will be on hand for panel discussions and an overview of the project. Professors Maria d’Arienzo and Lucia Ceci will participate, along with moderator Giovanni Maria Vian.
Another lecture will take place on May 19: “Wisdom, Virtues and Vices in the Book of Proverbs: Some Philosophical and Ethical Considerations.” The event will be conducted by Rabbi Jack Bemporad, who is the director of the Center for Interreligious study in Teaneck, New Jersey. The lecture will take place at 6:30 p.m. (Rome time) and at Centro Pro Unione’s Via Santa Maria dell’Anima, 30. Registration for the event’s webcast is open.