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Programs and Centers

 

"What We Hold in Trust" is an executive seminar to help trustees of Catholic colleges and universities learn about specific Catholic issues important for the fulfillment of their responsibilities as trustees.

This seminar is designed and hosted by the Institute for Church Life at Notre Dame, which is under the leadership of Prof. John Cavadini, Chair of Theology. The "We Hold in Trust Seminar" enjoys the endorsement and participation of four supporting Catholic institutions: Franciscan College at Steubenville, Neumann College, and Villanova University.




Established in 2003, the Center for Catechetical Initiatives offers new and creative approaches for meeting the Church's need for preparing more qualified people to serve as parish catechetical leaders and encourages dioceses to offer realistic career paths for young people seeking careers in catechetical ministries. As a part of the Institute for Church Life, the Center also serves as a resource and link for programs and personnel on campus with catechetical leaders and others concerned with catechesis, while also promoting the development of the Church's intellectual and pastoral life from within a catechetical perspective.

The first major service program of CCI is ECHO: Faith Formation Leadership Program. Catechesis, with many rich, diverse, yet complementary meanings, finds its roots in its call to witness in vibrant faith: to ECHO faith from generation to generation.



The Center for Social Concerns is the service and community-based learning center of the University of Notre Dame. We provide educational experiences in social concerns inspired by Gospel values and Catholic social tradition. In as much, we invite students, faculty, staff and alumni to think critically about today’s complex social realities and about their responsibilities within them. The Center does this in collaboration with academic departments throughout the University as it sends students out into various service and experiential learning placements. With increasing faculty involvement, the Center is expanding the forum where Catholic social teaching can intersect with all the forms of knowledge found in the arts, sciences, professions, and other areas of scholarship.


In 2003 the Institute for Church Life established a Church Music Initiative that seeks to 1) Provide training for musicians who want to prepare for career as liturgical musicians, 2) Provide continuing education for parish musicians who are currently serving in a parish, 3) Provide musical resources for graduate students, theologians and musicians who plan and implement music in the worship life of a parish, and 4) Conduct on-going research to determine the best practices in congregational music-making that will guide the content of the above objectives. Planning is currently underway for a new master's degree in Liturgy and Sacred Music.

The Hallmark channel carries the live broadcast of the 10:00 a.m. Basilica mass each Sunday morning. The sources for all the music used in those masses can be found on the Institute for Church Life web site under "Liturgical Resources." Also included on that web site are resources for parish organists and pianists.For more information, contact Dr. Charlotte Kroeker at Kroeker.1@nd.edu.

 

Rooted in the teaching and practice of the Roman Catholic Church, expressed in the documents and decrees of the Second Vatican Council, the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame seeks to support and enrich the liturgical life of the Church through scholarly research and pastoral education.

"It is advisable that the competent, territorial ecclesiastical authority...set up a liturgical commission, to be assisted by experts in liturgical science, music, art, and pastoral practice. As far as possible the commission should be aided by some kind of institute for pastoral liturgy, consisting of persons eminent in these matters and including the laity as circumstances suggest." (The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 44)

Thus the primary focus of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy is "to support and enrich the liturgical life" of the Roman Catholic Church. Since liturgical studies today takes place in an ecumenical context, active collaboration with liturgical scholars, leaders in liturgical ministry and students of the liturgy from other Christian communities is both welcome and encouraged as part of the work of the Notre Dame Center for Liturgy.

 

Notre Dame Vision, a program of the University of Notre Dame's Institute for Church Life, is an initiative designed to foster a sense of vocation among a wide range of young people today, inviting them to become more aware of how they can live their whole lives as a response to a call from God. ND Vision seeks to help young men and women realize, through their own faith experience, that the reality of every Christian vocation - lay, religious, or ordained - invites them in some particular way to live as committed disciples of Jesus Christ in a challenging world. Through the decisions they make every day as teenagers and young adults, they can participate in building the kingdom of God, and begin participating now in the fullness of life that Christ promises.

 

Since 1999, the Satellite Theological Education Program (STEP) at the University of Notre Dame has offered quality theological education to pastoral ministers and other adult Catholics across the country. Conducted via the Internet, STEP provides a wide variety of adult faith formation opportunities. STEP offers online, certificate courses according to posted schedules. These courses are taught by either a professor from Notre Dame or a STEP staff facilitator. Our courses cover five basic areas:

STEP will also deliver many of its courses in a customized fashion for any of its affiliated dioceses. Because the content for our courses is hosted on an electronic course management system, STEP can easily create a unique version of most of our courses to meet different educational needs, e.g. Catechist certification, youth ministry training and education, etc. The courses can be delivered exclusively for a specific group within a diocese. For more details please visit our Partnership with STEP page.

For-Credit Courses: STEP now delivers graduate theology courses for the Notre Dame MA Program in Theology. Because these courses are delivered in support of another program, information about registration and enrollment can be found on the Master of Arts Program in Theology Web site or by calling Cheron Price at (574) 631-7811.

Catholic Lecture Series: STEP offers lectures on CD-ROM. The STEP Catholic Video Lecture Series consists of twelve individual lectures on core theological topics. These lectures can be purchased individually or as a set. For more details please visit our Catalog page.