Reflections of Faith

Corporate leaders come together to reflect on how their faith and business can and must interact. Lay parish leaders journey through a series of spiritual exercises aimed at helping them discern their calling as a community.

Doctoral students gather for an ecumenical seminar focusing on forgiveness in politics.

These are a few instances of theological reflection - reflecting the reach of the Woodstock Theological Center. The center's work began three decades ago, and in late September, several hundred people turned out for events marking this anniversary.

On September 25, approximately 200 Woodstock friends attended a 30th anniversary Mass celebrated principally by Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J. A day later, Woodstock held a public forum on re-envisioning the papacy.

The events both celebrated and illustrated the ways of reflecting theologically upon urgent questions - and of bringing varied constituencies into this process of discernment.

Cardinal Avery Dulles, S.J.

It's the Theology
"Woodstock is, in the first place, a theological center," Dulles said during his homily. "Its particular mission is to see what theology might have to say to people involved in secular callings such as business, law, medicine, and government."

He added, "God's word is spoken, we believe, not only to the church but to the world."

During remarks at the end of the Mass, the cardinal was hailed by a Jesuit provincial as one of Woodstock's "founding fathers," but first among these was the late Pedro Arrupe, S.J.

Thirty-five years ago, the then-Superior General of the Society of Jesus declared, "In my judgment the first of all ministries that must be mentioned now is theological reflection on the human problems of today."

The beloved Arrupe issued his call in October 1970. He said on another occasion, "And by theological reflection I mean especially the need and urgency of an in-depth and exhaustive reflection on human problems, whose total solution cannot be reached without the intervention of theology and the light of faith."

Responding to the challenge, now-Cardinal Dulles began writing essays limning this notion of theological reflection. And two Jesuit provincials pursued their vision of a research center in Washington dedicating to promoting such in-depth reflection upon human problems. These latter "founding fathers," J. A. Panuska, S.J., of Maryland and the late Eamon Taylor, S.J., of New York, gave Woodstock its charge of seeking justice through the "intervention of theology."

"Woodstock is, in the first place, a theological center." - Avery Dulles, S.J.

"It is a mission which is as necessary today as it was" three decades ago, said Timothy Brown, S.J., Maryland provincial of the Society of Jesus, in his remarks about Woodstock's founding. "And it is a mission which has been pursued over the years not only by the Center's staff, but by hundreds and even thousands of people."

Timothy Brown, S.J.

A Wider Circle of Reflection
The CEOs who gathered at an executive retreat center in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, were participating in this mission. The seminar in the summer of 2004 gave nearly two dozen high-level executives an opportunity to reflect on their experiences in the corporate world, in a relaxed and off-the record - as well as prayerful - atmosphere. Sponsored by Woodstock together with the Center for Catholic Studies and Institute on Work at Seton Hall University, the seminar drew extensively on Woodstock's approach to theological reflection and spiritual discernment. Woodstock has since held two similar events for executives at the Jesuit retreat center in Wernersville, Pennsylvania.

The intimate groups of lay leaders that meet in places like Green Bay, Wisconsin, and Brooklyn, New York, have entered into this circle of reflection. They are drawing upon two companion books, Spiritual Exercises for Church Leaders, written by Woodstock senior fellow Dolores R. Leckey and freelance writer Paula Minaert. The books were produced by Woodstock through its Church Leadership Program, which Leckey coordinates, and are serving as a tool of discernment in parishes, dioceses, and other church settings.

The 15 doctoral students who came together in June of this year for an annual ecumenical seminar in Washington, D.C., were taking on this task of theological discernment. They were called together by the ecumenical Washington Theological Consortium, which devoted the discussion this year to the book, Forgiveness in International Politics: An Alternative Road to Peace, co-authored by three Woodstock fellows, William Bole, Robert Hennemeyer, and Drew Christiansen, S.J., and published last year by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Hennemeyer, a career U.S. diplomat who directed the Woodstock project that produced the book, spoke at the seminar held at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

These are small-group snapshots of a deeper reflection process that began with the founding of Woodstock as a think tank in 1974. At the time, the center replaced a 103-year-old Jesuit seminary by that name, which closed in 1972. (Woodstock began observing its 30th anniversary during the past academic year; the late-September events marked the close of that celebration.)

During those early years, Woodstock's research projects led to such notable works as Claims in Conflict: Retrieving and Renewing the Catholic Human Rights Tradition, by David Hollenbach, S.J., and two widely read volumes edited by John C. Haughey, S.J., The Faith That Does Justice: Examining the Christian Sources for Social Change and Personal Values in Public Policy. Haughey returned as a senior research fellow last year.

In the 1980s and '90s, Woodstock began generating programs of ongoing outreach. Among them: Preaching the Just Word, which has introduced the concept of biblical justice to thousands of priest-homilists nationwide, and the Woodstock Business Conference, a national network of Catholic business people. Between 1990 and 1999, the center also ran four ongoing seminars in business ethics, bringing together ethicists and corporate leaders and leading to four Georgetown University Press publications touching on the ethical ramifications of corporate takeovers, managed healthcare, and other aspects of contemporary business.

In recent years, the center's projects have spawned works such as the Spiritual Exercises books, published by Paulist Press in 2003, and the forgiveness book, which won secondplace honors this year from the Catholic Press Association in the "pastoral" books category.

The Global Turn
An initiative that has struck a chord among Jesuits internationally is the Global Economy and Cultures project begun by Woodstock director Gasper F. Lo Biondo, S.J. The project, particularly its personal-narrative approach to studying interactions between economic globalization and local cultures, has influenced a global Jesuit task force preparing a report on the subject for Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach, S.J. Lo Biondo belongs to that seven-member task force.

The globalization project is an example of how Woodstock aims to think and act locally as well as globally. In his remarks during the anniversary Mass, Georgetown's vice president for public affairs and institutional advancement, Daniel R. Porterfield, testified to the impact on campus.

He recalled that, in September of last year, Father Lo Biondo arranged for 25 Jesuits from nearly as many countries to share a meal and conversation with approximately 90 students and a handful of faculty members. The Jesuits were in Washington for a consultation sponsored by the globalization project, which is co-directed by Lo Biondo and Rita M. Rodriguez, an international economist.

"This was a gift from God for us," said Porterfield. "We were able to put together a dinner workshop to allow students and faculty working on global justice issues to sit down and talk one-to-one with Jesuits who were living these exact questions."

He said the relationships formed during this encounter continued as some of the students went to study abroad and "reconnected with the Jesuits they had met in Washington, D.C."

Speaking of the globalization initiative, Porterfield added, "This project simply would not be done, anywhere, if not for Woodstock. We all would be diminished without this work."

Lo Biondo and Rodriguez are now working on a book related to the globalization project, and other books arising from other Woodstock projects are heading toward publication (see "In Focus" column).

Behind these and other theological ventures is a way of reflection, lashed to Ignatian spirituality, that is "continually open to new questions and perspectives," said Lo Biondo. "That's what we call conversion."

Full texts of the remarks delivered at the anniversary Mass can be found here.