The Schedule
The Virtual Synod Experience
Each presentation will be convened as a synodal experience of small group dialogue based on the reflections shared by our speaker team with small group sharing thereafter and a closing summary with next-step recommendations offered by attendees. The last session will have a full evaluation of the month’s presentations.
There will be a fee for the four sessions ($75 for all for if you register by August 1st, and $100 thereafter) to help cover costs of our speaker team and the creation of a contact database of attendees for their independent future dialogue or to structure yet a future month of salon dialogues together with a new speaker team on topics recommended by initial attendees.
SESSION 1 - AUGUST 8th
10am to 12noon (EST) or 3pm - 5pm (EST)
A Purified Church in a Purified World: The Call to Spiritual Resistance
We begin with Dr. Paul Lakeland, author of the prize-winning Liberation of the Laity and most recently, Catholicism at the Crossroads: How the Laity Can Save the Church and I might add, “the world”.
In addressing a theology of the laity, Dr. Lakeland shares a radical focus on the faith as a relational vision of our future as societal citizens and citizens of a church to encourage our maturity to new models of local action utilizing our Baptismal roles, responsibilities and actions as a result.
Dr. Lakeland speaks about the growth of the roles that the laity play now in our changing world who openly live their religious convictions outside institutional boundaries making a contribution to the whole. The secularity of the People of God’s practice in the world itself demonstrates the dual citizenship we share.
SESSION TWO - AUGUST 15th
10am to 12noon (EST) or 3pm - 5pm (EST)
Recognizing the Church as We Already Are
Jamie Manson addresses the issues of what it means to be church in our polemically divided world and her personal, gutsy journey as a public speaker, author, teacher and prize-winning journalist being authentic as a gay woman in church and society.
SESSION THREE - AUGUST 22nd
10am to 12noon (EST) or 3pm - 5pm (EST)
Living “The Call” in the Real World
This week focuses on how contemplative prayer is one tool in discovering your mission, your call, your reason for being created and the role of relationships in the practice of your faith. It unfolds real life examples of being the face of Christ to one another. This session is about you.
Fr. Tom Reese, a Jesuit priest, author and journalist and senior analyst at the Religion News Service and regular columnist at America magazine, was once a lobbyist for tax reform proving his skill sets transfer from social to church issues. He was a appointed by President Obama to a federal governmental commission reviewing the facts and circumstances around policies around religious freedom in the United States.
Fr. Reese will help us focus on the practical implications of living our faith in spite of the Church’s institutional flaws. He speaks boldly, realistically and directly to the issues of the times we live in actively fighting for what is right, good and true.
He is a widely recognized expert on the U.S. Catholic Church and has written a trilogy examining church organizations and politics on the local, national and international levels and speaks about what the next Pope faces in society and the Church. He speaks often of how to demonstrate the attractiveness of the Church and to remove the “no culture” that drowns out the “yes culture” actively preached by Jesus. He helps us reflect on the flipside of today’s culture and points out the untapped potential we face.
SESSION FOUR - AUGUST 29th
10am to 12noon (EST) or 3pm - 5pm (EST)
The final session begins an actionable journey, a commencement of sorts, to two initial questions:
· Who do we choose to be together?
· What do we want to create together as a result of this month’s experiences?
The Speakers
Dr. Paul F. Lakeland
Paul Lakeland is the Aloysius P. Kelley S.J. Professor of Catholic Studies at Fairfield University and the founding director of its Center for Catholic Studies. He was the 2005 Fairfield University Teacher of the Year. Paul is the author (most recently) of The Wounded Angel: Fiction and the Religious Imagination and also authored The Liberaton of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church and Catholicism at the Crossroads. He was the President of the Catholic Theological Society of America and is the 2020 recipient of the Monika Hellwig Award for contributions to the Catholic intellectual tradition, given by the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. He is currently at work on a history of Fairfield University serving as the Director of the Center for Catholic Studies.
He is host of the Voices of Others video series in which he visits with distinguished scholars, theologians and social activists to discuss issues surrounding the theme “Listening to the Voices of Others.”.
Jamie Manson
Jamie Manson is a columnist & books editor at the National Catholic Reporter. She is a three-time winner of the Religion News Writers Association's (RNA) award for Commentary of the Year. She garnered over a dozen Catholic Press Association awards for her work at NCR. She won the 2015 Wilbur Award for Best Online Religion News Story for her piece "Feminism in Faith" about St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson. Her activism on behalf of women and LGBTQ people earned her the Theresa Kane Award for Women of Vision and Courage from Women’s Ordination Worldwide in 2015.
She is editor of Changing the Questions: Explorations in Christian Ethics, a collection of writings by Mercy Sr. Margaret Farley (Orbis, 2015). She received her Master of Divinity degree from Yale Divinity School, where she studied Catholic theology and sexual ethics.
Jamie travels the country as a speaker, retreat leader and media commentator on issues related to women and LGBTQ Catholics, young adult Catholics, and the future of the church.
Dr. Tom Reese
Tom Reese is a Jesuit priest and Senior Analyst at Religion News Service. He has been a columnist at NCR, National Catholic Reporter, Associate Editor and Editor in Chief at America magazine. He was a senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center at Georgetown University where he wrote two books: Archbishop, A Flock of Shepherds, and Inside the Vatican, The Politics and Organization of the Catholic Church.
Tom worked as a lobbyist for tax reform in his earlier life. He has a doctorate in political science from the University of California Berkeley. He entered the Jesuits in 1962, and was ordained a priest in 1975 after receiving a Masters in Divinity from the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley.