Professor Killen Takes Part in Conversation on Future of Catholicism

Gonzaga religious studies Professor Patricia Killen. (GU photo)
Gonzaga religious studies Professor Patricia O’Connell Killen. (GU photo)
March 28, 2019
Gonzaga News Service

Livestream: ‘Quo Vadis? Scholars and Journalists
Discuss the Future of Catholicism in America’

CHICAGO — On April 4-5, Gonzaga University, the Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity University, and the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University of Chicago are co-sponsoring “Quo Vadis? Scholars and Journalists Discuss the Future of Catholicism in America.”

The event begins on Thursday, April 4, with a conversation that will include Cardinal Blasé Cupich, Gonzaga Professor Patricia O’Connell Killen, Loyola Chicago Professor Michael Murphy, and journalist Michael O’Loughlin. This conversation on accountability, leadership, participation, and other issues facing the Church in America will be live-streamed at 4 p.m. (PDT) and can be viewed at: https://www.luc.edu/ccih/.

The event continues on Friday, April 5, with two panel conversations that include journalists and the scholars who contributed to the newly published volume, “The Future of Catholicism in America,” edited by Gonzaga’s Killen and Greenberg Center Director Mark Silk (Columbia University Press, 2019). The first panel explores the themes of the Church’s leadership and public influence; the second explores the demographic configuration, attitudes and behavior of Catholic laity as well as prayer and liturgy in the American Catholic community today. The final session includes responses to the panel conversations and perspectives on Catholicism’s future by Catholic undergraduates and graduates at Loyola Chicago.

Other contributors to “The Future of Catholicism in America” include Steven Avella, Marquette University; Joseph P. Chinnici, O.F.M., Franciscan School of Theology; William D. Dinges, Catholic University of America; Timothy Matovina, University of Notre Dame; Katarina Schuth, O.S.F., St. Paul School of Divinity at the St. Thomas University; Andrew H. Walsh, Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life, Trinity College, Hartford; and Richard L. Wood, University of New Mexico.

Gonzaga’s sponsorship is made possible by the generosity of Bart and Hilke Gallant through the Women, Faith and Leadership Fund.

For more information, visit the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage at Loyola University of Chicago online at https://www.luc.edu/ccih/