Editorial

It is now one year since the commencement of the ACU Project for Research in Women’s History, Theology and Spirituality (ACU WHTS Research Project) as the first step towards the establishment of a Centre. Throughout the year the Central Project Team (CPT) has received numerous encouraging expressions of support for such an initiative from within ACU and without, from within Australia and from overseas.

The CPT were heartened, too, by the prime importance of research in the Catholic University’s educational mission expressed by Pope John Paul II in his Apostolic Constitution on Catholic Universities, Ex Corde Ecclesiae, which was promulgated in 1990 and reissued this year, coincidentally and providentially with the celebration of the Australian Catholic University’s tenth birthday.

Earlier this year the British international Catholic weekly The Tablet carried an article by veteran Jesuit tertiary educator, Douglas Letson, on ‘Catholic Universities in the Modern World’, which responded anew to Ex Corde Ecclesiae. In this piece Letson underlined the Documents’s insistence that effective teaching depends upon thorough ongoing research and he laments: ‘The history of the Catholic universities in Canada and England, as well as of scores of smaller Catholic universities in the United States, is precisely that they have been seen to be - and for the most part actually have been – centres for the former (teaching) rather than the latter (research).’

Letson went on to hold up as a model the cooperation of the Catholic Teacher’s Colleges in Australia to form an effective corporate university entity. He commented: ‘Perhaps traditional Australian mateship combined more naturally with the Catholic philosophy of community – or maybe it was the haunting alternative of certain demise – to inspire the collaborative birthing of the Australian Catholic University.’ He applauded the Australians for having grasped the concept that collaboration creates opportunities for joint research, which does not exist in small isolated academic centres.

Letson also drew attention to the fact that ACU is a very young university and faces the challenge of developing a strong research tradition. It is a basic aspiration of the Central Project Team for the ACU WHTS Research Project to contribute towards the realisation of this objective.

We are challenged by Ex Corde Ecclesiae: ‘A Catholic University … is a place of research where scholars study closely and critically reality with the methods proper to each academic discipline and so contribute to the treasury of human knowledge … The various disciplines are brought into dialogue for their mutual enhancement … Original forms of dialogue and collaboration are to be encouraged between the Catholic Universities and the other Universities of a nation on behalf of development, of understanding between cultures, and of the defence of nature in accordance with an awareness of the international ecological situation.’ (15, 37)

North American Patristic Society Chicago,
28-30 May, 2001

Early Christian Studies (Patristics) is of interest to those working in the areas of women’s history, theology and spirituality since Christians in the later centuries were greatly influenced by the work of the early Fathers and Mothers.

The North American Patristic Society (NAPS) holds its annual conference every year on the last weekend in May, except in the year in which the Oxford Patristic Conference is held. The NAPS conference, originally founded as an opportunity for post-graduate and early career researchers to present their work in a scholarly forum and engage with established scholars, is now attracting participants from Europe and Asia- Pacific.

In 1992, there were two concurrent papers offered at any one time. Now there are up to fifteen, and specialist sessions are held on specific church fathers and specific areas of research. This year these included : The Harlot as ascetic image in late antiquity; the Christianisation of late antique culture; Human will and grace; Images of Baptism; Nicene and Non-Nicene theology of the fouth century; Philosophy in Tertullian and Augustine; Modern studies of Patristics; Augustine’s exegesis of Scripture; Exercising episcopal power; Ascetic exegesis and disciplines; The Matrona and the bishops: alternate impressarios; Jews, pagans and Christians in the imperial church.

Papers were presented by the following Australians: Drs Pauline Allen, Wendy Mayer, Bronwen Neil, Geoff Dunn, and Kim Power of ACU, Robert Hill of Sydney University, and Andrew Itter of La Trobe University, Bendigo Campus.

The following plenary addresses were given: ‘Patristic scholarship and the theologians’ by Dr Maurice F. Wiles of Oxford University; and ‘The Spirit Speaking: Confessions and the Roman soul’ by Dr Carlin Barton of the University of Massachusetts. The Presidential Address of ‘The Christian reception of the Pentateuch: patristic commentaries on the Book of Moses’ was delivered by Joseph T. Lienhard, SJ. This year also saw the inclusion of a special session on early Christian art.

History of Women Religious -
Fifth Triennial Conference
Marquette University, Milwaukee USA, June 2001

The academic study of the history of women religious had gone ahead vigorously in USA during the last twenty years. Many lay academics working in tertiary institutions are now contributing significantly in this field.

The theme of this fifth triennial conference was ‘Individuals in Community: Women Religious and Change - Past, Present, Future.’ The main strands were: the diversity of female religious in Medieval Europe; reinterpreting community history; gendered relations: religious and male clergy; addressing change in secularising societies; leaving the convent; women religious in Africa; women religious in Mexico; race, ethnicity, and spirituality: women religious in antebellum America; gender, religious leadership, and the search for community in urban America; women religious and the colleges they founded; foundations and migrations: English and Irish women religious; negotiating multiple indentities as a woman religious; vowed women in the East; monasticism: yesterday and today; nineteenth century founders and visionaries; community and relationships: psychological, sociological and spiritual approaches; Catholic spirituality in twentieth century America; women religious, social institutions and change in later twentieth century America; perspectives on religious life for the twenty-first century.

