Wednesday, June 3, 2009

DSPT Summer Session: Still Time to Enroll!

There is still time to enroll in summer courses at DSPT! For the first time this summer we are offering Evangelizing Education I & II (courses in pedagogy – the only such courses at the GTU), which will run June 29 – July 3 and July 6 – 10, and Lay Preaching, which will run July 6 – 17. We are delighted to continue to offer courses in spirituality and to invite back to DSPT Fr. Luke Buckles, OP from the Angelicum in Rome where he is Professor of Spiritual Theology, to offer his Pray Like a Mystic I & II courses (July 13 – 17 and July 20 – 24), which he will team teach with Sarah Lewis. Fr. Buckles and Ms. Lewis will also be offering a third course, Healing the Heart, from July 27 – 31, which may especially be of interest to those who have already taken the Pray Like a Mystic courses. This course, as well as the Mystic courses, may also be audited as a retreat. You may learn more about the courses and registration process by visiting our website at www.dspt.edu. We invite you to join us for what will surely be another productive, rewarding experience this summer!

DSPT’s College of Fellows and the “Catholic Imagination”

On Thursday, May 21, the DSPT hosted a series of presentations by members of the school’s College of Fellows. The broad theme of the afternoon was “the Catholic imagination,” with four Fellows offering brief remarks on how their Catholic faith shapes and informs their professional work.

Dr. Andre L. Delbecq, McCarthy Professor of Business Administration at Santa Clara University, began the afternoon by offering reflections on global business leadership as an emerging vocational challenge. He emphasized that since more than 80% of Catholics are engaged in the business world, business must be recognized as a critical vocation and one of the primary ways in which Catholics can serve their neighbors and build community. He focused his remarks on the new climate of “globalism,” noting that the average start-up company in California operates in seven countries out of necessity; the greatest potential for commercial growth today is international, partly because of low birth rates in the West. This new globalism has profound spiritual implications, yet the Catholic imagination has not yet been integrated in our rapidly changing technological age, and this problem is at the core of our current crisis. Dr. Delbecq compared the American society and Catholic culture of his youth with the vastly different world of our own time, noting that young people today are in many ways well-placed to face the challenges and opportunities of a new world in which economic and social barriers are collapsing and instant communication is changing the way we relate to each other. Where his generation was unprepared for the rise of globalism, today’s youth are saturated with world news, surrounded by diverse cultures, and well-traveled. They are concerned about the common good, interested in collaboration, and critical of the narcissism of their parents’ generation. At the same time, today’s youth tend to be culturally unrooted, spiritually immature but very interested in spirituality, and insecure, and Catholics are ideally placed to help them find an anchor in the midst of a rapidly shifting world. Dr. Delbecq argued that we need business leaders who value collaborative leadership and significance more than success. We must see in the current global situation the movement of the Holy Spirit, leading us as a Church to recognize the principle of subsidiarity of Catholic social teaching as real and viable in ways not previously recognized.

Dr. Velma Richmond, Professor Emerita of English at Holy Names University, spoke about the relationship between Christianity and literature and how the study of literature has changed over the course of her long career. She vividly described the breakdown of her field in American universities as critical theory became the focus of literary scholars most interested in the “triumvirate” of race, gender and class. Undergraduate enrollment in the liberal arts today is less than half what it was in the 1960s, and universities are now more like marketplaces than educational institutions. The very point of literature, she argued, has been missed as scholars have spent too much time on theory and not nearly enough time reading primary texts. Always finding a victimized and oppressed group, literary scholars have for years approached their subject through the lenses of various politically-driven ideologies, valuing change for its own sake and losing sight of the longer tradition. The Catholic imagination and approach to literature has many advantages in this age of relativism, and Dr. Richmond sees a great need for universities to take it seriously as a candidate for the truth as well as a golden opportunity to do so. We have lost a great deal and the challenges of today are much more serious than they were in the 1950s, but she sees signs of hope emerging as new graduate students show an interest in the relationship between Christianity and literature. Dr. Richmond’s passionate call for a return to the long tradition of Catholic literature as a way to revive English studies, and her insistence on the importance of raising children with a deep and rich knowledge of the classics of world literature, was enthusiastically received.

