Forthcoming Liturgical Conference in Oxford Features Aidan Nichols, Scott Hahn

Our friends at the G.K. Chesterton Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford sent along this notice:

Conference in Oxford on Pope Benedict XVI

A landmark theological conference with Dr Scott Hahn the popular American writer and biblical scholar, which also features Dominican theologian Aidan Nichols, leading Biblical scholar Michael Waldstein, and Adrian Walker the translator of the Pope’s book on Jesus Christ, will take place at the Catholic Chaplaincy of Oxford University opposite Christ Church College on Saturday 1 November 2008. It is organized by the Centre for Faith and Culture in Oxford, directed by Stratford Caldecott, and cosponsored by the St Paul Center for Biblical Theology in Steubenville, Ohio.

The purpose of the conference is to focus attention on the principles underlying the Pope’s ongoing reform of the reform of Catholic liturgy. The relationship between SCRIPTURE AND LITURGY underpins the Pope’s teaching on both. The Pope reminds us that ‘The privileged place for reading and listening to the Word of God is in the liturgy.’ Furthermore, that liturgy is cosmic, for the love of the Trinity moves the stars. These principles are inspiring the new liturgical movement.

Dr Hahn is Professor of Theology and Scripture at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990, and is the founder and director of the Saint Paul Center for Biblical Theology. In 2005, he was appointed as the Pope Benedict XVI Chair of Biblical Theology and Liturgical Proclamation at St. Vincent Seminary in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. The author of numerous books and articles, he speaks widely in the United States but only rarely in the UK.

The conference also provides a rare opportunity to hear Dr Michael Waldstein, who will have been attending this year’s Synod on Scripture in Rome as a peritus. Formerly the President of the International Theological Institute in Gaming, Austria, he is currently the Max Seckler Professor of Theology at Ave Maria University in Florida. Dr Adrian Walker, a member of the editorial board of Communio, is also rarely in England: after teaching for some years at the John Paul II Institute in Washington, he now lives in Germany and works as a translator. Aidan Nichols OP is, of course, well known as writer of numerous books on theology and liturgy, including the leading study of the thought of Pope Benedict XVI.

As the world reels from the effects of the global economic crisis, more people than ever are turning back to religion. The Catholic Church is meanwhile recovering her ancient heritage and addressing the modern world with a new confidence. "Let us seek to learn on earth those truths which will remain ever valid in heaven" (Pope Benedict XVI).


FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE: www.secondspring.co.uk

Or email: scriptureandliturgy@gmail.com

or write to Centre for Faith and Culture, 6a King Street, Oxford OX2 6DF, UK