Theology as a ‘tentacle’
There was a full house on 14 June 2024, when the Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin, hosted an event to mark the publication of Theology and the University (Routledge, 2024), edited by Fáinche Ryan, Josef Quitter and Dirk Ansorge.
The book launch was preceded by a lecture from Professor Judith Wolfe, of the University of St Andrews, entitled ‘Being Theologians in Secular Society’. She told those gathered; “The University is in crisis …Theology is one of the ways to address this crisis.” (Read more below from Dr Michael Kirwan SJ, Director of the Loyola Insitute, TCD.)
The book itself contains essays by Michael Kirwan, Cornelius Casey and Fainche Ryan, alongside essays from academics across Europe. Trinity College’s Provost, Dr Linda Doyle, says in the Preface, “I really hope this publication will inform further conversation in this space and provide fresh insights’.
Among those who attended the Friday evening gathering was Papal Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor.
The Loyola Institute » is dedicated to education and research in theology in the Christian tradition and offers postgraduate courses in courses in Theology. The closing date for applications for the academic year 24/25 is 31st July 2024 and for scholarships is 30th June 2024.
Discovering and Dwelling: Theology and the University
The book launch was preceded by a lecture from Professor Judith Wolfe, of the University of St Andrews, entitled ‘Being Theologians in Secular Society’. The lecture began with a reading of ‘The Sea of Faith’, Matthew Arnold’s poem which expresses the melancholic withdrawal of religion in the face of nineteenth-century science. What we see now, however, is that the notion of the ‘human’, which for Arnold was to replace religious faith now suffers the same crisis of credibility: ‘We lost our sense of humanity when we lost our sense of God’.
For Professor Wolfe the university requires something wider than the criticism and unmasking of power. It must be a place where intellectual virtues are cultivated, which enable a student to live well. She holds up the twin goals of discovery and dwelling: the discoveries of the sciences create our world, but we also need the humanities (specifically, theology and philosophy) so we can be at home in it. Theology serves therefore as a kind of ‘tentacle’ that reaches out to the other disciplines and enables necessary conversation.
Theology and the University demonstrates this connection. The essays, drawn from a range of European perspectives, explore the contested role of the contemporary university, and theology’s place in it. Theology, finally, is identified as a source of hope: as Dr Linda Doyle (Provost and President of Trinity College), asserts in her Foreword, “The university needs the challenge of theology, offering its unique store of wisdom. And theology needs the challenge of the university.”
Professor Wolfe’s lecture will be available on the Loyola Institute website.
Michael Kirwan SJ
Director of The Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin.
The Papal Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor attended the launch of ‘Theology and the University’ (Routledge) in Trinity College Dublin on Friday evening. Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor is photographed with (from left) Dr Michael Kirwan SJ, Director of the Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dr Fáinche Ryan, Loyola Institute, Trinity College Dublin) Co-Editor of book: Prof Judith Wolfe (University of St Andrews) who gave the keynote at the launch, Dr Josef Quitterer (University of Innsbruck) Co-Editor of the book, Fr Tom Layden, SJ, chair of the trust of the Loyola Institute.
