Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News Australia

Australians want more theology courses

byMark Bowling
16 July 2018 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 2 mins read
AA
Sr Maeve Louise Heaney

New director: Sr Maeve Heaney will run a new centre in Brisbane specialising in short course on theology.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Sr Maeve Louise Heaney
New director: Sr Maeve Heaney will run a new centre in Brisbane specialising in short course on theology.

GROWING demand for studying theology has prompted Australian Catholic University to set up a centre in Brisbane specialising in short courses and tailored professional learning.

The new Xavier Centre for Theological Formation will launch on August 3, and will operate nationally.

“Rather than thinking of theology as something that is just a degree that you do when you are training to be a priest, there’s a recognition that any committed, any formed Catholic, is going to want to learn some theology at some point,” the centre’s new director Verbum Dei Sister Maeve Louise Heaney said.

Sr Heaney will expand her role as director of theological formation for ministry at ACU to run the centre, which will provide formation to a much broader group of people.

The Xavier Centre will offer theological formation opportunities for laypeople, religious and clergy across Australia.

Opportunities will include short courses, in-service programs and international study tours, as well as professional doctorates and research degrees.

Sr Heaney said the demand for theological formation from people outside degree courses had gone from a few calls a year to a constant stream.

There is a particularly strong demand within the education sector for theological formation for teachers, as well as calls for support from the health and welfare sectors, and those involved in pastoral and religious work.

The Xavier Centre will partner with organisations outside the university such as education providers to offer theological formation that is tailored for their needs.

“The aim would be to dialogue and partner with what is working, and to come and help with what is more in need,” Sr Heaney said.

Related Stories

ACU launches student internship inside Vatican

ACU student interns will get the chance to work alongside Australia’s top Holy See diplomat

ACU Book of Prayer invites God into ups and downs of student life

She said the work of the Xavier Centre would be, in part, a contribution towards the Church’s Plenary Council 2020, and a response to the question “what sort of formation do we need post-Royal Commission”.

“Laypeople need theological formation, and seminarians need to do theological formation alongside laypeople,” Sr Heaney said.

“You begin to work together and to think together as we move forward. In the Church we can enrich each other.”

Subjects on offer will include biblical studies, systematic theology and Christian thought, moral theology, practical theology and ministry, studies of religion, ancient languages, church history, liturgy, and sacraments.

The centre will offer a context for individuals and communities to reflect on faith and service through engagement with scripture, theology, spirituality, supervision and leadership.

The first course will be a one-day intensive on August 4 at Banyo.

Entitled Reflections on power and authority in today’s Church, the course will be led by Professor Richard Gaillardetz, Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College.

Registrations are open at acu.edu.au/xaviercentre.    

ShareTweet
Previous Post

German Cardinal Gerhard Müller to speak in Brisbane

Next Post

Thousands of Catholic students to flood into Queensland schools by 2036

Mark Bowling

Mark is the joint winner of the Australian Variety Club 2000 Heart Award for his radio news reporting in East Timor, and has also won a Walkley award, Australia’s most-respected journalism award. Mark is the author of ‘Running Amok’ that chronicles his time as a foreign correspondent juggling news deadlines and the demands of being a husband and father. Mark is married with four children.

Related Posts

Theology: Young Catholics pictured at World Youth Day Panama in 2020. Photo: CNS
Education

ACU launches student internship inside Vatican

6 June 2022
ACU student interns will get the chance to work alongside Australia’s top Holy See diplomat
Education

ACU student interns will get the chance to work alongside Australia’s top Holy See diplomat

21 March 2022
Prayerful resource: “I imagined staff and students being given a prayer book, published by their university, which they could use to find solace and support during their time here.”
QLD

ACU Book of Prayer invites God into ups and downs of student life

10 February 2022
Next Post
Nudgee College library

Thousands of Catholic students to flood into Queensland schools by 2036

Plenary Council

Brisbane Catholics get chance to pitch in to Plenary Council dialogue

Ruby Duffell

'Incredible' Brisbane Catholic mother turns 105

Popular News

  • Man of faith: Newly-ordained priest Fr El Louie Jiminez with Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral on June 29. Photos: Alan Edgecomb / Purple Moon Photography

    Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Australian Plenary Council aims to avert Church ‘moment of crisis’

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr Josh braves ‘freezing’ June night to raise awareness for homelessness at Vinnies Sleepout

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop Coleridge unveils new cross at Banyo church

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer
QLD

Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer

by Joe Higgins
1 July 2022
0

SUNNYBANK parishioner Ross Frassetto loved to see so much involvement from parishioners in the parts of the...

Evarist D’Souza

Archbishop Coleridge unveils new cross at Banyo church

1 July 2022
Netball Superstar: St John Fisher student Jayden Molo.

St John Fisher College student selected for the Australian Netball U17 Squad

1 July 2022
Plenary task: “Reveal the face of Christ”

Australian Plenary Council aims to avert Church ‘moment of crisis’

30 June 2022
Man of faith: Newly-ordained priest Fr El Louie Jiminez with Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral on June 29. Photos: Alan Edgecomb / Purple Moon Photography

Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

30 June 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping