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Boston College's "The Church in the 21st Century"

A student forum for faith discussion expands beyond Boston College - here  a full house at Hillside Café. Photograph: Caitlin Cunningham.

 

My Dear Sisters and Brothers:
 In October 2013 Pope Francis announced that he would convene an Extraordinary Synod of Bishops in October 2014 in order to seek their advice about pastoral issues and questions affecting marriage and the family. Now the time is fast approaching for the Synod of 253 delegates (cardinals, bishops, priests, married couples, religious men and women, and non-Catholics who represent other religious traditions) to gather at the Vatican from October 5th to 19th. In the recent Boston College Magazine (Summer 2014), journalist William Bole, who is the Editorial Consultant and the Senior Researcher at the Carroll School of Management at Boston College, wrote two articles that target some of the outstanding work of BC's Century 21st Center. The first article, "Conversation Starters" focuses on how a movement on BC's campus, fostered under the auspices of C 21st Center, offers a series of monthly evening talks about such topics as friendship, faith, forgiveness, prayer and the like aimed specifically at undergraduates. The movement is called Agape Latte and takes place not in a church or chapel but "in a setting many of them find convivial-a coffee house." The director of C 21st Center told an observer, "This is where they feel comfortable. It's their world." Bole's article indicates how Agape Latte is migrating to other colleges, both Catholic and secular. It has become a significant movement in opening up conversations around spiritual and related life-changing issues for young people. 

 The second article by Bole, "Field Notes," addresses another work of the C 21st Center, namely timely lectures on the BC campus that raise critical questions facing the Catholic Church in America. In this case, Bole draws us into a presentation about a landmark three-year study of the Hispanic presence in U.S. Catholic parishes by BC Professor Hosffman Ospino. Given the data regarding the future demographics of the American Catholic Church which Ospino spelled out for his listeners, the Church of the future in our country faces an enormous challenge if its parishes hope to retain Hispanic Catholics as faithful members. Both articles may be read by clicking on the following: 

• "Conversation Starters" 
• "Field Notes" 

 What is impressive about BC's Church in the 21st Century Center is its mission, namely to act as catalyst and resource for renewal of the Catholic Church in the U.S. Drawing from both the BC community and others, the C 21st Center aims to engage people in critical conversations facing the American Catholic Church. It focuses on four critical issues: handing on the faith, roles and relationships in the Church, sexuality in the Catholic tradition, and the Catholic intellectual tradition. 

 Originally established in September 2002, C 21st Center was conceived as a two-year initiative to explore the problematic issues that had begun to surface on an almost-daily basis in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis within the Catholic Church, particularly in the Boston Archdiocese. C 21st Center was an effort to look into and respond to the issues that were surfacing in the media, especially the Boston Globe. The shocking and growing sexual abuse scandal eventually led to the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law, the Archbishop of Boston in December 2002, and his leaving the country for the Vatican. 

 C 21st Center began to offer a series of symposia, lectures, conferences, published papers and other resources to assist the Catholic Church to negotiate the move from crisis to renewal. Two years after its start up in 2002, C 21st Center was established by the University as a permanent commitment to look into a number of critical issues and questions facing the Catholic Church in today's world. 

 To learn more about the Center and how you might make use of its resources, including the Center's Free C 21st Resources publication, click here to view its website - Boston College The Church In The 21st Century Center.

 Gratefully in Christ,

A Minneapolis mother, whose son was murdered, now lives next door to -- and is friends with -- her son's murderer. Steve Hartman reports on the power of forgiveness. Quite a testimony of what forgiveness can do in the lives of those who practice it!

The Power of Forgiveness