Mr. Ned Dolejsi, Executive Director of the California Catholic Conference, examined the Catholic worldview in the light of the present political order. Following Pope Benedict XVI, he emphasized that Catholic theology is inherently public and universal rather than something private. The exercise of political power, as Archbishop Charles Chaput has written, always has moral content and human consequences. Mr. Dolejsi summarized the Catholic worldview through a series of brief principles: God is God and we are not; life is precious, people are not things; family is important; community is essential; the world is sacramental and grace-filled. Like Dr. Delbecq, Mr. Dolejsi was raised in a world where a much stronger Catholic culture and identity existed, and he suggested that the strong Catholic desire to “belong” in America may have dampened our strength and led to the many compromises we see among Catholics today. Contemporary American society is characterized by radical individualism, consumerism, pluralism, and a strong sense of entitlement, and California is the most ethnically and religiously pluralistic society in human history. Catholics today are a community in diaspora, without the cultural reinforcements of the past. There is no widely accepted definition of the common good and the focus is firmly on individual rights. In a state where about 25% of the population is Catholic, 40-50% of California lobbyists and legislators are Catholic, yet most are uncatechized, selectively practicing, dualistic in their separation of faith and work, sometimes embarrassed by or hostile to Church teachings, and generally secularized. Non-Catholic politicians tend to be partisan and religiously prejudiced, yet they are occasionally willing partners of the Church on particular issues. Mr. Dolejsi noted that the Church has tremendous difficulty getting the facts before the wider population because the secular media are almost exclusively anti-religious and because Church leaders are generally not good at navigating this environment. The Gospel imperative demands our involvement in politics, but we must find new ways of doing so. Mr. Dolejsi emphasized in particular the need to move people from an understanding of personal rights to responsibility, finding new language and images for teaching about the common good, capturing the imagination of young adults, walking with the new immigrant Church, and inviting people who yearn for prayer and community to share this with us. Since most people today do not go to church, catechetical efforts must be located where most people are: in the workplace, not just in the local parish. Mr. Dolejsi noted that the Church has incredible resources and the imagination to do this.

Dr. Kevin Starr, Librarian Emeritus of the State of California and University Professor at the University of Southern California, gave a fast-paced and very entertaining presentation on the Catholic experience in the United States since its founding. He argued that the time has come for Catholics to stop apologizing for their faith and seeking acceptance in the wider society. Catholicism pervades American history, literature, and life, and American Catholics have never lost sight of the universal Church even in the midst of the pluralistic stew in which they have always lived. The North American continent was baptized in the blood of missionary martyrs, and Catholics were thoroughly at home in early America. American orphanages, schools and hospitals were never so well-run as when women’s religious orders maintained them, and American history is filled with the stories of distinguished converts to Catholicism. Dr. Starr offered numerous anecdotes to describe the American Catholic experience and argued with great enthusiasm that Catholics must recover our past and proudly proclaim our faith to the wider American society.

This very enjoyable afternoon was concluded with a few remarks by James Francis Cardinal Stafford, former Archbishop of Denver and now Major Penitentiary of the Roman Curia. Cardinal Stafford was inducted into the DSPT College of Fellows the following day during our graduation ceremony. He focused his remarks on the present debate about the nature of liberty currently taking place in America. Is the American notion of liberty thoroughly compatible with Catholic thought, or are the founding documents of the United States overly contaminated by Enlightenment principles not at all compatible with the Catholic faith? Recalling his recent visit to Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello estate in Virginia, Cardinal Stafford expressed the disturbing contrasts that he saw there, such as the grand classical mansion standing alongside the foundations of slave hovels. Jefferson did not believe in a Trinitarian God, and his notion of liberty was not at all that expressed by St. Paul, St. Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas, who understood liberty to be the art of the practice of virtue. Cardinal Stafford noted that lay Catholics are mostly involved in this ongoing debate and that this is as it should be. Catholics are Confirmed to be “the aroma of Christ” in the world. Referring to Fra Angelico’s famous image of St. Dominic praying serenely at the foot of the crucified Christ, he emphasized that all Catholics are called to be poets in this way, to recall the profound beauty revealed in the total self-sacrificing love of Christ on the Cross. The challenge of parish renewal in the Church is immense, and we must make sure that God’s reconciliation with each individual is made tangible in every Catholic parish so that the Christian community itself is the way of forgiveness and life.

