| Catholic News Service covered several new faculty additions, including the appointment of Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl , CUA chancellor, and pollster John Zogby to academic positions, on Sept. 18. See story below. |
From: Catholic News Service Date: Sept. 18, 2006 Author: Jerry FilteauWASHINGTON (CNS) -- The Catholic University of America has named Archbishop Donald W. Wuerl of Washington as a university professor of theology.
The university's School of Theology and Religious Studies announced the appointment of three prominent theologians as full professors -- Fathers Paul McPartlan, John Paul Heil and Brian V. Johnstone, who is a Redemptorist. It also named two younger theologians as assistant professors, William C. Mattison and Thomas Schartl.
In addition the university's Life Cycle Institute has named John Zogby, a nationally known pollster and public opinion analyst, as its first senior fellow.
Archbishop Wuerl will be the first to hold the post of William Cardinal Baum university professor of theology, named in honor of the third archbishop of Washington, who was chancellor of the university from 1973 to 1980.
The university's announcement about the archbishop's appointment called university professorships "rare honors that enable the individual so named to teach or lecture in his or her field of expertise without compensation or specific obligations as a faculty member of any particular school or department."
The appointment "will provide Archbishop Wuerl with the opportunity to lecture and teach periodically in the discipline of theology while exercising his primary ministry as the spiritual leader of the Archdiocese of Washington," the announcement said.
Archbishop Wuerl, who has a doctorate in theology, is chief co-author of "The Teaching of Christ: A Catholic Catechism for Adults," which has been published in 13 languages. While he was bishop of Pittsburgh from 1988 until his appointment to Washington earlier this year, he was a distinguished service professor at Duquesne University, where he taught courses on the foundations of Catholic faith. Earlier as a priest he had taught philosophy and theology at Duquesne and theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome.
A Catholic University alumnus who earned his bachelor's and master's degrees in philosophy there while studying for the priesthood, Archbishop Wuerl is now chancellor of the university.
Father Johnstone is a widely published Australian moral theologian who since 1987 has taught in Rome, most recently at the Alfonsian Academy of the Pontifical Lateran University. Father Johnstone, who will hold the endowed Warren Blanding chair of religion and culture, also taught at Catholic University from 1981 to 1987 and in 2005.
Father McPartlan, of England, is a professor of systematic theology. He was at the University of London from 1995 to 2005, and is a member of the Vatican's International Theological Commission and a leading figure in Catholic ecumenical dialogues with the Anglicans, Orthodox and Methodists. He will hold the Carl J. Peter chair of systematic and ecumenical theology.
Father Heil is a biblical scholar who has written 11 books on New Testament theology. A priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese, he has taught at the Kenrick School of Theology in St. Louis since 1979.
Of the two new assistant professors of theology, Mattison is a moral theologian who previously taught at Mount St. Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md., and Schartl is a German who earned a master's degree in philosophy and a doctorate in theology in Germany and specializes in the link between philosophy and theology.
Zogby, who is president and CEO of Zogby International, will deliver lectures, sponsor events and assist the Life Cycle Institute in pursuing major grants, said Stephen Schneck, the institute's director.
He said that in addition Zogby "will deposit at Catholic University the tremendous resource of his study of American ethnicity and values -- an astonishing collection of polling data for the institute."
The Life Cycle Institute has begun implementing a multiyear plan to become a national center for research on public policies central to Catholic social thought
###2006 (c) Catholic News Service www.CatholicNews.com Reprinted with permission of CNS