Note: If you have registered for an online course, you will be contacted by email with instructions about how to access the class by Friday, January 26th.
Course Objectives
1. To enable students to appreciate the rich diversity, history, and tradition of the Roman Catholic Church;
2. To consider and locate some of the contentious debates within Catholicism;
3. To look at the impact of Catholicism on contemporary America.
Requirements:
Each week students should do the reading and make a minimum of two posts: one on the reading (no more than 500 well chosen words) and the other on the lecture (no more than 300 words). In addition students should comment on at least one other post written by another student (no more than 300 words).
Session 1: Numbers, Facts, and Stuff
Session 2: Authority and the Magisterium
Session 3: Natural Law and Natural Theology
Session 4: The impact of Thomas Aquinas
Session 5: Natural Law and Sexual Ethics
Session 6: Priests, Celibacy, and Women
Session 7: The culture of death
Session 8: Catholics and Ecumenism
Session 9: Catholics and Other Religions
Session 10: The achievement of Pope John Paul II
Session 11: Pope Benedict XVI
Session 12: Theocons in America
Session 13:. Anti-Catholicism: how deep is the prejudice?
Reading:
All Students are required to purchase The Catechism of the Roman Catholic Church.
Pope John Paul II, The Splendor of Truth
Pope John Paul II, The Gospel of Life
Eamon Duffy, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes.
Assessment:
Class Participation
A five page review of one of the following books:
- Richard John Neuhaus, Catholic Matters
- Damon Linker, Theocons
- George Weigel, The Truth of Catholicism
- Jennifer Ferrara and Patricia Sodano Ireland, The Catholic Mystique: Fourteen Women Find Fulfillment in the Catholic Church
- Lavinia Byrne, Woman at the Altar: The Ordination of Women in the Roman Catholic Church.
Attend a Roman Catholic service. Write a five page paper on your observations at the service.
Write a ten page paper on the ‘Future of the Roman Catholic Church’. To be handed in by the end of the end of the course.