About 60 people attended this thought-provoking afternoon, and we look forward to another successful Fellows event next year.

A Jesuit-Influenced Perspective on the Qualities of a Dominican Education

by Elissa McCormack

Elissa McCormack gave the student speech at this year’s graduation on May 22, 2009. The following is the text of her speech.

As someone who went to a Jesuit university as an undergraduate and who will be returning to the Jesuits for doctoral work, I feel uniquely qualified to comment on the qualities of a Dominican education.

First, there is the emphasis placed by Dominicans on foundational or first principles in philosophy or theology. This can best be illustrated with a comparison to my undergraduate experience. There was one old Jesuit professor who used the same method in all of his classes; he would draw a triangle on the board to represent the mystery of God and a stick figure to represent our human response to the mystery of God. While I was still an undergraduate, in fact, I met an alum who told me that those drawings were the only thing I needed to understand in order to understand this Jesuit’s classes. At DSPT the thing that gets drawn on the board over and over again is SF over PM, to represent the combination of substantial form and prime matter. One could almost say that this is the one key principle that you need to understand in order to understand all of the rest of your classes at the Dominican School. I’m pretty certain that this came up in just about every single class that I took here; the non-DSPT students in our classes had not taken the “Philosophy of Nature” and “Philosophical Anthropology” series of courses, so they had missed out on this key piece of knowledge about the world and needed to be taught. In order to explain to you the immense importance of substantial form and prime matter in less than a minute, I hear that some of the Dominican brothers have said that the closest thing in this world to prime matter is tofu. Before you give it form, tofu is just tofu, but once you cook it and give it form, you can have tofu burgers, tofu stir fry, tofu chili… I’ve even seen a recipe online for something called “Tofu Pumpkin Cheesecake.” By giving it a different form, your tofu can be anything; without form it’s not much… just tofu. Now, I’m sure that the faculty is worried that I’ve misunderstood everything they’d tried to teach because of my comparison between prime matter and tofu; but yes, I understand that tofu is not prime matter.

Another quality of a Dominican education is the emphasis on both philosophy and theology, which is one of the reasons why I chose to come to DSPT in the first place. Interestingly enough, this all came out in one of the very first classes I took at DSPT, “Revelation and Theology”. As background for this story, you need to understand that I walked into class the first day, my very first class as a DSPT student, to discover that I was the lone lay woman in a class full of men studying to be priests! That was quite the first impression!

As part of the class, we were to have two debates, the first of which was “whether philosophy is necessary for theology.” Immediately, the three Dominicans in class took the pro side and I was left to argue against the necessity for theology with a Jesuit and a Franciscan. I’ve always said that this sounds like the beginning of one of those “walk into a bar” jokes: “A Jesuit, Franciscan, and lay woman walk into a bar to debate with three Dominicans…” (If anyone can come up with a good punch line for that one, let me know.) In this debate, it turned out that I was lucky to be the only woman in the class. Although we didn’t win the debate, we came pretty close due to our brilliant idea to include the three female Doctors of the Church who most definitely did not have any formal education in philosophy. I started out my part of the debate by saying that I had recently read an article that talked about masculine versus feminine ways of doing theology—the former being based on philosophical rationality and the latter on experience. I then strategically focused on Thérèse of Lisieux, quoting, “Ah! si des savants ayant passé leur vie dans l’étude étaient venus m’interroger, sans doute auraient-ils été étonnés de voir une enfant de quatorze ans comprendre les secrets de la perfection, secrets que toute leur science ne leur peut découvrir, puisque pour les posséder il faut être pauvre d’esprit” (Thérèse de Lisieux, Histoire d’une âme (Paris: Sarment, 2001), 131). Not a direct translation, but she says that if great scholars who had spent their lives in study questioned her, they would be amazed at the knowledge she had that they could not discover, because in order to know these things you must be poor in spirit. This, as hoped, threw all of the Dominicans off… after all, who wants to argue against the Little Flower!