ACU WHTS Research Project Friend, Stephanie Burley from the Adelaide University, South Australia, presented a paper entitled: ‘A lens on religious and educational change in South Australia: the life of Sister Carmel Burke rsm, 1907 - 1995.’

Three Thematic Conferences-
Religion in Contemporary Society
Melbourne, July, 2001

From 2-8 July last, a series of three interlinked conferences was held at Queen’s College within the University of Melbourne. Titled ‘Three Thematic Conferences’, the interlinking thread across the three was the theme of Religion in Contemporary Society. Each conference in succession – ANZATS (Australian and New Zealand Society for Theological Studies), ATF (Australian Theological Forum), and AASR (Australian Association for the Study of Religions) – explored the need to-day for religion to claim its place in public life.

Keynote speaker at the first conference was Dr Robert Gascoigne of the Strathfield Campus of the Australian Catholic University who spoke on the role of religion in shaping public ethics and, at the second conference, Professor Brian Galligan of Melbourne Univeristy whose topic was ‘Religion in Citizenship and National Life’. The third conference dealt more with variant perspectives on religious belief and practice, both past and present, and the contemporary search for spiritual experiences.

Papers were presented by two members of the Central Project Team of the ACU WHTS Research Project. At the AASR Conference Dr Sophie McGrath spoke on ‘An Analysis of the Australasian Catholic Congresses of 1900, 1904 and 1909 in relation to Public Policy from the Perspective of Gender’, while Dr Kim Power’s paper, at the ANZATS Conference, traced the background and development of the ACU WHTS Research Project.

Kim Power gave the Penny McGee Memorial lecture sponsored by the AASR. Titled ‘Divine Women: Luce Irigaray and the Emergence of a Divine Horizon for Women’, this presentation was illustrated with a delicate series of slides.

ACTA/ACBA Conference,
Sydney, July 2001

The ACTA (The Australian Catholic Theological Association) and ACBA (The Australian Catholic Biblical association) held their annual conference in Sydney from 5 - 8 July.

Apart from the individual papers presented, special attention was given in a joint forum of the two associations to Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus, the Report of the Australian Bishops on the Participation of Women in the Catholic Church in Australia.

At this forum there was discussion of the previously circulated papers by Christine Burke (ACTA) and Bernadette Kiley (ACBA). These challenging papers generated considerable interchange of ideas and expression of feelings.

It was finally resolved that the two Associations would send a letter to Archbishop Francis Carroll, President of the Catholic Bishop’s Conference, stating that, after study and reflection on the document Woman and Man: One in Christ Jesus, the two Associations wished to reaffirm their strong commitment to working towards the full equality of men and women in the Church.

The associations expressed their willingness to promote this full equality in all areas of the Church’s life and offered their expertise and resources to the Australian Catholic Bishop’s Conference and the wider Catholic community in Australia.

The Association informed the Bishop that they had set up a Taskforce from among their members to communicate with the Bishops’ Conference and the Commission for Australian Catholic Women on matters relating to the full equality of women and men in the life of the Church.

It was pointed out that a key issue that had emerged from the discussion of the two Associations, and was also reflected in the Report, was the inhibiting nature of the prohibition of discussion on the ordination of women.

The Association expressed their appreciation of the initiative and work of the bishops in enabling the development of the Report, which provided such a wealth of testimony for study and reflection.

It has since been reported that Archbishop Carroll welcomed the response of the two Associations in their setting up of the joint Taskforce.

Spirituality Seminar Sponsored by ACU

On 9 August, a seminar was held at the Aikenhead Conference Centre in Melbourne. The key speakers were Dr David Hay, Professor David Tracey, Professor Tony Kelly and Dr Michael Mason.

Dr Hay, who has recently retired as Reader in Spiritual Education at the Univeristy of Nottingham, has spent his academic career investigating the biological roots of the religious or spiritual impulse. He has authored several books on the subject, his most recent being The Spirit of the Child (Harper Collins, 1998). His lecture, ‘Spirituality and primordial experience’, focussed on this most recent research on primordial spiritual experience, which he assessed principally in the spirituality of people who have no formal link with any religious institution.

Dr Hay was an engaging speaker who argued persuasively that human beings are intrinsically relational beings. From conception to death, we are in intimate connection with others, both physically and emotionally. This fact, he suggested, promotes a ‘relational consciousness’ that is the basis of ‘primordial’ spiritual experiences i.e. the experiences in which people have a strong sense of something greater than they are, yet something or someone with which one can have a relationship.

In his paper on ‘The emerging spirituality and the future of religion,’ Professor Tracey spoke of his research into Australian spirituality and his experience with University students who take courses in his subject. He stated that young adults have a strong yearning for meaning but they find it difficult to get the Academy to take this desire seriously, because of the ideological position of many academic faculty.

Dr. Mason’s paper was entitled, ‘Primordial spiritual experience: research and a theory.’ He reported on recent data from the Church Life Survey, including the new trend which confirms that women are moving away from Church affiliation for the first time in history. Professor Tony Kelly was the concluding speaker. His paper on ‘Poetry and the Word,’ examined the role of poetry in expressing primordial spiritual experience and ‘self-consciously’ religious experiences.