LATROBE, PA — Through collaboration between the Saint Vincent College Theology Department and the Saint Vincent Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, SVC was recently awarded an $18,000 professional development grant from NetVUE for a project titled “Lay Pastoral Ministry as a Vocation: Starting the Conversation at Saint Vincent College.”
Saint Vincent will use the grant to begin exploring ways to build an undergraduate program in pastoral ministry at the College. It is the first such grant that the SVC Theology Department has received.
Dr. Lucas Briola, C’13, associate professor of theology at Saint Vincent College, led efforts to obtain the grant. He believes the grant can help deepen the distinctive mission of Saint Vincent College and apply it to present-day needs.
“Boniface Wimmer originally founded Saint Vincent to train priests who could serve impoverished German immigrants deprived of spiritual support,” Briola explained. “Thankfully, Saint Vincent has been faithful to that mission for over 175 years. Today, it can expand that mission in helping lay undergraduate students explore vocations to pastoral ministry: positions in settings like diocesan administration, youth ministry, faith formation and social services.”
Grant funds will support two initiatives this fall. First, Saint Vincent will assemble a team of faculty from disciplines like theology, communication and psychology and staff from campus ministry and elsewhere to meet and study several texts on pastoral ministry. These include Pope Francis’s 2013 apostolic exhortation “Evangelii Gaudium,” the U.S. Bishops’ “Co-Workers in the Vineyard: A Resource for Guiding the Development of Lay Ecclesial Ministry,” Kathleen Cahalan’s “Introducing the Practice of Ministry” and Patricia O’Connell Killen and John de Beer’s “The Art of Theological Reflection.”
Second, Saint Vincent will host two Saturday morning workshops that gather area pastoral leaders from the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Greensburg as well as Saint Vincent faculty, staff and students. Each will feature a plenary speaker, and these workshops will discuss the vocational character of lay pastoral ministry in the church. In so doing, they will solicit input for an undergraduate program in pastoral ministry and build ecclesial partnerships across the area.
Briola is hopeful of these efforts. “This grant can help lay valuable groundwork for a unique undergraduate program in pastoral ministry here at Saint Vincent,” he said. “Between our talented students and alumni, mission-focused faculty and staff, recent Saint Vincent initiatives like the Institute for Ministry and Formation and Center for Catholic Thought and Culture, and the enthusiastic support of the dioceses of Pittsburgh and Greensburg, I have every confidence that such a program can set our students up for success and continue to position Saint Vincent at the very heart of our local church.”
The sessions are scheduled for 8:30-11:30 a.m. Oct. 25 and Nov. 8 in Anselm Hall rooms 219 and 220. Breakfast will be served at 8 a.m. and lunch will be served at 11:30 a.m. Attendees are welcome to participate in one or both workshops.
Angela Gaughan, director of lay ministry for the Diocese of Pittsburgh, is scheduled to present Oct. 25, and Vincent Reilly, director of faith, family and discipleship for the Diocese of Greensburg, is scheduled to present Nov. 8.
If you are interested in attending either or both Saturday morning workshops, contact Briola at lucas.briola@stvincent.edu or call 724-805-2723.