This story also illustrates another one of the qualities of a Dominican education, the disputatio, the method used in medieval universities where students and professors would debate the pros and cons of a specific topic. One of the things that DSPT has done so well is to recreate that type of discussion, not only in the classrooms, but also in student activities like the Owl of Minerva philosophy forum and the Dumb Ox theology forum, the latter so named because Saint Thomas Aquinas’s schoolmates called him a Dumb Ox. For those who don’t already know the story, Aquinas wouldn’t speak up in class so his schoolmates all doubted his intelligence, luckily Saint Albert the Great recognized that it was precisely due to his great intelligence that he wasn’t speaking up! Thomas Aquinas definitely still has a posse, and you can find it here at the Dominican School.

One of the things that DSPT values highly is using the traditions of philosophy and theology to speak to contemporary culture. This is something that happens regularly in the classrooms and in the student philosophy and theology forums. It’s amazing the kind of groups that you can bring together at DSPT in these types of discussions, after all, where else would I get a crowd to come and listen to my presentation about Christ-like figures in the TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It is in this sense that DSPT is truly a community of scholars. Students can gather together in the classroom, or over lunch in the Galleria, and discuss what they are working on in their classes. Recently I overheard a discussion over Tuesday Lunch that involved a comparison between the medieval, Franciscan philosopher-theologian Duns Scotus and the Japanese horror movie The Ring.

Probably the most important quality of a Dominican education is the combination of contemplation and action, something that we, as graduates, should remember as we embark on our next journeys. We need to take what we’ve learned here—about substantial form and prime matter, about accidental and essential qualities—and apply them to our discussions with today’s world. We can take the methods that we’ve learned here, like the emphasis on discovering first principles, and use them to talk to the world, by going back to find what we hold in common with our debate partners. Of course, in my field of history, going back to the roots means tracing obscure seventeenth-century heresies back to Augustine and tends to take a while; there’s quite a lot of Church history to trace things back into!

We must always remember, as Fr. Michael says at almost every graduation, Commencement is not an end, but a beginning. Whether we are going on to further education, or starting new jobs with our new degrees in hand, we can take what we’ve studied at DSPT and act on it to make a difference in our communities, in the Church, in the Academy, and in the world.

DSPT Graduate Ordained as Capuchin Franciscan Priest

Fr. Joseph Seraphin Dederick, OFM Cap. (M.Div. 2009) was ordained this past March in the Diocese of Sacramento at his home parish. He reports the beautiful, spiritual feeling of that day, like his vocation is really beginning to flower, by now including both religious life and priestly life. He says, “I have been called to be a Capuchin Franciscan priest and therefore something has always seemed to be lacking for my religious calling. Now I know better what that was – my ordination. This is the path God has called me on. May I be faithful to his calling.”

The Capuchin Franciscans are sending him down to the newest house in their Mexican Mission. They are opening a house in Durango City, Durango, Mexico. He will be helping out with the formation of the new brothers in their first year as Capuchin Franciscans, as well as working part-time in the local parish. One of the defining aspects of this assignment is that he will be living in the middle of a low-income government housing project. They are buying twelve of the units and making them into their friary so that the brothers can get to know the joys and sorrows of the people, living in their own surroundings; some call Casa San Francisco a house of insertion with the poor. They will be doing regular formation duties - teaching the new brothers how to pray, how to live in community, the teachings of the Church, and how to minister to others - and new ministry opportunities which they will scout out once they start living there in September.

Fr. Joseph plans to use the education that he received at DSPT when he is teaching the brothers - especially in biblical studies. His language training here at the GTU will be of prime importance in his everyday life. He will also be putting his knowledge of the Sacraments into practice, including homiletics and pastoral counseling. The tools from his DSPT education which will be used the most will surely become more evident as his ministry unfolds and he spreads the good news of the Kingdom of God in Mexico.

New Organization to the Master of Arts (Philosophy) Program

After careful consideration of the needs of our students and the mission of the School, the Faculty have decided to discontinue the B.A. (Philosophy) program. In its place, the School will now offer an expanded MA (Philosophy) program. The new, reorganized program is designed to help students develop knowledge in both the history of philosophy and systematic philosophy, and to bring that knowledge into critical dialogue with modern and contemporary philosophical thought.

Applicants are no longer required to have a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy prior to admission to this program, making it more accessible to a wider audience. One of our goals is to attract new students with diverse backgrounds to the study of philosophy. Their own personal experience and expertise will greatly enrich the scope and content of our study and research at DSPT.

