Star-studded academic line-up to explore the phenomenon of St Paul.
By Anthony Barich
The John Paul II Institute for Marriage and Family in Melbourne has organised a Colloquium to study St Paul from July 27-28 in reponse to Pope Benedict XVI’s call to do so when he announced a year dedicated to the apostle.
Announcing a special Jubilee year, Pope Benedict XVI dedicated the year running from June 28 2008 to June 29 2009, to the Apostle Paul.
He also urged such events as the Melbourne colloqium to promote “the immense wealth” of Paul’s teaching.
The colloquium, to be held at the Thomas Carr Centre in East Melbourne, will fall one month outside the official Pauline Year because a keynote speaker, Rev. Professor Jean-Baptiste Edart, was not available until late July.
Prof. Edart will give the 2009 Rev Francis Harman AO memorial lecture, “Relationships Between Spouses: Love or Subordination”.
His talk will address Paul’s teaching on marriage, often treated out of context as controversial for his exhortations to women to be obedient to their husbands.
Paul teaches that spouses should be mutually subject to each other; he exhorts husbands that they are to love their wives by sacrificing themselves as Christ sacrificed himself for the Church.
Prof. Edart is a priest in the Archdiocese of Rouen, France, and a member of the Emmanuel Community, who teaches at the John Paul II Institute in Rome. He completed his Doctorate at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem in 2001 on the Epistle to the Philippians.
His research and teaching interests are in biblical anthropology and moral theology, with an emphasis on the letters of St Paul. He is also the co-author of a book, Clarifications Sur L’Homosexualite dans la Bible – Clarifications of homosexuality in the Bible.
The Colloquium is open to both students and those outside the college, to further understanding of the apostle, “so that we may also be greater apostles for the Church, to be graced to follow in his footsteps in our own chosen vocation in life”, a spokesman for the Institute said.
“There are misconceptions about him being chauvanistic, or demeaning towards women, so this is to help know and understand him, and what he really taught about following Christ in the proper context, and how this speaks about our mission about Catholics today; to live the Gospel to its fullness with him as our example,” the spokesman said.
The Colloquium is an ecumenical affair, with speakers from other Christian denominations joining the high-powered line-up.
Other speakers include JPII Institute Dean Dr Tracey Rowland, The University of Notre Dame Australia’s Peter Holmes and Paul Morrissey, Paul Rowse OP of the Melbourne Catholic Theological College, former Lutheran pastor Dr Adam Cooper of the JPII Institute who was received into the Catholic Church at Easter, JPII Institute Associate Profesor Nicholas Tonti-Filippini, Rev. Dr Greg Lockwood of the Australian Lutheran College, Mexican Dr Rafael Hurtado Dominguez and the Siena Institute’s Clara Geoghegan.
Also set to address the Colloquium are Dr Anna Silvas from the University of New England, Fr Scot Armstrong from Wagga Wagga’s St John Vianney Seminary, Fr Fraser Pearce, a member of the National Australian Lutheran-Roman Catholic Dialogue, David Schutz from the Ecumenical and Interfaith Commission and Record columnist Anna Krohn, an adjunct lߺecturer at the JPII Institute.
The Colloquium Mass will be celebrated on July 28 by Melbourne Auxiliary Bishop Peter Elliott, director of the Melbourne JPII Institute.