Depending upon their personal goals, students may pursue one of two options. Recommended for those with an interest in advanced graduate studies, the thesis option allows students to explore a focused area of academic research on a particular topic of interest through elective coursework and a written thesis. An oral defense of that thesis provides students with the opportunity to demonstrate oral communication skills. Students who enroll in the non-thesis option integrate their knowledge in both history and systematic philosophy with a chosen area of contemporary inquiry. All MAPh students enroll in the MA Colloquium which provides them with an opportunity to examine focused topics of interest in a collaborative learning environment. Under the direction of Regular Faculty, students use the colloquium to sharpen listening and communication skills.

There is still time to apply to our degree programs for Fall 2009! The final admissions deadline for all programs is August 2, 2009. For more information about our programs, including the newly reorganized Master of Arts (Philosophy), or to apply, visit www.dspt.edu or contact the Admissions Office at admissions@dspt.edu or 510-883-2073.

Save the Date: 2nd Annual DSPT Golf Tournament – Tee It Up For Truth

Please save the date to Tee It Up For Truth on September 21, for a day filled with sportsmanship, laughter and hope for the future. The 2nd annual DSPT Tee It Up For Truth golf tournament is an endeavor to help fund our School so that we can continue to fulfill its important mission - to prepare priests, religious and lay men and women to meet the pastoral needs of communities all over the world.

In addition to the relaxing day on the golf course, we will provide breakfast, dinner and lots of great prizes. There will be a putting contest prior to the 9:30 shotgun start and an awards ceremony following dinner. You will have the chance to “Beat the Dominican” in our most challenging Long Drive Contest. Come out and join the ever-growing and dynamic community of DSPT.

To arrange for a sponsorship, reserve a place in the tournament, or request more information, visit http://www.dspt.edu/ or call 510-883-2085.

New at DSPT: New Program Survey: Master of Theological Studies (MTS)

The Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology is looking for people to participate in a survey intended to evaluate the current demand for a possible new graduate program – Master of Theological Studies (MTS).

The MTS degree is designed for women and men who have professional experience (a minimum of two years in their chosen field) and seek to enhance their contribution to Church and society by augmenting their primary profession with theological study. The program is intended to provide students with a foundation in interpretive skills so that they can integrate their professional experience with the mission and tradition of the Church. The MTS will, like all programs offered by DSPT, be grounded in official Church doctrine and based on traditional Dominican heritage. The program will not require a thesis, but rather a pre-approved, alternative project will be accepted for evaluation.

If you are interested in participating in the survey, please contact the Dean of Students, Fr. Chris Renz, OP, by June 21, 2009 at crenz@dspt.edu, or go to www.dspt.edu for details.

June 2009: Faculty and Alumni News

Several DSPT professors have published articles in the most recent issue of the Angelicum (86). Fr. Michael Dodds, OP, Professor of Philosophy and Theology, wrote an article titled “Unlocking Divine Causality: Aquinas, Contemporary Science, and Divine Action” (p. 67-87). His article looks at how the notion of causality, broadly conceived in classical philosophy in terms of material, formal, efficient and final causes, was reduced by modern, Newtonian physics to efficient and material causes only. Dodds points out that the discoveries of contemporary science have again broadened our understanding of causality, opening the way to a retrieval of the idea of causality in classical philosophy which may be useful to science in its account of the natural world and to theology in its discussion of divine action. Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, Associate Professor of Philosophy, included an article titled “The Best of All Possible Sciences: Leibniz’ Alternative Beginning of Modern Science” (p. 175-189). Ramelow discusses how the typical contemporary opposition between faith and science is a late development that stands in contrast with the assumptions of the early giants of modern science in the seventeenth century. He looks at G. W. Leibniz’ approach in particular and shows how it demonstrates that modern mathematical physics requires and profits from a metaphysical basis and a notion of substantial form. Fr. Chris Renz, OP, Academic Dean and Assistant Professor of Theology, published an article titled “Our Daily Bread: Practical Wisdom for Food Purchase and Consumption in a Global Market” (p. 215-237). Renz explores how multinational corporations use their network of relationships to camouflage behavior which is harmful and to confuse the consumer. He also explores some theological concepts of practical wisdom and the development of what Benedict XVI has termed an “ethics of participation.” Finally, by recalling the relationship between liturgical life and daily life, the article suggests an important source of strength for effecting real changes in response to the problems of a global food market.

Fr. Hilary Martin, OP, Emeritus Professor, brought his work with Australian Aboriginals to DSPT this semester as part of the Faith in Human Rights symposium. On April 19, as part of the reception for the art exhibit Touching the Land: Contemporary Aboriginal Art from Australia, Martin organized a ceremonial placing of an Aboriginal message stick as a permanent part of the DSPT Chapel. Then, on May 19, he partnered again with Virginia May, curator of the art exhibit, for a showing and discussion of the movie Ten Canoes and the Aboriginal art. The movie is about Australian Aboriginal life in Central Australia around 1000 B.C. and is narrated and acted by the Aboriginal people of Central Australia. Both events were well attended and all attendees enjoyed learning more about Australian Aboriginal life.

DSPT alum, Ed Hopfner, is now coordinating the Marriage and Family Life programs for the Diocese of Oakland. He reports that his studies at DSPT in the area of moral theology are especially helpful here, and the focus on first principles emphasized at DSPT are particularly important for grappling with some of the issues with which they are involved. The individual faculty and student members of DSPT that he has come to know have also served as wonderful resources for his work.

Alumni Profile: Sarah Ball, B.A. in Philosophy (2009)

I came to the Dominican School, as the only (and the last) undergraduate student, with little experience in the field of philosophy. I had a little knowledge in the subject matter itself, and absolutely none in the method (writing research papers, reading journal articles, and such). This could have been a great handicap for me as a student taking classes entirely with graduate students, in which the classes were a little modified, but not much, to suit my standing. This did not turn out to be the case, not so much through my efforts, but through the method of the school. This is not by any means to say that the school is a lightweight in the field of philosophy, which it takes very seriously, and looks upon as a most necessary discipline (both in itself and as a prerequisite for theology).

One can conduct philosophy as a narrow field that has little to say outside of questions of language and meaning (the way of much of twentieth century analytic philosophy, for instance) using a language too obscure to admit of amateur study, or as a field that always returns to the basic questions asked, on different levels, by all people, the answers to which have repercussions extending to culture, science, and the conception of man. The Dominican School espouses this second view, with the happy - and somewhat inevitable - result that the classes, even when edging into remote or abstruse territory, plant the material firmly and with a sense of wonder into the mind of the student.

Philosophical questions admit of many answers, and though the Dominican School is well known for adhering to Thomism, the history of philosophy is in some ways an equal commitment. The mantra is often repeated: we must engage with the world, but to do this we must understand its philosophy. All of the above observations were probably reasons for the fact that, two years after arriving at the school green and a bit confused, I realized that I could tackle a philosophical problem with both a sense of its place in history and a sense of its relevance today (not to forget, of course, what Thomas would have said). A web had been formed in my mind, in which various philosophers, ideas, and times exist not in a separate and confused fashion, but coexist in a continuing conversation, a conversation that the Dominican School continues, and one which I am happy to continue at graduate school next year, with many thanks to my late undergraduate alma mater.

June 2009: A Culture of Philanthrophy

Annual Fund: Help Us Meet Our Goal!

Thank you for the support you gave to the faculty and students of DSPT during the past year. Your participation helped greatly in advancing the School to a higher level of commitment. Despite current challenges, benefactors, friends, alumni, and the community at large are setting a new record of giving to the 2008-2009 DSPT Annual Fund. Thanks to you, we are on our way to meeting our goal this year. We invite you to further enhance the lives of our students and faculty by making your 2008-2009 Annual Fund gift before our fiscal year ends on June 30.

Gifts to the Annual Fund are powerful because they go to work immediately. Through your Annual Fund contribution, you provide funding for academic and co-curricular programs. You sustain the students with financial aid and promote faculty development. You supply resources for technological and facility enhancements. You benefit the entire DSPT community with your gift. The work of the Annual Fund is ongoing. When you receive your fall Annual Fund brochure, or an annual fund appeal letter, or a phone call from one of our many volunteers, please know that your contribution – no matter the size – strengthens and sustains the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology.